Patton Oswalt – Sanjay Sabarwal's Blog

I will be honest. I only know that 3 have been killed, and 147 injured. I have heard that from NPR, and have actively avoided watching TV. I have briefly glanced at Facebook statuses which either express horror, or underscore people’s own insecurity. Muslim? Then you go on a rant for people to be open-minded and wait for the person to be caught before blaming. White? Silence. Because the reality is if it’s a minority, we will put you in a box. We will launch missiles, but if you are white, we will just call you mental and ask for gun control. These types of events are so loaded that many of us struggle not to say anything that compartmentalized or sounds vaguely racist or xenophobic.And others feel free to spew their vision of the world. But as humans, that’s what we do to survive. It does not make it right, it just is.

So before we go balls to the walls on our social media networks announcing what we think, perhaps just for a moment take some time and think about those lost, and perhaps forever maimed mentally. Give a breath and a prayer to the ones who will never get to see another day. These type of tragedies make me realize how truly alone we have become. We only listen to like minds, and have no interest in knowing the Truth. Whatever fits into our narrow scope of thoughts has to be the truth. I realize that past experience forms our present prejudices, but it also allows us not to think anymore. We, as humans, can do better than that. We owe it to ourselves to not let emotion run us all the time. Yes, the person(s) intended to create terror, but their real win will happen when we become less tolerant, and more willing to let others do the thinking and actions for us. We can do better than that.

We have to.