The LGBTQ community has lost a light this week. Monica Roberts, a groundbreaking transgender journalist and blogger, died in Houston at age 58. She started her blog, TransGriot, shortly after I began this one. I had the honor of meeting her at several conferences, and was always struck by her strength, knowledge, and commitment to lifting up trans youth.
Yesterday, a grand jury indicted only one of the three police officers involved in the shooting death last March of Breonna Taylor, a Black woman in Kentucky—and the charge was “wanton endangerment,” not the more serious ones of manslaughter or reckless homicide. I hope that other White people like myself make it a priority to learn more about this case and about the ongoing need for racial justice in the U.S. Here are a few places to start.
Five Black LGBTQ leaders held a LGBTQ #BlackLivesMatter Town Hall yesterday, and it’s well worth watching. View it here if you missed the livestream.
I have written about far too many mass shootings in the United States since I started this blog 14 years ago. I feel like I am repeating myself when I post about my fears—for my son, for all our children, for all of the children who will grow up without one or more parents lost to gun violence. When we tire of talking about it, however, we give the victory to those who support lax gun regulations or who use gun violence to express hatred and bigotry. Forgive me some repetition, therefore.
Today marks the sixth anniversary of the deadly shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, that left 20 children and seven adults (including the shooter) dead. Are we making progress towards ensuring this never happens again?
This landscape is familiar, strewn with ash and blood. We’ve been here before, too often, seeking the living, counting our dead. I know the terrain, can pick my way stumbling over the bodies, the stench of fear and hatred lingering in the air; the thoughts and prayers; the headlines and statistics.
As a Jew and as a human, I have been saddened and angered today by the awful shooting at a synagogue in Pittsburgh. And I wonder at the unending number of shootings in a country that is supposed to be a beacon of freedom and justice and ask myself: When will we have had enough?
Yes, I’m still remembering. Here’s my 9/11 story, and how the events of that day became motivation for me to start a family.
Weeks after the Trump administration ostensibly changed its policies of child separation and family detention at the U.S.-Mexico border, and after a court-imposed deadline to reunite separated families, hundreds of immigrant and refugee children are still not with their parents. These policies are only some of several recent moves by the administration and by individual states that show an appalling disregard for the well-being of children.
Wishing peace, strength, and perseverance to all who are gathering today to speak out for gun control and to end gun violence in our schools—especially the young people who are leading us where we should have gone long ago.
