There was a shooting at a bank here in FL yesterday. 5 people killed by a 21-yr. old who called the police himself to let them know what he’d done and ended up surrendering. What word do we use to describe it? “Tragedy”? Yes. No doubt.
I am seeing some responses to this event using the word “massacre.” I’m not sure how I feel about that word for this event.
I’m thinking about the explosion in Nairobi last week, which a terrorist group claimed credit for and which killed at least 21 people–which we barely heard about after the first stream of stories hit the internet. A terrorist group claimed responsibility for that event, and 700 people were safely evacuated. And I know there are so many more stories like this from communities around the world…I just tune in to the stories that have to do with Kenya because of my connection to that country.
While the shooting at the bank in Sebring is rough…is it a massacre? The bombing in Nairobi–a straight up terrorist attack–I’m not even sure that would be called a massacre.
When I hear the word ‘massacre,’ I remember news stories about bodies floating in Lake Victoria during the genocide in Rwanda and the violence in what was then Zaire. I remember stories about lost boys walking miles across South Sudan, and stories about friends whose lives were destroyed by the violence in Sudan, Somalia, and Uganda. I remember seeing images in Nairobi of bodies lined up in ditches after a famine or a political election resulting in violence. I remember the images after the U.S. Embassy bombing in Nairobi.
At the same time, I understand that when we line up all the lives lost to senseless gun violence in the U.S., we have a massacre. When we line up the lives lost in so many senseless ways in the past few years, we have a…something stronger than just a tragedy. Maybe we use the word ‘massacre’ because we hold the 5 lives lost in this tragedy alongside the lives lost in so many others. Maybe we use the word because we don’t have a clear explanation or motivation. Maybe we use it out of frustration, exhaustion, and a deep heart-break that just can’t be explained.
Here’s what I want to say about it all: [insert word for complicated feelings of frustration, grief, anger, and…all the feelings]