The Deadly Weekend Ahead
Pay attention this holiday weekend. If you do, maybe next Memorial Day weekend will be different. Maybe so many moms won’t lose their children, forever, like they will this weekend.
Memorial Day weekend is one of the deadliest weekends in our country, every single year. Not deadly for everyone, but deadly for our neighbors who live in economically distressed neighborhoods, for children and young adults who already face more challenges than we ought to tolerate for our fellow human beings across this country.
Maybe, if we can just turn our attention to it this year, next Memorial Day weekend will not be a reflection of our indifference to the economic struggles that we can easily address if we just pay them more attention.
What you can do
Focus on the cause of this violence. Most of us cannot engage in violence interruption work on the streets where it occurs, but we can certainly disrupt the patterns which make that work necessary.
A critical review of the violence in the last 60 years in this country reveals that the main cause is a lack of economic opportunities in cities and towns across this country. There are considerable obstacles people face from early in their lives, but these are obstacles you can help to obliterate. No matter where you live, you are close enough to people who are struggling – and who are vulnerable to violence this weekend – to do something to prevent it in the future.
Even if your company offers one apprenticeship or partners with one school, or even if you just learn more about the violence, it will help. Even if you just make it a part of your consciousness, that will help. It won’t change what happens this weekend, but maybe it will change what happens in 2025.
Maybe your faith community or civic group can provide equipment for any number of activities for youth, or fund sports, theater, or educational groups – or the like. I know many people across this country who are coaching youth sports because those sports saved their lives. And they could use your help to provide equipment or travel funds. There are substantive ways you can help, ways you can engage with purpose. It’s not about volunteering once or twice; it’s about understanding the challenges that your neighbors face and engaging in ways that will produce new outcomes.
Poverty kills; that’s what we will see this weekend. That’s what Tuesday’s news will tell us. I have seen it for decades, and at some point, we have to turn our attention to solving it, no matter what else is happening or what other stories occupy our minds. At some point, these lives have to matter, not as part of a slogan but because they are our fellow human beings whose mothers and fathers deserve for us to care enough to do something.
Memorial Day was created to remember those who died serving this country. Their sacrifice deserves our utmost respect, beyond words. We can honor them even more by working to save lives in the country they defended.