I remember waking up this past Monday around five-ish and seeing the news of the Las Vegas Massacre that claimed around fifty-nine people and wounding over 300. I remember the massive headline MSN used so that we would know it was important. As if the words fifty-nine, killed and gunman weren't enough to go by.
Anyway, to the meat of this post. I read up on the entire situation from the beginning, and I could not give less of a fuck. Not that I don't care about the people dying, but rather I really just didn't care that it happened. Let's face it: people die all over the world, attacks happen commonplace. Just because America is a supposed first-world country doesn't make it exempt from actions like this. When someone goes and kills dozens of people, don't act surprised by it. Just because you live in the land of the McRib and The Big Bang Theory doesn't mean shit can't go down.
Mental health is an issue in American society, one I don't think we really try to address. I consider Dylan Roof and Mr. Paddock terrorists the same way the marathon bomber and the Florida nightclub shooter were considered terrorists. Not acknowledging that white men can be terrorists and do fucked up acts like killing a group of people is a sign of mental illness.
Not that it really matters, but Mr. Paddock was in affiliation with Islam. Yet, he's not being called a terrorist? I reiterate: That doesn't matter, it seems. Is it the religion that's the issue or is it the person that fits the religion? Hmm.
But let's go in another direction with this. You have this American society that tries to sweep things under the rug and act surprised when a smell develops. Pay attention to what's been going on with America. There have been more outspoken voices concerning various social issues and the clashing viewpoints that followed. The mere thought of Barack Obama being in the White House made people go insane. These eight years of a black man running the country (if you can call it that) created an ideal and a lingering hatred that finally peaked with the Trayvon/Zimmerman fiasco, which is where I finally discovered what my role is in this American society when the verdict was given, but I already realized that the year before working my first job, but anyway, with Zimmerman, the Ferguson riots, the Charleston shooting and the idiocy of the confederate flag and its defenders and with this entire idiotic election and the general routine of cops killing black men at a disproportionate rate, it's come to a point where I don't care anymore, in the sense that it's just business as usual.
So nine people got killed in that church. Big deal. Yeah, they were black like me. So what? People get killed all the time outside America. Why does it take death for this society to finally do something? That alone can be its own topic. It's all the same to me. I'm numb and apathetic to all the killings. Yeah, I get angry when I see another cop gunning down another black man, but from there on, the emotions melt away. And that I feel is a mental illness when you can't even react anymore to something as sinister as that. The same with the people in that nightclub that were gunned down, and also the amount of support that came from them. It made me roll my eyes. We can't show compassion and love in times of peace, only when someone dies. And the media always covers this shit for a full week, case in point with the Vegas shooting. Another event that everyone's getting squeamish over. Another wake-up call for the supposed greatest country in the world.
We don't need stricter gun laws, we need stricter people laws. How is someone with a blatant mental illness able to buy a gun, but a well-adjusted man can't purchase one due to increased melanin in his skin? How many cops in this country are unstable and you're giving them guns and ammunition and you wonder why so many black men are dying. Moreso, people protesting at the NFL (Which I never watched a day in my life) is generating such a vitriolic response the commander in chief himself is butthurt over it and ready to make a law punishing them for following that constitution. Yet if they were raping and beating up women, no response would have been given. The rug is beyond saving and it's time to burn it. Just like some players can stand and 'respect' the flag, players are allowed to take a knee and 'disrespect' it. Meanwhile, actual veterans are being ignored while you waste time, money and energy burning jerseys.
Whoops.
And just like that, they try to sweep this matter under the rug for the next hot topic: Weinstein's scandal. There was at least four new articles on Paddock every day last week, and suddenly it's gone. No more coverage.
But, that's probably for the best. Yeah, we'll still get a piece on it from time to time, all the way up to the end of the year, no doubt. But for me, it's just another attack by the product of America's mental illness, and I say bring on the next one. If this is what it takes to get America to wise the fuck up, then so be it.
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