Been reading the various posts of the past day or so and I just wonder why so much FEAR? Why would the police try to instill fear in parents over allowing their children to walk two blocks...6 houses...one mile to school/baseball practice/friend's house? Why does Twinkle fear the 9th street YMCA? I also read a very interesting post on Page One (.com) referencing the blog posts of a Kentuckian living in Stolkholm, Sweden who wrote the following:
What’s it like to live in a country where the police aren’t feared or regarded as adversaries? What’s it like to not feel like you have to look behind you when you’re walking alone at night? What’s it like to not have to worry about the cost if someone in your family gets sick? What’s it like to be able to go to college if you want to? What’s it like to be surrounded by educated people who speak multiple languages fluently? Freedom isn’t how many guns you can own without a background check. Freedom is feeling like you’ll never need a gun.
Why is it that America purports to be, in song and verse, "the land of the free and the home of the brave" when there is so much fear just in going about our daily lives. Moreover, it would seem that the instilling of fear is practically institutionalized by our government and by our media. Just yesterday morning, I was assaulted by Matt Lauer warning me that evil germs lurk in my showerhead and that a steamy shower could mean emphysema. Fear the Shower...Seriously? What the F!?!
I am tired of the fear. During my mom's volunteer days as a social worker for an Adult Daycare Center in the West End, she drove her little, silver, soft-top convertible BMW to 38th and Magazine every Tuesday and Wednesday, where both she and her car remained unmolested throughout her tenure. No fear.
When I was in grade school I would walk the one mile back and forth to grade school. As a freshman in high school I was popped on the tarc and sent off to high school. The perpetuation of fear does nothing to promote security, but rather promotes and infantilization of our culture and our young people. A century ago, eight year olds were working in factories, in mines, and in sweatshops. I doubt that that mothers today love their children more than they did 100 years ago. So I guess my question is WHY and why now? And who benefits from the perpetuation of this epidemic of fear?
No answers, just more questions.
When I was in grade school I would walk the one mile back and forth to grade school. As a freshman in high school I was popped on the tarc and sent off to high school. The perpetuation of fear does nothing to promote security, but rather promotes and infantilization of our culture and our young people. A century ago, eight year olds were working in factories, in mines, and in sweatshops. I doubt that that mothers today love their children more than they did 100 years ago. So I guess my question is WHY and why now? And who benefits from the perpetuation of this epidemic of fear?
No answers, just more questions.
I, too, went down to that wallpaper store in the West End back in the '80s with my mother. Always in the daytime. Always without incident. The store was on a main street and not in the projects. I can't speak for your mother's office, but going down there in the daytime is entirely different than going at night.
ReplyDeleteI don't feel like I need a gun, so I guess that makes me free most of the time. When the Junior League forces me to drive through the Park Duvalle housing project to get to a meeting, I *still* don't want a gun--but an armed guard would have made me a whole feel better...and maybe that makes me part of the problem, or maybe it just makes me realistic.