Does anyone care what those kids' races were? Religion? Future sexual or political orientation? Does it matter less if some were bused in from less affluent areas? Do we care because they were between five and ten years old? In 8 to 13 years we wouldn't have cared as much if the finished product didn't match the stencil that we use to draw our ideas of acceptable and unacceptable, right and wrong. Or maybe a less cynical perspective is that we care, because, in children, we see the potential to be better than that.
They aren't yet a part of the flawed perpetual motion machine that continues to oscillate between misguided polarized perceptions of right and wrong, good and bad, us and them. With us, everything is divisive, everything is reactionary and thus our consciousness evolves at a snail's pace. Everyone is trying to pick the right side of a circle. Kids are different. They're better than us and they deserve better...than us. They deserve better than being slaughtered by the visceral reactions of our inability to cope with the world and the decisions and the mistakes that we've made and continue to make.
Schools are supposed to be hallowed ground if only because they house the last bit of hope that we have for ourselves. Like prisons, history is filled with despicable people who still somehow managed to conjure up enough love for their children. When we get to the point that the worst of us start destroying, en masse, the best of us, then we need to take heed and see it for what it is...a warning that we're approaching the point of no return. Something needs to change.
No comments:
Post a Comment