The Right to Bear Arms and Be Violent - Where is the Line Drawn?

Most know by now that George Zimmerman has been arrested and released, again, this time for suspicion of domestic violence involving his legally owned firearm in Seminole County, Florida.  This time the alleged victim was his live-in girlfriend, Samantha Scheibe, whom Zimmerman is accused of choking and holding a rifle to her head.

According to an article linked by Jet Magazine from the Associated Press, "Zimmerman has been charged with aggravated assault, a third-degree felony punishable by up to five years in prison. He also has been charged with battery and criminal mischief, both misdemeanors. An arraignment was set for Jan. 7."  He has been released on $9000 bond, has a electronic bracelet on his ankle, and has been ordered to stay away from his girlfriend, any firearms and ammo, and not to leave the state of Florida.

After he was acquitted of murder and manslaughter for the fatal shooting of 17 year old Trayvon Martin, Zimmerman and his ex-wife, Shellie Zimmerman, also got into a skirmish that turned physical.  This incident resulted in a 911 call where the former Mrs. Zimmerman claimed her husband was violent and had a gun.  Later, she would recant stating that he was unarmed.

As always, I have questions.  Primarily, at what point does a person who legally owns a gun have those rights suspended and even revoked when they repeatedly commit acts of violence with that gun?  This question is not about George Zimmerman specifically, but since he is in the public eye, he gives us the greatest example of the continual negative effects of wielding a legal firearm with impunity, applause, and support from a vocal segment of gun rights advocates and the judicial system.

I have my own take on gun control which is informed by my understanding of the ever-growing societal fetish of power, violence, and institutional racism & sexism.  Having said that, I am a person who is interested in one day responsibly owning a firearm and who has experience with shooting a gun.  Misconceptions and assumptions blocked.  

Another question I have is why have usually vocal gun advocates, both individuals and organizations, continued to remain silent about the gun rights of power minorities?  Where is the public, moral, and financial support from these people and organizations for victims like Renisha McBride and Jonathan Ferrell, and for those who have been viciously criminally prosecuted for defending themselves with their legal firearm like Michael Giles and Marissa Alexander?  

It seems Zimmerman is continuing to be bankrolled for his God-given American right to [trigger warning, pun intended] commit violent acts with his legal firearms via donations from people who champion either his cause or what he represents. 

But what is it that he represents?  The reinforcement of an image of white patriarchal gun rights?  The protection of an American Constitutional right that by law was denied to women, Blacks, Native Americans, and non-citizen laborers?  I am interested in continuing these discussions with friends who are gun rights advocates and with those to are in favor of more strict gun control.  It seems that all our lives depend on finding applicable answers to these questions. 

‘Captain Phillips’ Floats Classic Racist Stereotypes of Africans

The film Captain Phillips portrays Somalis in the racist tradition of depicting African people as subhuman, wild, and without nuance.  This racist portrayal of African people has a long history in the American film and media industry.

My first memory of seeing African people portrayed on television was in Bugs Bunny cartoons.  Africans were shown as short, barefoot, wearing grass skirts, having hair like a picaninny, large pale colored lips, bugged out eyes, and mostly saying things like ‘ooga booga.’  Movies did not do a better job of portraying African people. I remember watching the 1933 version of King Kong and the 1950s version of Tarzan and seeing Africans depicted as cowardly, weak, fat, slow, and made to bear striking resemblances to monkeys.

Fast-forwarding in time, when I was in high school, I read “Heart of Darkness” by Joseph Conrad, which depicted Africans as child-like savages incapable of existing without the direction of white explorers. There was a constant message being sent to me through cartoons, movies, and books that characterized people from the African continent as not quite human.

This disturbing tradition continues in the film Captain Phillips, starring Tom Hanks. This movie depicts the real-life 2009 hijacking of an American cargo ship by Somali pirates.  Every racialized stereotype about African people is present: Africans in the film are perpetually frightened, erratic, naive, and the old-school fall back, savage.  These characterizations are what stood out to me as I suffered through this throwback to racist stereotyping.

The Phillips character is presented early on, albeit briefly, as a loving husband, a concerned father, and a dedicated employee.  Even though Captain Phillips may not be the most sympathetic character, he is still shown as a person who has a life apart from his job. He is shown as having complexity outside his primary role in the movie.  In contrast, the Somalis are immediately and consistently shown as warlike and almost feral.  There is no abbreviated back-story for the Somalis.  Their piracy is highlighted the first time they are shown in the movie, as if their present actions encompassed all of who they were.  In short, the film dehumanizes Somalis by defining them solely by their piracy, while Captain Philips is humanized as a complex individual who needs to make hard choices to survive. 

I was so disturbed by this two plus hours of throwback racist imagery that I vented my feelings about it on social media after I left the theater.  Many people responded in agreement, saying they got the same impression just from the previews.  There were those who said they did not interpret the Somali characters that way at all.

These comments included:

They hijack ships and hold people hostage. How is that not feral?
They were pirates, should they have worn funny hats and costumes?
All I know is I didn't come out of the theater thinking all Africans must be that way

More than signaling disagreement, statements like these show that people have little sense of the historic and systematic portrayal of Africans and Black people in general as bestial buffoons. Ignorance of this history in American media does not mean it does not exist.  In fact, these stereotypical racialized images of African people are easier to pass off because people are not aware of the tradition of depicting Africans and American Blacks in this manner.  The amount of eye bucking, clumsiness, and irrational animalism all seemed unnecessary but very in line with the stereotypical dehumanization of Blacks in the history of American films.  

This observation is not an indictment of the actors. I like Tom Hanks as an actor just as much as the next person.  However, this film like many others reflects a  pattern of creating caricatures of racial groups.  Racism is not just about personal feelings, but more about institutional practices or customs so ingrained in our culture that it just seems normal to depict Africans as unlike “us” as possible; as less than human.  Over time, the stereotypical depiction of racialized groups is accepted, defended, and the existence of it denied.  

If you are someone who doesn’t see it, then you may be in the position of never feeling embarrassed or insulted while witnessing a dehumanizing depiction of a group of people you share an affinity with.  See the below link for a  brief but powerful scene in the film, Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story, when Bruce Lee (played by Jason Scott Lee) feels uncomfortable and deeply disturbed when, while on a date with his future wife (Linda), they go and watch a film that portrays a Chinese person as a servile bumbling caricature of a human.  Most people in the theater, including Linda, are all laughing at the caricature, because they don’t identify with the Chinese character.  Lee didn’t find it funny, and when Linda recognizes what she and others are laughing at, she stops laughing.

In the end, I am asking that people as consumers be mindful of these depictions in the media.  Do not be so quick to deny they are happening.  Demand better from those who produce our “entertainment.”  Most of all, speak up when you do notice that something is wrong, because I guarantee you are not the only one who feels this way.

More Than An Ally - Internalizing the Effects of Oppression

 

(originally posted on For Harriet)

I have become increasingly bothered by the implications of the term ‘ally’. Particularly, I am disturbed by how some, from academics to entertainers, use this label to force themselves on marginalized groups and use them for their own platform. I accept that most people who identify with being an ally do so from a place of genuine concern for the issue. They are proud to be activists along with people who are more directly affected by a specific social injustice. For the most part, I do not question the sincerity of those who identify as allies, this is an important point I want to make from the start. However, I take issue with the implied sense of unaffectedness of the term, and how the behavior of some who identify as allies has been downright traitorous to the causes which they claim to be aligned. The entitlement expressed by some self-appointed allies to be the voice of their chosen cause and the accolades they get often times far surpass the group or movement with which they associate.

Some may ask, ‘why stigmatize the term because of misguided people?’ I understand we live in a society that teaches difference and separation from birth, and many cannot grasp how they are closely affected by inequalities that seem so far from their lived experiences. I understand that people who are affected by inequalities may want to hold on to their out-group identity and use it as a way to distinguish themselves from people with privilege. My opinion on the situation stabs directly at these points of view and pulls us closer together as oppressed people than many would like to think they are.

I have come to realize my activist experience could be considered unique due to its multiracial, gender/sexual identity inclusive, and intergenerational make-up. My personal support network shares these characteristics as well. When I’ve gone to protests or community action meetings for issues like neighborhood violence, immigration, public school closings, or police abuses, there is not group of affected people and allies. There is a gathering of people who have all been affected by oppression and who draw direct links between the injustices they’ve suffered and what someone else is going through. Our understanding of the shared roots of oppression, via our experiences, draws us closer than just friends of a movement, and our personal connections makes us more than allies.

Unity, Not Sympathy

For me, the term ally conveys a disconnected concern about an issue. An ally can be sympathetic, genuine, supportive, concerned, and passionate yet they are not directly affected by the condition oppressing a community. As we've seen with some responses to Mikki Kendall's #solidarityisforwhitewomen phenomenon, because of hurt feelings and refusal to understand the sentiment, some allies have felt that their support was betrayed. Others have said outright that they'll no longer do women of color the favor of trying to help. They situate themselves at the center of the issue and show how quickly one can separate themselves from a condition or movement which they were never solidly connected. Seeing oneself as a featured guest of others’ oppression gives you an out, so to speak. It gives you a space to let “others” handle speaking out about an issue.

The feminists who fell silent about The Onion’s viciously misogynistic comment about 9 year-old Quvenzhané Wallis is endemic of this opting out of unity. This is partially the result of an ally not substantially relating to an oppressed group. Many, usually vocal, feminists opted out of criticizing the publication in a direct and meaningful way, one which called out the racially problematic nature of the tweet and its writer. Instead, comments were prefaced with statements like “I know what they were trying to do, but…” or referred to the comment simply as “going too far.”

When someone can be seen as similar to one’s best friends, boyfriends, sweet southern grandmother or other close relation, the allegiance of an ally may not be with the marginalized group. This unity of convenience is an example of privilege. The privilege of stepping away from oppression, stepping away from criticizing one’s peers, or of self-criticism isn’t limited to white feminists or middle class men. It’s a symptom of false consciousness which allows oppression to continue.

Privilege At The Ready

When allies were criticized we have seen how quickly some retreated and reasserted their entitlement. Their privilege, the comfort of not being a member of a specific marginalized community regardless of their membership in another marginalized group, prevented them from having a lasting connection with said group. An ally can enact their privilege at any moment, including the privilege of forcing groups to accept their solidarity. Talib Kweli responded to criticism by saying he was an ally whether women liked it or not. This comment and mindset serves to position him at the head of the table and attempts to put women in a less powerful position; one of non-consent and at the mercy of his allied actions and words.

Hugo Schwyzer, the darling of mainstream feminism, believed that admitting to his abusive and predatory behavior towards women made him a stronger ally because he now felt the sting of persecution. His version of “shattering gender myths” included attempting to lessen his abuse of power with his students, calling his behavior ungentlemanly but saying that “at least the sex was age appropriate.” This stance is disturbingly reminiscent of Kyle Payne, who in 2008 held on to his radical feminist identity even after his conviction of sexually assaulting an incoherent college student under his care when he was an RA. Payne said that his radfem activism would be working to rehabilitate sex offenders…while he was in jail for a sex offense.

The silencing of transwomen’s voices in feminism is a hateful, daily occurrence. On social media and in public writing, self-proclaimed radical feminists have asserted that transwomen are not real women and should not be included in feminism at any level. This is the tip of the iceberg regarding the sexism inherent in beliefs that hinge on gender superiority and exclusion, no matter which gender is touted as superior or who is being excluded.

The idea and exhibition of privilege is very real, but the dividing power of it can be overcome by a realistic look at how most of us do not hold substantial power in society. We may have enough resources for smartphones, name brands, and microbrew beers, but we sell our labor as well. Some of us have a harder time selling our labor due to institutional prejudices, but all of us are, in essence, at the mercy of those who own the big stuff. Acknowledging this fact of oppression goes a long way in pulling people closer to being affected, as opposed to just seeing oneself as a passionate sympathizer.

Being More

The quote that started this piece embodies everything I feel is problematic about just being an ally. We don’t all have to feel the exact same oppression, but there must be an acknowledgement of universal oppression that we all feel that makes us fight together. None of us are above the specters of racism, sexism, classism, and any other –ism that exists. We can’t fight sexism without realizing that racism and heterosexism is alive and well in the feminist movement. We can’t fight racism and at the same time employ racial supremacy and exclusion as a defensive tactic.

Only movements that have been multiracial, and gender and age inclusive have achieved the most success, and those successes are slowly being rolled back due to lack of solidarity. I don’t need well meaning, sympathetic, sounding boards to readily proclaim their privilege in self-flagellation. I need sisters and brothers-in-arms who understand that one kind of suffering is dependent on other kinds of suffering, and our fight-back must be based on that unity.

Misappropriating Our Asses: Miley and the White Girl Takeover of Twerking

See my guest blog post at DanielleParadis.com and "The Distraction of Twerking: Why Activism Is Not Complaining About Miley" at For Harriet. :-)

Words, Sticks, and Stones: Misogyny in Hip Hop on Social Media

Dream Hampton committed the cardinal sin of hip hop last night on her Twitter thread, she dared to express her opinion.  Hampton said that J Dilla was the greatest producer of all time.  When another producer & hip hop icon, Pete Rock of Pete Rock and CL Smooth, took exception to her expressing this opinion, taking it as an insult to his own producing cred, he called her a groupie and a rider, short for dick rider.  Men who either supported Pete Rock's sensitivity about his legacy in the game or who just disagreed with Dream's opinion also attacked her validity to have an opinion on the issue.

When Busta Rhymes, of Flip Mode Squad and Leaders of the New School, Q-Tip, of A Tribe Called Quest, and Questlove, of The Roots, either re-weeted or agreed with Dream's opinion, all the male hip hop heads who were up in their feelings, or up in Pete Rock's feelings, gave them the pass of silence.  None of the negative, aggressive, or bullying comments that were lobbed at Dream were directed towards Busta, Tip, or ?uestlove.

Furthermore, when Dream committed the second deadly sin of hip hop, calling out the misogyny laced in the comments she received, the volume on the bullying speech was turned up.  People demanded that Dream stop playing the sexism/male hegemony card and defend her position.  However, the gender-based comments were launched well before a debate could take place. No one even asked Dream why that was her opinion before Pete Rock said she should know better, he's not going to let her diss him, and FOH, short for fuck outta here, as in get the fuck outta here.

What does a Twitter squabble mean in the gist of hip hop?  For starters, it would seem that the total dismissal of a woman's voice via gendered aggressive language is still second nature to some in hip hop culture.  Again, before one person asked her why, there were several attempts to silence Dream and piss on her opinion.  It's the former that's the higher offense, as the latter sometimes happens when all involved are passionate about the subject.  The mean spirited knee-jerk response of Pete Rock and shameful taunting comments of his cronies that followed seems a testament to the fact that there's still a long road ahead for equal respect of women in the genre.  Not just for rappers but also for people expressing an opinion, which is just sad.

The saving grace in this exchange was Hampton's refusal to be intimidated or silenced.  She owned her voice and agency and never gave them up.  She didn't apologize for anyone's hurt feelings or bruised ego and refused to correct an offense she didn't make.  Another bright light was the show of disgust by men at the comments of an immature few.  While some men tried to see both sides, others outright threw the shame back into the face of Pete Rock and his co-signers. 

Be more clever.  Sexism is too easy of a path to take but it may be the only path available when you have no intelligent basis for debate.  Women have had and continue to have a voice in hop hip.  Get over it.  Women are the subjects of lyrical inspiration and they have produced some of its most memorable content.  Women, including Dream Hampton, have given some of the most articulate critiques about the genre and have been its biggest guardians.

The most tragic and wholly unacceptable part of this incident is that Dream was heckled outside her home by guys who may have been adding their personal 2 cents about the Twitter argument.  An immature social media response could have been a most unfortunate physical encounter for these guys who felt entitled to try to interrupt someone's life. [**Dream has since confirmed this was not the case. Not all hope is not lost!]  And this is the problem with the way hip hop is presented to the masses.  No respectful disagreements, only disrespectful dismissals via sexist taunts.  To the people who claim to love and live for hip hop but act this way, grow up.  You're old enough to know better and hip hop deserves better.

Black Youth Learning About Assata & Constructing Hope

Through the experience of attending teach-ins about the political persecution and exile of Assata Shakur, I gained further insight about children's ability to understand and communicate the realities of their social world.

As we've seen in the news, read on the internet, and hopefully talked about in our social circles, Assata Shakur was recently added to the curious Most Wanted Terrorist list and had an increased bounty of $2 million placed on her head by the FBI under President Obama's administration. I attended a teach-in for children from the Gary Freedom School presented by members of the Central District Organizing Project (CDOP), a grass-roots community group in Gary, IN. Events like these where hosted all over the country and in other countries to commemorate the spirit of fight-back, community, and knowledge in the face of injustice.

Questions discussed at the teach-in included:
- what is the advantage of labeling a Black woman in her 60s a most wanted terrorist?
- what can we do with $2 million dollars in our communities?
- after learning about Assata's activities to promote humane treatment for Blacks and the response from the government, does that affect you speaking out when you see something wrong? If so, how?
- had you ever hear of Assata Shakur? If no, why do you think this isn't taught? What are your feelings after leaning about her?
- how can we bring public attention to important issues?
- how do you inspire people to organize around these issues in their communities?

"Eyes of the Rainbow: Assata Shakur Documentary" 

by filmmaker Gloria Rolando

It was amazing to see how aware even the smaller children were of their surroundings.  Kids as young a 5 years old voiced their fear of police violence and of violence from other children. Older kids shared stories of family members being victimized by local police in ways like race-based profiling, having property destroyed, and intimidation.  They talked about how it felt when they were denied service at TGI Friday's after prom with chaperones, an issue currently being organized for by the most recent families to be discriminated against.

When addressing how Assata was shown in pictures like mugshots, in handcuffs, and escorted by the police, the kids knew right away the biased image they were being fed.  The organizers purposefully covered the walls with pictures of Assata smiling, laughing, relaxing, hugging her daughter, among people, and the children were very vocal about noticing the difference. Some might have thought a few children present were too young for the graphic descriptions of shootings, murder, and beatings that Black Panther Party and Black Liberation Army members faced.  However, they were not too young to be affected by the continuing fear imposed by police occupations of their neighborhoods or the violence that comes with living in poverty.

In a book called Bad Boys: Public Schools and the Making of Black Masculinity by Ann Arnett Ferguson, elementary and middle school aged boys show an amazing ability to navigate their race, gender, and social class spaces.  They show an understanding of expectations and responsibilities and act accordingly.  They act out when they perceive that adults have violated their own rules, rules they are expected to follow.  They also know the consequences of life and death in their environment and express a desire to thrive and prosper.  These boys can do all of this because they are not sheltered from real life, from suffering, from abuses by authority figures, and they see how their parents are affected as well.

The children at the teach-in about Assata Shakur were in much the same situation. Whether they were older or younger they know the rules are somewhat different for them.  Through learning about police & government abuse of this one woman and her compatriots, and her ability to escape her binds to go on to teach and inspire people all over the world, they learn that their situations are not hopeless.  The gathering ended with a plan for action to build awareness and pride among their friends and to take part in active resistance against expectations for them to fail.  Through building knowledge they were able to construct hope, which was the real goal in learning about Assata.

Not Your Parents' Racism: Neo-Racism and the Generation Gap

I am increasingly and humorously aware of the widening generation gap between myself and the students in my sociology classes.  Seemingly small differences in pop cultural references can make the meaning a clever example on my part irrelevant, or result in a total breakdown in communication due to my lack of knowledge about youth culture jargon.  

More substantial are the different perceptions of racism held by my students.  Younger people have more of a shared culture now than in previous years.  Styles of dress, music, slang terminology, and access to technology are more likely to be similar than different for this demographic of students living in a close geographic area.  Because of these similar lifestyles, some perceive that racism, and discrimination in general, no longer exit.  Additionally, due to the utter lack of historical knowledge taught in schools or in the home, younger people are barely aware of the present societal and institutional affects of legalized racism in the U.S.  Recently, while talking about overt vs. covert racism, a student asked about the significance of a noose because he, and many in the class, had never heard of lynching.  A separate class of 27 students did not know the definition of abolitionism.  More students in yet another class had never heard of the massacres that took place at the Pine Ridge Reservation and were surprised to learn of the economic, psychological, and social peril that native people are still subjected to.  This lack of a reference for racism, institutional racism specifically, is the most dangerous threat to anti-racism.  Not knowing or being able to recognize racism in all its forms and vehemently denying its affect on relationship-building among people is the victory of all proponents of modern racism.

  We know that legalized racism no longer exists.  Racism in its most familiar forms, slavery, Jim Crow segregation, vocal objections to the presence of racial minorities in public spaces, etc. are less and less present in our lives.  However, neo-racism, racism disguised as everyday practices that go unacknowledged by the majority, is what plagues society currently.  A broader vision of racism as a practice that overwhelmingly (as opposed to only) negatively affects people identified as a particular racial group must be employed in order see the effects that this powerful ideology has on our lives.  Seeing the after effects of Hurricane Sandy in New York, the lack of response from otherwise vocal members of the predominately white faction of the mainstream feminist movement when a 9 year old Black girl was called a cunt in a public forum, and the continued apathy of all members of society at the increasing murder rate of Black youth versus the rare occurrence of mass shootings in predominately White communities requires that we look more critically at these events and identify the systemic problems in each.  Another aspect of neo-racism is that the proponents could very well be racial minorities.  This fact can prevent an accurate analysis of racism from being made.  A person who does make that analysis can be accused of being racist themselves or of playing the race card, an accusation that serves to delegitimize that presence and effect of racism. 

The knowledge and accurate analysis of history is imperative to understanding racism.  Without this understanding how can we recognize it in all of its changing and evolving forms?  This is especially necessary for those not old enough to remember the extent of physical segregation and its contribution to racist ideologies.  Often for people, young people especially, if they cannot see something it does not exist.    For others who are not as young, our memories tend to be short and yesterday’s news is soon forgotten. Racism is very much still here, but its form has changed. The purpose of recognizing and bringing attention to racism, racist practices, and racist ideologies is to combat and defeat it.  Without awareness and a correct analysis, this feat is nearly impossible.

Points of Unity in These Turbulent Times: Hopelessnes, Alienation and Fear during Times of Tragedy

It is very easy to see no commonality between the rash of tragedies we are suddenly surrounded by. Numerous incidents ranging from unfortunate to fatal, all happening in roughly the same time and same geographical space, to people whose social experiences seem to be worlds apart. Some people respond by citing the random unpredictability of things. Others respond by quoting religious texts which tell us we are in the last days of this world. Still others react by drawing further into themselves and seeing every stranger as a potential threat. In our country this threat perception has and continues to take on racial and religious tone which further breeds separation and distrust.

How then do we avoid these unproductive coping tools, is the question I’ve been asking myself. Further, how do I present a reasonable and realistic manner of thinking to my students in our classroom conversations? Seeing our current condition through a materialist or scientific lens was my first answer. Also, to use sociological reasoning to draw different people, places, and incidents closer together to expose the appearance of the problem and get at a common essence. One of my main teaching objectives is to keep the interrelatedness of all things at the forefront of our conversations. But again, how exactly are we tying these events together? What could be common in the experiences of:

- a poor black youth in Chicago who makes the decision to run towards a crowd of other young people firing a gun
- a girl who decides that death by suicide is an acceptable alternative to vicious bullying due to pictures and videos of her unconscious being sexually assaulted by various boys
- a white man who enters a middle school and opens fire on children and their teachers
- an unknown person or persons who plants several bombs at a populated sporting and social event for the purpose of violently disrupting lives
- a man who sees a young black male walking down the street at night on a cell phone as enough of a threat that he hunts him down, kills him, and claims self-defense
- a segment of the country that believes this was a rational course of action
- several Indian men who use the rhetoric of morality as justification to beat and rape women, some to death, and a legal system that echoes that way of thinking
- a person from any demographic that uses drugs or alcohol to escape their reality



Recognizing that all these acts are nuanced and complex in ways very specific to their context, I’ve been thinking about the first few steps in the thought process that eventually materializes into action. What makes someone susceptible to ideas that result in taking lives, even one’s own? One probable rationalization is an overwhelming feeling of hopelessness. More than just having nothing to look forward to, this hopelessness produces a feeling that nothing, neither actions nor consequences, matters. Implicit in this feeling is alienation. Due to the impersonal make-up of social structures and economies, people feel separated from each other, separated from the things they do, separated from ambitions, and separated from their own lives. Whether we take a traditionally Durkeimian view of anomie (societal normlessness leading to a lack of social integration) or a Marxist view of alienation (people being estranged from each other, what is important to them, their work, etc.) on the matter, I believe that common threads can be found. What are the depths of these roots?

Can there be a common root in different societies or countries? What similarities in thinking can we draw between the “cherry petals” of Japanese student soldiers and other suicide bombers in the Middle East, US, and other places of different ages and genders?

As I’m fond of saying, these issues leave me with more questions than answers, but it is important to have these conversations. It is important to think about what can be done in our own lives to stay productive about finding these answers. I, too, an keeping feelings of crippling sadness and inactive resignation away. Writing and talking about these things are my outlets. Hopefully reading and responding to these thoughts can be part of yours.