Uvalde, Texas
Earlier this week, I addressed State Street employees on the tragedy in Uvalde, Texas.
The news is tragic, overwhelming, sickening – and too familiar. Nineteen children and two teachers killed in a school shooting in Uvalde, Texas. The event even more devastating in light of what occurred in Buffalo a week ago.
Why does this keep happening, and happening with such frequency, in the United States and elsewhere. How is it possible that there have been more than 200 mass shootings in the U.S. so far this year? How can it be that we are not surprised when we hear news like we did from Uvalde yesterday?
Are we yet again going to follow the same cycle: public shows of concern followed by … nothing? Inaction. I cannot think of another example of such violence and existential threat in which the outcome of our civic and political processes has been nothing.
These shootings must not be considered an everyday fact of living. Becoming desensitized to these horrors as a way to insulate oneself from pain and grief is not an answer. Neither will empty political rhetoric and offers of “hope and prayers” to victims’ families suffice. Change must occur now.
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James Baldwin once wrote: “Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.”
It is time to put politics aside, face hard truths about the scourge of violence, and name an obvious moral abomination that is domestic gun violence for what it is. As a society, our inaction on this topic is in effect saying to schoolchildren and concertgoers and grocery shoppers – people going about ordinary daily life – that “not only will we not guarantee your safety, we will not even try.”
I do not have the answer. But, I do know that doing nothing is not an answer. This country has faced down hard problems in the past. We are doing so in Ukraine today, admirably working to protect the people of Ukraine from violence. Can we not do the same here? Solving problems requires choices. By failing to address the problem we are also choosing, in this case the “let it happen path.” I cannot accept that.
I believe an answer exists that is not unconstitutional, that does not create new harm, and that does not leave our day-to-day safety a function of chance and luck. We need to put aside the shibboleths and accusations of “woke” and “captured” and start solving the problem.
For right now, I would ask you to harness your outrage, hug your family and loved ones, and let us work together.
CEO & Founder at LBK PARTNERS
2yVery well said and well needed by business leaders such as yourself. Thank you!
Thank you Ron for putting a large corporate voice on an issue that is specific to the US more than any other countries in the G20. I wish you pointed out that this is a political issue, this is an issue of the power of industrial lobbies and how they control Washington on one side of the political aisle mainly. Just listening to the former US President at an NRA gathering days after the Uvalde massacre should give anyone chills and concern that the violence and massacre of regular people on the U.S. going about their daily business is nowhere to end or change. Nowadays no one feels safe in the US. We don’t feel safe in the subway, we don’t feel safe walking in the street and we certainly worry sending our kids to school. We should not dance around words like « constitutionality » of bearing semi-automatic and automatic arms in the public space ! And we should hold the weapon industry responsible and put pressure on their boards as well as isolate them as they are certainly not socially responsible.
Vice President, Global Realty Services, State Street Corporation
2yTime for Americans to make the right choice!
Thanks for addressing!
Director of Administration and Fund Development
2yRon, I wish you had mentioned gun control or some sort of position you advocate. You must have one and people will listen to you. And frankly, I don’t believe this is the time to harness anger, it is a time to use it to fuel that immediate action.