rage and fury, now open

some rage with a side of vera bradley jokes and tw for discussion of shootings plural because that's the state of things now, also lots of bad words

Sunday was the 16th anniversary of the shooting at Virginia Tech on April 16th, 2007. I really don’t want to talk more about how gun control is the absolute easiest answer to all this bullshit, and how abhorrent racism* and other-ism is another huge/main/horrifying cause or contributor to the violence that occurs across the country on a daily basis. I’m tired. We’re all tired. I’m trying to just live my life and deal with my own generalized anxiety that I have over my regular, privileged, white girl life. I’m not trying to minify or compare my issues, I’m simply saying that normal fucking life is giving me - us - enough bullshit, and we’re supposed to just keep on keepin’ on cooking mac+cheese and opening applesauce pouches and responding to emails at our earliest convenience as if these tragedies aren’t happening on a daily motherfucking basis.

It is surreal to think back on April 16th, 2007 knowing all that we know now, having lived through all that has transpired since. Not to say I’ve personally been touched by every tragedy, just generally saying like I want to explicitly point out the difference in how we all handled the shooting then vs. now.

vera bradley and my umbrella-ella-ella

2007 was sixteen years ago. And as someone who was a precious child in 2007, I regret writing that sentence, but it’s important. When the shooting went down in 2007, the literal entire globe stopped what it was doing and trained its not-yet-weary-or-jaded-by-this-bs-eyeballs on little Blacksburg, VA, formerly of Michael Vick acclaim, never of NCAA national championship acclaim, always high on the list of safest places to live, most adorable college towns, fall leaves before it was called leaf-peeping etc. cuteness. We were good at football but not so good as to be the football school people across the country talked about. When I moved to San Francisco after graduating, I always had the vague feeling people really wanted to ask “where’s that again?” when I said I went to Virginia Tech. Like, the location is in the name, ya know, but they still wanted to be extra sure.

April 16th changed all of that. We became the school that had the shooting. Very close to synonymous with how people react to hearing Columbine’s name. So when the shooting occurred, and the aftermath became clear (single shooter, no obvious motive, 32 killed, more injured), classes were indefinitely cancelled, clubs stopped meeting except if people wanted or needed. Sports were not a thing (I don’t actually remember sports impact or formal cancellation, just that no one cared like normal). The PRESIDENT came to campus to speak. Our governor and representatives came. They were all horrified and shocked. Nikki Giovanni wrote a poem that lived rent free in all our brains for weeks if not years. There were reporters from China, in Blacksburg, Virginia, and seemingly from every single country that reported news of the world. It was the headline news item for weeks. It was a thing like had never been seen, witnessed, experienced! Life in general was put on hold, while we wandered the dorm halls, hugging each other, holding candles on the drillfield, realized we were scared to go back to class, left campus to see mommy, came back to campus immediately because we couldn’t stand to be away, needed to be by ourselves, never wanted to be alone.

club membership

It seems like I might be taking this somewhere attempting to imply that people who are involved in “shootings these days” (seriously, the phrases I have to use to write this are appalling and horrible) don’t experience this halting of their normal lives. They absolutely DO. That’s why every school and every church and every city and town that experiences this, Hokies will say something like “we are Nashville.” We are YOU. We get it. And SO MANY PEOPLE GET IT NOW. We ALL are saying shit like “we are Nashville,” “we are Alabama,” “We are <insert your town name here>.” [I truly, deeply cannot come to grips with what I am typing because it’s so many places now.]

Normal life stops. Your classes don’t matter, your goals don’t matter, your routine is in the garbage potentially never to be fished out again. You were reading a good book, you need bananas, your kid has soccer practice, your power bill is due in 3 days, you have a meeting tomorrow to discuss the strategic goals for your interdepartmental collaboration to WHO THE FUCK CARES ABOUT ANY OF THAT. In the AFTER of a shooting.

no more vera but rhianna still here

Thank God for Rhianna, keeping us all young and timeless, but you will not catch me using any quilted handbags here in 2023. NOW when there’s a shooting, the president doesn’t even have time to visit the places because on Saturday April 15th of 2023 there were 6 mass-shooting events. SIX SEPARATE EVENTS. IN ONE DAY. So the president must be like well dust off the comments I just made 10 seconds ago, got to say some more shit about gun control and sad parents and jesus christ on a cracker! Your state representatives either care very much about the shooting in your state OR they care ZERO and maybe I was just young and naive (no I totally was) but it feels VERY different. Back in 2007, Republicans in Virginia at least pretended they were sad and wanted to do something about how easy it was for that “very troubled young man” to get access to those two guns he used. Although I think we all know, if you want a gun in Virginia, it’s not gonna be difficult. Make yourself a man who beats his wife and it might just get easier!

Now? Well. I am both too tired and too mad to look up all the various ways that certain leaders show us how very much they do not care: about the problem, nor to fix the issue.

deep breaths, forever

Ragey liberals don’t do much for actual change or progress towards common sense gun laws, so excuse me for being one here and using lazy literary devices to inflame us all: a man who beats his wife, Sara, come on. I mean, in some states, it’s not far from true but that’s besides the point: getting us all worked up over it, and pointing out hypocrisies to a people who don’t care about those hypocrisies or what those hypocrisies say about them is futile.

So I’m going to tell myself and all of us what I tell my 4 year old when he gets irrational and ragey: take a deep breath. Take more than one deep breath if you need it. Take a break from the news. Screaming into the void will not solve the problem, ignoring the problem completely will not solve the problem. May I reassure us all that it IS a solvable problem, though! Even when it doesn’t feel solvable, IT IS. It’s ok for us to be frustrated, it’s ok for us to feel sad, mad, infuriated, ragey, incensed to the point of burning things down and/or moving to Finland. O-K the feelings, ok? It’s ok.

We are going to be ok, and we are going to solve this. She mutters, while pacing the halls outside her children’s bedrooms at night.

Since I published the last rage-piece (like a think-piece, only madder) on shootings, the bill to create the Office of Gun Violence Prevention, which had zero co-sponsors, now has 22 co-sponsors as of a week ago. That’s because of YOU and US making phone calls to our Democratic and Republican leaders telling them we do not like this! We’re doing that!

In the last piece, there were more links and I’m tired because I’m writing this so last minute so I’m not recreating links. Go back there and click around to educate yourself and take action in a way that is sustainable for you and your brain.

Save your representatives’ phone numbers and make calls in between errands, on your way home from work, in the Starbucks drive-thru line, on your stupid little walk for your stupid mental health! Call them and say - nicely, ok - that you’re a constituent and you don’t like it. We don’t have to be ragey and inflammatory to make a difference, we just need to channel our rage into making calm and impactful phone calls to tell them what we think and what we want them to do about this bullshit.

I normally ask you to share this or subscribe but I’m not going to do that today. Unless you think sharing this might change minds or help motivate your very mad but very hopeless liberal bffs. In that case, please share. Otherwise, please know I am sending you a Hokie hug and here to inform you that a Hokie hug is the best of all, having nothing to do with shootings whatsoever. Hokies were great before 2007 and we will keep being great, and I suspect the same can be said for every other community that is sad to be known for something so terrible. So take this virtual hug and once more for y’all in the fucking back FOR THE LOVE, call your representatives!