In September 2001, I was eight years old. I ran, and won, an election for the 3rd grade class representative. I remember winning-over the masses with a moving speech, meticulously practiced the night before – so well practiced in fact, I had it fully memorized. Fragmented bits of it remain floating around deep in the recesses of my brain. I can fuzzily recollect promising to give shelter to the homeless and to distribute candy every day for lunch. I truly believed in my reforms; I was not trying to mislead my voters with sweeping false promises to secure votes. I recognized two problems (of equal gravitas to my 8 year old self) – lack of tasty treats at lunch and homeless fellow New Yorkers: I was convinced that given the prestigious position of Class Rep, I could (and would) easily fix both.
I try to put my somewhat jaded seventeen year old self back into that mentality to fully understand the tragedy of the Tucson shooting. Christina-Taylor Green was a nine year old girl, born in 2001 when I was running for office. 10 years later she ran for office, and won it just as I did, and I will graduate High School. Unfortunately our parallels end there because her life was ended by one bullet. One pull of the trigger. One semi-automatic pistol. One man, Jared Loughner. One supermarket. One visit to one congresswoman to follow one dream.
By thinking back to my ambitious third grade speech, I can only imagine Christina’s unbridled excitement and untainted optimism. She wanted to look onto Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords with eager eyes to see a living manifestation of all her aspirations. Little did she know how rare a hardworking, honest politician actually is. Little did she know of the frustrations people like Mrs. Giffords face each day in battling human ignorance, fear of change and, most of all, hatred. Little did she know that on January 8, 2011, at 10:10 am, Mr. Loughner would teach her all these things in one ring of shots. However, his emptying cartridge failed to get the message across to Christina because, by ending her life, he made it impossible for her to ever have her spirit crushed or her inspiration expire. In a way, he protected her from ever learning the harsh reality that her hopeful dreams are not as easily remedied as she had hoped.
Christina will never learn this lesson; it is up to the remaining Americans to take something else out of it. As President Obama said, “For the truth is that none of us can know exactly what triggered this vicious attack. None of us can know with any certainty what might have stopped those shots from being fired, or what thoughts lurked in the inner recesses of a violent man’s mind. So yes, we must examine all the facts behind this tragedy. We cannot and will not be passive in the face of such violence. We should be willing to challenge old assumptions in order to lessen the prospects of violence in the future. But what we can’t do is use this tragedy as one more occasion to turn on one another. As we discuss these issues, let each of us do so with a good dose of humility. Rather than pointing fingers or assigning blame, let us use this occasion to expand our moral imaginations, to listen to each other more carefully, to sharpen our instincts for empathy, and remind ourselves of all the ways our hopes and dreams are bound together.” Though Congress is steeped in infighting between the Reds and the Blues, the President calmly asks for a political détente. Hopefully thorough this tragedy, the rhetoric becomes less violent and more understanding and the blame game stops.
Whether violent rhetoric, easy excess to guns or inadequate mental health care delivered the final blow to a mentally unstable man, one thing is certain: no man exists in a vacuum. Multiple failures from various facets and people demonstrate the need for country-wide Ubuntu. Just as Robert F Kennedy was who he was because of who we all are, Jared Loughner was who he was because of who we all are. As a society, and especially as the next generation of educated young people, we can use this horrific event as a catalyst for change. I am not talking about second amendment reforms, but a change in our attitude towards others. If we use a little more cooperation, compassion and respect in our daily lives, destroy the blinders of indifference and hold ourselves accountable for mistakes, maybe, just maybe, we can become the change we wish to see in the world. And as Obama so eloquently urges, “I want us to live up to her [Christina’s] expectations. I want our democracy to be as good as she imagined it. All of us — we should do everything we can to make sure this country lives up to our children’s expectations.”