San Bernardino shooting: By all means, please do politicize my hometown’s tragedy
My city has become a hashtag.
After I left my hometown of San Bernardino for school on the East Coast, I quickly got used to explaining where I was from by telling people that San Bernardino is near Los Angeles.
The next time I tell someone where I’m from, they won’t say: “Where is that?”
They might say: “I’m sorry.”
Fourteen people shot dead and 21 wounded in a mass shooting in an already struggling town will do that.
Five days ago, a friend who is also a political reporter here at the Los Angeles Times, happened to be near Colorado Springs, a town he knew well, when a Planned Parenthood was attacked. I watched as he tweeted from outside the scene of the shooting. I read his clear-eyed, factual reports. And I wondered how he felt, watching a familiar neighborhood become part of the national spotlight.
Little did I know that I’d find out for myself, less than a week later.
So as images of my city poured into my social media accounts, I got up and walked over to his desk.
“Do you have any advice?” I asked him.
“Not really,” he said. “It sucks.”
He shook his head. I did the same. He asked if I was OK. I said yes and went back to my desk.
I felt sick.
As I sat down, my phone vibrated. It was a text from a college friend from Colorado. On Saturday, after the Planned Parenthood shooting, I had texted her to see if she was OK. Now, it was her turn.
“Just checking in,” her text said.
“Thanks,” I replied.
She sent me back a frowny face emoji, because there was nothing else to say.
Soon, my phone was ringing, constantly. I talked to a friend who had been frantically searching for his mother, who often visits the area near where the shooting took place. She eventually came home safe, but he still had more friends to call.
“People crack jokes about how dangerous San Bernardino is,” he said, “but this isn’t normal. San Bernardino violence doesn’t look like this.”
He paused. “But I guess if it happens here, it could happen anywhere.”
San Bernardino was named an “All-America City” in 1977. It was the birthplace of McDonald’s. San Bernardino is a concentrated slice of America – here, you can see the history, the diversity, and the rises and depressions that our nation has experienced.
San Bernardino is the poorest city its size in California, and among a lot of residents, there’s a sense that nobody cares about them. Even after this shooting, I’m not sure that feeling will change. “San Bernardino” will cease to be a place, and instead will become an event, another sad signpost in the story of America’s mass shootings.
San Bernardino shooting
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Undoubtedly some elected officials will call for people not to “politicize” the San Bernardino shooting. They will say that this isn’t the time to talk about gun control or the fact that so many of us are all too eager to call some shooters “terrorists,” when we were much more hesitant about white suspects such as Dylann Roof and Robert Dear. Many people, including politicians, will offer us their thoughts and prayers.
But for the sake of the nation, I hope we do politicize this tragedy.
San Bernardino may be a poor city, but it’s also a tough city. We’ve suffered through poverty, drought, civic mismanagement and crime – but we’re still here.
Twitter: @dexdigi
MORE ON SAN BERNARDINO SHOOTING
We cannot accept mass shootings as the new normal
That period of nonpolitical mourning after a shooting? We’re past that now
The U.S. infatuation with guns is bordering on a society-wide suicidal impulse
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