It has been 3 weeks since the mass shooting at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina. In our modern world with our instantaneous social media and 24/7 news cycle, three weeks is a long time. Our various electronic devices ping and swoop and chime, constantly clamoring for our attention, each one urgently trying to convince us that something earth shattering has just happened. As often as not, we find out that the momentous event is only a picture of what a friend just ate for lunch. Then we move on to the next thing. We have become a nation with a very short attention span.
Our human brain can only hold a finite amount of recent information before it has to clean house and make room for more. And I’m afraid that our brains have already tidied up the clutter a number of times since the massacre in Charleston. We have moved on to more recent events: the US women’s team winning the World Cup, the fact that we need to remember to fill up the car with petrol on the way home from work, and Greece’s impending economic collapse, to name just a few. That makes me afraid that we will forget.
I’m afraid that we will forget the horror of a gunman entering a house of prayer and, with malicious intent, murdering 9 innocent people.
I’m afraid that we will forget how unconscionably easy it was for him to get a gun and ammunition for the sole purpose of ending 9 black lives.
I’m afraid that we will forget to look seriously at the societal factors that caused this young man to hold such violent hatred in his heart that he thought these 9 lives were of no account.
And we mustn’t. We must not forget these events, nor the hard conversations we must have so that we can face, and then work to change, the discrimination and violence so many still experience in this country.
We must, in fact, remember. Remember and understand the deep truth that President Obama expressed in his eulogy for Pastor Clementa Pinckney when he said that “My liberty depends on you being free as well.”
We must remember, and continue to hold in our hearts, The Mother Emanuel 9:
Cynthia Marie Graham Hurd
Susie Jackson
Ethel Lee Lance
Depayne Middleton-Doctor
Clementa C Pinckney
Tywanza Sanders
Daniel Simmons
Sharonda Coleman-Singleton
Myra Thompson
Zebra's Child 
Yes, too often we just move on and forget ugliness and horrible events. That is why many don’t learn from mistakes or move away from discrimination. Like an earlier post of your’s…”monster in the closet”. Very sad, indeed!
For instance, how many people outside of the Northeast remember Sandy Hook Elementary unless it is referenced in the news? Remember all the calls for more stringent laws on gun control after the children were murdered? But we don’t seem to have the political will to remember and grapple with the truly horrific things that originate within our own country.
Yes, so very true! We certainly have not changed a thing to help prevent this from happening. My own father has a conceal carry permit because he is frightened of other people with guns and he wants to protect my mother. he is 72 yrs. old and polices the hallways at their church for security. Sad that a church must do this. 😦
Sad indeed.