I'm sad. I'm sad for America. I'm sad that so many people are willing to let fear guide their lives... or so they say on social media. When I read the headline for Mike Julianelle's piece, I'm Not So Sure I'm Joking About Moving To Canada With My Kids, I shook my head at my desk... and then made the mistake of reading the comments. What I read disgusted me.
Comment after comment of Americans saying that they're thinking of moving to Canada (or Mexico) because of the number of shootings taking place, and Canadians offering their mock sympathy for the state of the States we live in, some going so far as to chastise Americans for having a "superior" attitude (read: pride) about their homeland. This, my friends, does nothing to help the problem (and directly contradicts the message in Julianelle's piece). No matter what country you call home, we're all humans. Action for the greater good helps the problem, not picking up and running away (although most of the commenters are likely armchair expats). No matter your political beliefs, we can all agree that change needs to happen and it needs to happen now.
Yes, I get the need for people to vent their frustrations and fear about the current climate in America, and social media is, perhaps, the easiest and quickest medium to do so. But I would also argue that taking to the Internet to condemn your country, our country, does more harm than good. When I see friends in my Facebook feed saying that they are afraid to take their children on outings, for fear of a shooting, that having a family emergency contingency plan before going on outings is the "new normal," it saddens me deeply. Do you really want fear to rule your lives?
I'm a mother, and I've not lost hope in humanity. I know that the world we live in can be a brutal one, but no more dangerous than the world in which our own parents raised us.
If you grew up in the U.S. in the 1980s, the Cold War, specifically our World Superpower battle with the U.S.S.R. was a huge part of daily life. We were taught that Communism was bad, Democracy was righteous, and our freedom made the Socialist bread lines difficult to comprehend. The bleak, grey nature of the weather in the U.S.S.R. seem befitting a country full of villains, ready to blast our country into the stratosphere.
American kids grew up with the Star Wars program in the 80s, both an amazing sci-fi trilogy... and a horrific "just in case" military plan, designed to blast the Soviet nukes [that were headed toward us at any moment] out of the atmosphere before they could cause country-wide devastation. In the USA, we had the old red, white and blue, and movies that proved that even kids had a hand in the battle over Communism (remember pre-Ferris Bueller Matthew Broderick in WarGames?).
So, when you think about it, we really weren't sheltered from the dangers lurking out there, and we survived. We still had terrorists (remember Libya?), and we had Communists (the USSR then, China now), we still had shootings, and we still banded together and held great pride for our country. Why can't we do that now?
How did we become such a violent nation? What has transpired to cause feelings to bubble over into rage and mass shootings? Why are we so concerned with our differences, rather than recognizing and embracing our shared humanity? I don't profess to have any answers, other than becoming more vocal with my Representatives, imploring them to take action, and I would encourage you to do the same. Those are the actions that make a difference.
Let's be a generation, a country, who comes together and takes action, not one that flees the problem. If you're unsure who your local Representative is, you can search by zip code at opencongress.org.
Lauren B. Stevens is a Philadelphia-based writer whose work has appeared on Care.com, ChildVantage and Scary Mommy, with essays printed in multiple anthologies.