Condemning Evil

I have to condemn evil for what it is, and only in extreme conditions do I feel that violence is necessary. I have called for peace, unity, and attempts to change the actions against others that perpetuate hate. It is important to remember what the perpetuation of hate looks like and how being complicit does nothing for any of us.

Similarly, I cannot say that seeing anyone shot in the neck while giving a speech is something I can condone or approve of, and my approval is not the point. In cases like these, we've seen cataclysmic evidence of evil unleashed, and it stems from a lack of caring. That's right, the very thing that so many wicked men are condemning, and the very thing by which we can make this world a better place, is what is lacking here: compassion and empathy.

To be able to hold space for multiple viewpoints and understand them, to look at them and not judge them, but know deeply that what you are seeing is the unweaving of all goodness in your country. Someone said America has lost its mind and soul; they are not wrong.

Toddlers lost their parent today, and I abhorred all he stood for.

It is a stark contrast between what Luigi Mangione allegedly did, an act rooted in personal grievance, however misguided, and what the shooter in Utah did today, which was a calculated strike against a public figure in broad daylight. But we cannot ignore the reasons why these eruptions are happening. We must resist the urge to flatten them into simple binaries of good and evil, right and wrong.

Instead of seeking self-righteous justifications or tribal vindication, we need to interrogate the soil from which these acts grow. What ideologies are being watered? What grievances are being ignored? What voices are being silenced before they ever reach a microphone?

It is said that when you live by the sword, you surely die by it, and for that reason, it is also said that the pen is mightier, for it lasts beyond the blade's touch and it compels rather than divides more often than not, but this doesn't change the reality of truth for what it is.

You cannot advocate and live by a sword of hatred and bigotry and expect that arrows of truth won't come flying toward your camp, but that's just it, one's camp of warmongers attacked by their self-made enemies by their choices is different than the neutral spaces where innocents and bystanders become the collateral damage in this. That is a stark contrast.

We cannot ignore the reasons why this is happening, and instead of trying to find your righteous self-seeking reasons and rationale as to who is right, maybe we need to look at some core root problems and start listening to the people out here trying to advocate for changes before our world truly does collapse inward on us.

The truth is, the empire we thought we had here was built on evildoings, and we are reaping a long suffering for that pattern of behavior.

When will we learn, my fellow Americans?

When will we finally find the courage to be home and brave, and allow people to freely be who they are without the danger of being annihilated for it?

If there is anything to be taken from all this turmoil that has been unleashed, it is the necessary recognition to stop thinking your way is the way for all, and silencing those who oppose you with violence, because in the end, it begets more violence.

You reaped this, and now you're sowing the very seeds you chose to reap, thinking they'd sprout in the gardens of others but never reflecting on how they might also burst through the soil of your very own yard.

And then what happens? A wild jungle of weeds overtakes us all, and the barren wasteland left behind, well, guess what?

That's ALL of us.