Dear Mr. President,
It’s August 2019.
August twelfth will be the 30th anniversary of
the day my brother took his own life with a gun that should not have been sold
to him. He was twenty-six when, wearing his best clothes, we laid him in the
ground in a shiny, silver coffin.
This week, people in Dayton and El Paso are laying
their loved ones in the ground. They are waking up every morning with the fresh
realization of the senseless death of a mother, father, daughter, son, friend.
It hits like a train. The grief takes their breath away. Tears flow and flow
and flow.
They have now begun their year of “firsts.” The first
holidays, birthdays, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day…without their dear ones. It’s a
slice of hell.
Gun deaths are not just violent and sudden, they leave
family and friends asking “Why?” forever.
The “why” is YOU, even though you pretend you have
nothing to do with the divisiveness of our country. Sadly, you are the
President. When you speak, people listen. People who agree with your words,
take you seriously. When you say people of color are “infestations” and dehumanize
them in every way, your followers agree, and then go out and kill them.
Racism is your oxygen. Bigotry is in your blood. White
supremacy oozes out of you like pus, spreading the infection to those who live
in ignorance, fear and hate. Then they take their guns and mow people down. You
rejoice. Good TV ratings.
You didn’t create racism, but you spread it lavishly.
You are absolutely responsible for the shooting deaths that have taken place since
you came into office. You encourage white supremacists to wage violence and
even death on people of color and those from other countries. Yes, Mitch
McConnell and the GOP Senators refuse to pass any gun reform laws. They are
complicit. You can order them to pass those laws, but you won’t. You are a coward.
People talk about your “rhetoric” which I don’t think
you have. To speak rhetoric, you must have skill and understand compositional
techniques. That, sir, is not you.
No, you don’t speak rhetoric, you speak a
crass, native language of malice.
You don’t need to have skill to speak vulgar hatred and cruelty.
Along with mass shootings, you have sent your ICE thugs
to raid places where Latino people live and work. Your thugs intimidate, beat,
and arrest mothers and fathers while children weep in the streets.
You destroy families.
Because you are incapable of comforting our nation, and
calm the violence running rampant in your followers, we who have morals and empathy
are doing all we can to mitigate your violence.
Like children taken from their parents we will cry and
scream and raise our fists. Our fear and our pain will rack our bodies and
leave us craving an escape from the loss and hopelessness.
And when the grief breaks for a moment, we will turn
to one another and WE will give comfort. We will wrap our arms around the
grieving ones. We will wipe away the tears flowing from exhausted eyes.
We see the humanness in these suffering ones. We see the
God-ness in each one, because they are children of God. They are beloved by God. They are our brothers and sisters.
There are more people in this country who are kind and
compassionate than the number of people who follow you. Yes, you have set fire
to the haters, you have incited terror and murder.
Children weep. Parents have disappeared. Innocents are
tortured.
Families are suffering. The dead, wearing their best
clothes, are in their coffins and will be put into the ground.
It’s August 2019.
May God give us strength.
Pastor Barb
