Breathe

Have you ever breathed on glass — a mirror — a cold window — and watched a pattern emerge? That's how my mind works when I read. When I read that 7 kids are shot in America every day, I think about glasses. 👓 I'm thinking of glasses because most of these kids who are shot and do the shooting are poor. I think about glasses because Medicaid usually doesn't cover glasses. I'm thinking about how hard it can be to hit a target while in a moving car on a street full of pot holes ... and that there's not a shooting range to practice at ... and that there's every possibility the shooter is a nearsighted kid without glasses. The "wrong people" are bound to die because that kid can't shoot straight or see who he thinks he's aiming for.

Mind you, it's particularly chaotic in places like Chicago because we've done a good job arresting gang leaders without addressing why they exist. Imagine a Domino's or Papa John's without general managers, being run by confused and inexperienced teenagers. The calls for pizza still come in whether your boss is there or not....

I could make this a Black thing ... because so many painful things are still disproportionately Black. But the fact of the matter is that getting shot has more to do with being poor. So I'm back to the glasses.

I often wonder if anyone in government thinks like I do. Is the liberal reflex really to ban certain types of guns? What does the president mean when he talks about cleaning up the streets with "the feds"?

I'm worried today because I don't think enough influential people sigh into their own minds and see a pattern emerge in the fog of their hot breath ... a winding pattern of articles and research and history that shows a long path to change. Where are you? Where the hell are you all? I cannot be alone.