Car shootings and other cars in car

Drive By Shootings and other Driveby’s

Ho hum! Another trip rolling in Oakland or Chicago, or San José … We hardly notice them anymore. As tragic as it is for the victims, it is yesterday’s news. Only big terrorist attacks get a lot of attention.

The truth is that impulse shootings often take place in inner-city neighborhoods that are largely invisible to the eyes of the middle class or wealthier people. We may not say so, but unconsciously we hope that “self-services are a dime a dozen in THOSE areas, and there’s nothing we can do about it anyway.”

Well, we are completely wrong on that. Car shootings happen for many reasons, but they are all connected in one way or another with you and me, with the dysfunctional prison system that we allow to exist, with the deep and widening gulf between the haves and the have-nots, our underfunded education. and mental health programs, and a scandalously unbalanced military budget, etc., etc. All of which we, as citizens, can do something.

We are also guilty of a different kind of abuse. We’re not pulling the triggers on those AK 47s, but we all too easily accept the murderous results of their actions.

We pass the black boy who is being harassed by a police officer for no other reason than the color of his skin. We DO NOT SEE the elementary school in need of repairs or the veteran waiting for the benefits that had been so far behind him or the working family that has been excluded from a housing market that does not respond to the needs of ordinary people.

We are not bad people, you and me. Most of us are not totally oblivious to what is happening between us. We do not consider ourselves racist. (Hell no! My friend José is a great guy. On Saturdays we go bowling)

But friends, we are not working with the eight cylinders. Our potential to leave this world in a much better place is not being fully exploited, not even close. It is much easier to escape into the womb of a comfortable lifestyle.

Hey, we’re not breaking any laws (well, maybe we’ll tweak our taxes a bit). We could even go to church on Sundays and not cheat on our spouses.

But is that what we want for ourselves and our lives? Do we want our legacy to proclaim to our own families and to the world that we run our lives without making waves?

Medical students take the Hippocratic oath of “First, do no harm,” but we would not have made the tremendous progress we have made in the practice of medicine if we stopped there.

The future for us and our children is being written right now. We make

Do you want to be an active participant in making this a better world or just another car trip?