Whose Tragedy?

Is "tragedy" really the right word?  Tragedy often suggests something that either could not be helped, like a natural disaster, or that no one intended, like a fatal car accident.  To call a racist terrorist attack a tragedy just doesn't seem to do it.  At some level, it seems to excuse inaction.

In a recent interview, Rick Perry actually referred to the attack as an "accident."  I do not think that's merely a slip of the tongue by a man famous for them but a real reflection of how too many people look at events like these, at least subconsciously.  Whether it's Sandyhook or Virginia Tech, Charleston or countless black lives ended at the hands of police, the first reaction of many is to shrug and say "Well, it's too bad, but that's just the way it is."

But it's not just the way it is.  It's the way we allow it to be by ignoring the seething hatred, frustration, and sense of helplessness, of which these crimes are but the most dramatic symptom, so many people feel in a country that refuses to confront its deepest problems head-on while relentlessly glorifying violent retribution amid a proliferation of lethal weapons.

No doubt that, for the friends and families directly affected, these events are tragic, but, for the rest of us, "tragedy" is too often a euphemism, a lazy means of co-opting the real grief of those burying their dead to stifle the nagging of our collective guilty conscience.  We must know that something routine can't be written off as a freak occurrence, that enough "isolated incidences" constitute a trend, and that none of these criminals stepped out of a vacuum.  They were each in their own way produced by the United States.

Yet, because the realities of prejudice, privilege, and a grotesque materialism are difficult to face, let alone fight, we pretend to mourn for the human sacrifices offered up in the name of our complacency.  If we were truly honest with ourselves, we'd admit that we are merely seeking an anesthetic to carry us through until next week or next month, when we can forget about this along with the rest of the horror we choose to ignore.

That's not real grief, so how do we pretend it's our tragedy?  How many times do we have to great mass murder with inaction before we find the courage to admit to ourselves that we just don't care that much?