Compassion, Damn It: A Four Part Discourse

I've been waiting to write this and post this, and I've seen so many better written, somehow more valid representations, explanations, and points of view, but I still feel that what I need to say has a purpose and value.
So I am saying it.


Part One: It Shouldn't Be You

Even if you are personally in disagreement with homosexuality or any alternative to the cis-gender hetero-normative culture out there, you should be able to see that 49 people being shot dead is a bad thing, and is indicative of some much bigger problems.

The father of the shooter was recently quoted as saying that his main problem with what his son did was that God alone should judge others, including those awful sinners, the gays. While I take issue with a lot of this, I also agree that if you do believe so strongly in the Bible or the Koran, you should avoid judging others, regardless of their sins. I draw the line at child-molesters, as forgiveness for pedophiles is a bridge too far for me, but people engaging in consensual relationships with adult partners are outside of this. Those people's business, regardless of that anyone else thinks about it, should be their own.

So if you think it's a sin, it's not your job to judge it, stop it, or hurt the people involved. It's your job to love, and at very most pray for the people involved. What you don't realize is that they might be praying for you, too-- to open your heart and mind, to accept them for who they are, to know and love them as much as they love you without the caveat of chopping their soul into pieces so as to more easily fit into the box you're prescribing. But regardless of who prays for whom and why, the point is that we all sin in our own ways, and it is not your place to judge. At all. Much less who gets to live or die.


What the world needs now is more compassion, more love, more caring about each other and less of the selfish divisions driven by the differences between us.

Fewer guns, less violence, a call to love over hate. There are a lot of positive options, but I don't know if America as a whole will take them.

I've been living in a country with virtually no guns for the last 8 years, and guess what, America? I don't feel cheated, or uncomfortable, or unsafe for the lack of easy-murder-machines made available to the public.
Quite the opposite. I don't have the strange anxiety in the background of my mind, telling me that guns and bullets are everywhere, and people in general are stupid, easily over-heated, passionate creatures. If we were living in the states, I am sure I would be more scared about the times when my husband is late coming home. It could be traffic, or a number of other innocuous things. Or maybe he cut off a redneck in a pickup (or some thug or any other person with a hot temper and a gun) who decided that the little Asian dude was talking funny and needed to be put in his place.
Instead, I rest easily, knowing that my daughter is more likely to be struck by lightning than a stray bullet and that no matter how my husband drives, the likelihood of road-rage-murder is pretty damned minimal.

A few years ago, my mother was almost killed when some would-be gang-bangers decided to cruise up beside her on the freeway and fire a gun at her vehicle. Apparently this is some kind of initiation tactic. When the police were called, their suggestion was that my mother chase down the suspects herself. So, with police suggestions like that, I can almost understand the desire for personal protection, but if guns were harder to get, less personal protection would be necessary as well. A lot of stuff needs to change, but continuing on the path as it is cannot be done safely. We don't all need guns. None of us need guns. None.

One could argue that my mother, had she been carrying a firearm, could have fired back at the assailants instead of freaking out about being shot at while driving. Answers like that turn The Land of the Free into the dystopia of Mad Max proportions.
I don't know about you, but I don't want to live there.

Part Two: It Could Have Been Me.

Relocate the incident a bit to the northwest. Turn back the clock a decade or so, and that could have been me. That could have been me twelve years ago with my best friend of the time, doing what I had seen in Queer As Folk and taking him to a place where he could find someone more available than the friend of his brother's on whom he was then crushing hard.
Turn back a little less and it could have been me with my straight, single female friends, looking for somewhere to dance without the threat of contact with unwanted genitals.
The same year, it was the GSA on an unofficial outing. The same semester, it was my other roommate and I blowing off steam after midterms by watching the drag show. It could even be the one night a girl gave me her number, the only time I was hit on by a member of the same sex.
Turn back the clock just over 8 years, and it's just before I moved to Japan, going to the drag show with my mom and her friends and enjoying our time together immensely.

At any of these points, it could have been me shot dead in a night club by a well-armed madman.
But it wasn't. I got to grow up, graduate from college, move abroad, fall in love, get fat, get married, have a baby, and live well enough to be in such a position as to write about this now.
I'm lucky as hell. But I don't feel lucky.

I know I am not the only person whose heart breaks for the families and friends of the victims of the Pulse Massacre.

If you are one of the people who feels nothing for this incident, who thinks those people had it coming for being who they are without fear, I want you to remember this, especially if you know me and love me at all. Or even just like me a tiny bit.

That could have been me. I could have died there. And, because it was at a time and place rooted pretty firmly in my past, you might not have ever even known me. I would never have become who I am now. My relationships with friends and relatives are significantly more fruitful than they were in those days.
Think about your life. Think about whatever little place I may hold in it and ponder that space being replaced by a painful void. If this hurts, mourn for these victims and their families. Show some compassion. We're not all that different, really.

So mourn, and love, and feel damn it. Don't tell me it doesn't matter and please don't treat this as a non-issue.
It's a big deal. A really big deal.


Part Three: Priorities

Japan has frequent earthquakes. It's nature. So they build for it. The standards for how and where to build are very high, and the restrictions severe, for good reason. I was here for the Magnitude 9 Earthquake, and guess what? A lot of furniture got destroyed, some buildings had cracks, but almost nothing collapsed. Part of this is because a fairly major quake had struck 30 years previous, after which everything was built to new standards, which is why they didn't fall in 2011. Unfortunately, earlier this year, Kumamoto prefecture suffered a devastating quake of a lower magnitude. The high number of casualties can at least partially be attributed to the fact that they had not had a major quake in a much longer time, so nothing had been rebuilt to new standards in some time.

America doesn't have the same standards for building, so when we hear about a Magnitude 6 or 7 in California, people start asking about body counts. America hasn't adapted to the geological problems that come with living on a fault line the way the Japanese have, and one could argue that those exacting standards are bad for business. Such work could cost contractors and construction companies too much in materials, labor and time.

Bad for business and too expensive in dollars, but ultimately bad for living conditions and expensive in life.

This is not unlike the gun situation.

In Japan, there will be quakes and people have died in building collapses, which is why the standards are so high. Because keeping people alive in general is considered more important than keeping the rich exceedingly rich, at least when it comes to natural disasters.

America's disasters aren't natural. They are every day and all around. They are children finding the firearm meant for home protection and putting wholes in themselves, their friends, or their parents. They are people with serious psychological issues being able to get an assault rifle legally. They are the guns, the shootings, the constant "prayers and thoughts" with no government follow through of better legislation.
Because keeping the gun manufacturers' wallets fat is more important than keeping our people alive.

And that, my friends, is seriously fucked up.

Part Four: Dear America

So, America, it's like this. You're great. I love some parts of you, and some of your people, and some of your culture and even some of what makes you so damned arrogant. I love you, but I can't be with you. I can't have you around my daughter. You're diversity is wonderful and all, but you're dangerous. You're hanging with a bad crowd, and until you make some big changes, we're not going to be seeing a lot of each other. We'll keep in touch online, and I'm not revoking my citizenship or anything that drastic, but I am not visiting you when you're like this. I can't. My family is too important to let something like your lax gun laws destroy it.
Thanks for the good times, and I hope this isn't forever.
Adios.