Something important happened this year. Rather than letting America hit the snooze button on gun violence and go back to sleep until the next avoidable tragedy, the students from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School said #NeverAgain to apathy and inertia. They’ve had enough of America’s sociopathic inability to confront a horrific status quo created by powerful commercial gun interests in every state house and Washington DC.
The quote in the title was from Rev. Dr. William J. Barber, II on the AM Joy show this morning. I didn’t catch whether he was quoting someone else, but the sentiment is what matters. This isn’t the end of the wave. It is when the tsunami is done dragging water out from shore, revealing the bottom-feeders and dead bodies, before crashing back into our lives as a massive wall of righteous anger and irresistible change. Fear rarely trumps pain in moments like these.
Americans of all ages face two stark choices in the coming years. Get on top of the wave with the rest of us or drown on the unreasonable hate still polluting your lungs.
You have six minutes and twenty seconds to decide.