Cougars & Mustangs 

Some part of this nation has died, and the stench is so severe it’s causing hallucinations ... it tears at the very fabric of reality. Nothing else can explain this mirage of ours, that we have “it all” in a society that still hasn’t been able to solve the crisis it continues to berate itself for having. This isn’t sickness; it’s decay. Today, the deaths of so many weigh heavy upon us, but I can almost guarantee you that by next week we will have forgotten once again about everything.

We will forget. We always forget. And so there is no need to try and make promises we cannot even remember making. We will forget. But the families of the loved ones will not. They will be deafened by our silence. The air will continue to stagnate as if it isn’t still rippling from gunshots. We will continue to ignore how many have died because they are different, and yet we will continue to pledge in our Saturday morning cartoons that differences are what make us special.

Eventually, there won’t be anything left to be disgusted by. 

And that means that we don’t have to worry. We are under no obligation to attempt to dismantle a system that is already killing itself off. Our only duty is to look at what we have and remember that one day it, too, will be gone. As will we.

Who will be the next scapegoat? 

Or as recent events have shown, will we have several at once? 

We continue to blame everyone and everything, but one group can’t do any blaming: the dead. 

So keep pulling statistics from wherever and point them in whatever direction fits your twisted view of reality. It won’t change what happened. It won’t change the fear that people feel: the fear that people like me feel for being different, the fear that Muslims feel because another punk destroyed lives in the name of Allah, the fear that Americans who go clubbing or go to school or go to the movies feel, the fear that a person feels to admit who they really are. 

Fear that won’t go away because we still haven’t fixed what’s broken. Because all we do is turn circles around each other spouting the same tired arguments from the same tired sides. 

Contributor Lola White-Sanborn is still here. Are you? Send her your collegiate news via [email protected].