The Charleston Shooting - a Sobering Moment for America

The shooting deaths of nine Americans who were holding a Bible study meeting at the Emanuel A.M.E Church in Charleston on Wednesday evening was truly sobering. The pastor, Clementa Pinckney, a well-known civil rights activist and South Carolina legislator, was one of the victims. So were three other local black pastors and five others. All black. All respected members of their congregation and community. One woman was 87 years old. The youngest was 26. Killed by a young white man who told police he wanted to start "a race war." He sat and listened to the meeting for an hour before announcing that he had come to kill blacks and opened fire. Senseless murders that do not reflect anything so much as they do the deranged mind of a person who wore an apartheid patch on his jacket. ~~~~~ As we watched the news coverage, it was clear that there would be yet another round of calls for gun controls. President Obama led the way. Mainstream media and progressive black and white commentators fell into step. Only one voice that CNN sought out for comment differed. Berenice King, the daughter of the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. and director of his foundation, refused to march in lockstep with CNN's Wolf Blitzer when he asked her to speak on behalf of gun control. Berenice King said such hatred will find a weapon, if not guns some other instrument, so gun control is not the whole answer. She was not quoted even one time as the CNN coverage of the shooting continued. But CNN did mention the very low incidence of gun crimes in the UK because of strict gun control laws. It should have been reported, but was not by CNN, that last week a disgruntled and mentally unstable student in Bradford, in northern England, attacked his teacher with a knife. Senator Rand Paul said yesterday that something is wrong but "your government can't solve the problem for you." ~~~~~ The Charleston killer dropped out of high school in 9th grade. He was described as shy and quiet. He had an 'ordinary' arrest record, including drug possession. He turned 21 in April -- here the stories differ -- and he either bought or was given the pistol by his father at that time. It is hard to believe that his parents and others around him didn't notice any behavior that, addressed in time, might have avoided the massacre. If he had been under psychiatric care, he might have been better controlled before becoming the owner of a weapon, but that is not certain. ~~~~~ The continuing and escalating violent encounters in America surely signal a malaise, an illness, a cancer in its heart and soul. It is a sickness that is not reserved only for whites or blacks or poor communities or gun owners or police officers or any other identifiable group. Its roots may never be entirely known or understood. But its symptom is shouting. Black and white Americans shouting at each other. Gun owners and gun control supporters shouting at each other. Poor communities and police shouting at each other. Sometimes the shouting is loud and mean-spirited. Sometimes the shouting is tearful and heart-wrenching. Sometimes the shouting is silent and soul-chilling. Often, Americans let their politicians do the shouting for them. The only way across the political divide seems to be by hurling accusations of lying, cheating and misrepresentation at those who are on the other side of that divide. It reduces Americans to the status of flat, one-sided, two-dimensional characters in a bad melodrama. ~~~~~ Dear readers, this doesn't have to continue. Americans have talked to each other across political and social and religious and racial divides for more than two centuries. The leaders in every field of American endeavor can help by lowering their rhetoric and finding forums in which to talk to their opposition. Most importantly, American politicans can lead the way. The "great marketplace of ideas," as the Supreme Court has called the American social and political dialogue, can function without shouting. Indeed, it functions better when ideas, not political and social animosities, enlighten it. The presidential campaign now underway offers a unique opportunity to focus on a civilized debate about ideas, not personalities. Only two candidates seem to be trying to do this -- Jeb Bush and Rand Paul. This is not to say that they are the favorites to be elected. But it does say that they are aware of the value of a dialogue about ideas over the personal attack that many others are engaged in. If every American just lowered their tone -- stopped shouting and started talking to each other -- there would be a noticeable change in the great marketplace of ideas. If many Americans could do in the political and social arenas what the families of the nine dead in the Charleston massacre did today -- face the killer and say I forgive you, I am angry and grieving but I forgive you and I pray for you -- America would begin to feel the healing hand of brotherhood and love.