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The Cup Is Not Yet Filled……

By Lafe Tolliver, Esq
Guest Column

     Ho-hum. Yawn. Pause. Another shooting. Another killing. Another innocent person dies at the hand of a person who has either a mental health issue or a beef or a grudge against someone known or even unknown.

     Such tragic news comes on the TV or the radio and with casual indifference, unless of course, you are the relative or friend or co-worker of the newly departed, such grim headlines only cause a quick headshake and maybe a prayer for the living who barely missed being killed in the same assault.
 


Lafe Tolliver, Esq

      And then it is off to the next pressing issue be it finding a mall parking space close to the main entrance or waiting in line at that special diner or choosing which commentator or talking head to believe about the latest NSA boondoggle.

      Depending upon which poll you believe, it is said that since the massacre at Sandy Hook there have been 10,000 killings. It is almost as if you could silence all of the noise except the gunfire in these United States, that you would constantly hear: piffff…piffff or pop! pop! or bang! bang!

     Imagine a daily diet of the smell of gunpowder and the wail and cry of people bemoaning another casualty or a loss to their family of an innocent who was either in the wrong place at the wrong time or was gunned down for some real or imaginary hurt or harm.

    And Congress, being beholden to and terrified of the supposed power of the NRA, cowers under their collective desks and when prodded to do something, even something lame and small, they cringe at the very thought of the NRA, as a monster stalker, who will drown them in oppositional ads when and if they decide to run again.

     Of course, we as a nation do the right thing.  We air our outrage on Piers Morgan and MSNBC and rant and rail about the needless loss of life and how we should do something about this national carnage, but, in the end, when the gunpowder smoke clears, we all come out of hiding and brush the lint off of our clothes and gingerly walk to our brunches and PTA meetings and do not remember who was shot just a week ago.

    When will it end you say?

Let me be very clear about when it will end, and there is an ending date, but that date will not be birthed until this cup of blood is running over.  Running over from the spilt blood of white innocents.

     Until we have monthly Sandy Hooks and Columbines and the theatre shootings such as Aurora Colorado, the cup is not yet filled.

     Until we witness more mental and emotional scarring where we see more white youths and white families mowed down and their blood trampled in the streets, the cup is not yet full.

    Until there are repeated and continual mass shootings in White Plains NY and Scottsdale, Arizona and Chevy Chase, Maryland and Beverly Hills, California, and other such ensconced enclaves of wealth and privilege, the cup is still awaiting to be filled to the brim.

    Being poor and white and being poor and black simply will not become the demographics that will be the engine behind gritty gun control laws.

   Until more white mothers and white fathers are seen weeping uncontrollably on the six o’clock news and they use their clout to tell Congress, “That’s enough!” and they tell the NRA to stand down, the cup is still lacking.

    Why white fathers and mothers? Simple. Other urban areas such as Chicago and NYC and LA have been routine and ongoing shooting galleries with black on black crime and although the numbers are mind numbing and horrific, it is not enough to cauterize the flow of blood.

    You see. The cup. Fills up faster. And means more. If the blood is from white folks…not black folks. The ongoing shooting galleries in the large urban cities in which minorities are engaged in acts of warfare against each other is not enough to fill the cup.

     After all, remember in the U.S. Constitution, a black person was deemed to be only 3/5’s of a person and as such they did not measure up or have the same value as white people. So, they losing their blood is only 3/5’s as valuable as a white person losing the same amount of blood.

     What am I saying? Until there is a national ongoing outrage regarding such killings, black or white against anyone black or white, the cup is still there, waiting to be filled.

    Until there is a national roar that reasonable gun control is not an option any longer, the cup sits idly by, waiting to be filled.

     Until the slaughter of the innocents, be it mostly white kids in Sandy Hook or black kids in Hough in Cleveland or in East St. Louis stops, we are all losers and are slowing losing our collective will to stop the bloodletting.

     So, unless we mobilize and say stop this madness, we can only hope, in that perverted and warped sense of the word, to have more meaningful massacres of white kids and white folks.

     Until they pull their levers of power and money and give Congress an ultimatum and tell the NRA and others who worship at the altar of unrestricted firepower that many, many of these killings can be prevented by reasonable gun control, nothing will happen.

     If not, watch the cup. It is still thirsting for more blood.

Contact Lafe Tolliver at Tolliver@Juno.com

   
   


Copyright © 2017 by [The Sojourner's Truth]. All rights reserved.
Revised: 08/16/18 14:12:33 -0700.


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