The Tragedy of Shootings and the Double Standards that Follow

The shootings this week are heart wrenching. Who ever committed these acts of savagery must be held to full account. My thoughts and prayers are with those who lost loved ones or are nursing the injured.

In the same week we had an attack on Planned Parenthood and one on a centered for disabled people. The first with a clear ideological motive or so it would appear, yet no pro-life leader was asked to condemn these actions. Suggesting this would have been met with furious indignation, even if this was asked of those who spew the most fiery rhetoric in opposition to abortion and reproductive rights.

The second, only the identities of the suspects are now known. No ideological motive is yet clear. An act that would have joined another 300 plus in our daily reality in America had the suspects not been Muslims. An act the President responded to with a speech he's given dozens of times before knowing the identities of the suspects.

But we have already seen the press conference with Muslim leaders condemning and distancing. I am not criticizing them to be clear. And every Muslim on my FB timeline is mourning and bracing for the backlash that has already begun.

Now some will argue that the difference is "Muslims kill for Islam" and white shooters are just deranged, even when they state clear ideological motives of white supremacy, racial holy war or target institutions that stand on one side of a deep ideological divide like PP. Muslims are not immune to mental illness, however, and ideological violence is ideological violence, in the name of any ideology or perceived cause.

I am so deeply saddened by this last shooting because it sinks to a new low much like Sandy Hook. As a mother I weep for every parent who lost a child and every child who lost a parent. These events impact my daily life. How I speak. How I listen. How I feel doing the most mundane acts of life. To then shoulder another burden of collective guilt is simply not possible. I cannot. I will not.