I was eight years old when the Columbine High School shooting was happening a mere 30 minutes away from my elementary school. The Century 16 movie theater that was attacked in 2012 is one that I continued to visit with my friends and family prior to the pandemic. It's not a stretch to say that my formative years have been shaped by mass shootings and to feign shock over the instances this past week would be disingenuous. Instead, they serve as another example of the ways in which white supremacy enacts violence on each and every one of us. Lawyer/Abolitionist/Friend, Amber Ashley James, posed what is my question of the moment:
“How do you keep people safe in a country like this? From a country like this?”