Nowhere is safe from violence

In James H. Cone’s book, ”The Cross And The Lynching Tree,” he quotes Martin Luther King Jr. and a comment he made after the assassination of John F. Kennedy. King told his wife: ”This is what is going to happen to me also. I keep telling you this is such a sick society.”

King was correct – we are a sick society. The tragedy that occurred in New Orleans on New Year’s Eve is one more heartbreaking confirmation of our sickness.

From ”sea to shining sea,” no American is immune from encountering life-threatening violence.

It matters not where one ventures schools, houses of worship, stores, entertainment venues, the potential for being in harm’s way is a reality.

In 2012, former U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates told an audience in Richmond: ”The United States faces threats from extremists and unstable regimes around the world, but it’s the nation’s own political incivility that poses the gravest risk.”

Twelve years later, that incivility hasn’t been bridled.

Our inability to solve the vicious generational erosion of our society’s human infrastructure is unacceptable.

How many of our perpetrators and their acts of violence stem from our failure to provide strong mental health programs? Are their horrific actions caused by our inability to assist dysfunctional and unstable families?

Perhaps the answer to those questions can be found in the script to the movie, ”A Few Good Men.” During a heated courtroom exchange, a witness shouts at the prosecutor: ”You can’t handle the truth!”

As Americans, is that our problem? We can’t handle the truth of our inability to solve our propensity for incivility and violence?

Maybe the sickness of this horrendous act would have been prevented if the Ten Commandments had been posted on every street corner in New Orleans.

BILL PIKE
Richmond, Virginia

Author’s note: I was honored on Monday, January 6, 2025 to have my letter to the editor published in the New Orleans newspaper, the Times-Picayune. My letter was one of several printed in the paper related to the recent tragedy in the city. Bill Pike