In Memoriam

The Charleston Shootings have left me so sad and shaken. You think when you see things as a child, by the time you are older, the "rights will have wronged" in the world. We had such hopes in the 60's and 70's of seeing the country a united, kind place. 
How wrong we were. 

I just want to pause for a moment to recognize the life of Shoranda Coleman-Singleton. She was a mother of 4, a reverend, coach and a speech therapist.  As most of you know I too am a speech therapist and I would like to remember Shoranda through my work with children. I am hoping our organization, ASHA will do something in her memory as well. 

Too many times we turn away from the ugly in the world.  This is an awful chapter in our history--and there have been many more. I don't know the solution other than being kind and respectful to others. 

Jon Stewart said it so well last night. 

“I honestly have nothing other than sadness that once again we have to peer into the abyss of the depraved violence that we do to each other and the nexus of a just gaping racial wound that will not heal yet we pretend doesn’t exist. I’m confident though that by acknowledging it—by staring into it—we still won’t do jack shit. That’s us. And that’s the part that blows my mind…What blows my mind is the disparity of response. When we think people that are foreign are going to kill us and us killing ourselves…We invade two countries and spent trillions of dollars and lost thousands of American lives and now fly unmanned death machines over like five or six different counties, all to keep Americans safe. We’ve got to do whatever we can—we’ll torture people. We’ve got to do whatever we can to keep Americans safe. But nine people shot in a church— ‘Hey, what are you going go to do? Crazy is as crazy is, right?’ That’s the part that, for the life of me, I can’t wrap my head around. And you know it’s going to go down the same path.”

Later, Stewart addressed the hypocrisy of South Carolina’s reverence for its Confederate and deeply racist past. “Nine people were shot in a black church by a white guy who hated them who wanted to start some sort of civil war,” he said. “The confederate flag flies over South Carolina. And the roads are named for confederate generals. And the white guy is the one who feels like his country is being taken away from him. We’re bringing it on ourselves. And that’s the thing—al Qaeda, ISIS, they’re not shit compared to the damage we can do to ourselves on a regular basis.

Sorry for the somber blog. I will go back to my GH snark soon.