by K. Blaqk, ’14
This piece originally appeared on K. Blaqk’s personal blog, Blaqkliberation.
Mourning and demanding a new system do not need to be – nor should they be – separate.
At issue today (more publicly than most days) are multiple layers of violence in our world:
the violence of a political system that treats each new shooting as an isolated incident and tells us we are jumping the gun when we talk reform—
the violence of an economic system that produces guns and missiles knowing the destruction they bring to individual and collective lives—
the violence of a cultural system where the radio plays on blaring top 40s, stocks and scores, as though nothing is happening as our wars kill on.
There are also the violences of a world where so many feel so alienated as to commit the ultimate violence against others – and themselves—
and, most immediately, of being told during the moment of rawest pain that “this isn’t the day to demand change, this is a day to mourn.”
If today is the day of mourning and a mourner cannot make demands, what do we do tomorrow? Continue reading
