Reflections on Uvalde by Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D.

Reflections on Uvalde 

by 

Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D.

We just got back from Uvalde, my friends. My husband, Emilio and I, took a quick, weekend trip to pay our respects. What happened in Uvalde felt painful, deeply personal, and much too close to home. 

My emotions run the gamut between petrifying sadness at the tragic loss of so many children and their teachers, and gut-churning outrage at our Republican leadership that do not want to see the truth before their very eyes that—but for their greed, love of money, power, and guns—expressed in harmful policies and priorities—this tragedy could have been avoided. 

This, atop the fact that according to this May 25, 2022 NPR piece on school violence titled, "10 years since the horrific tragedy in Sandy Hook Elementary," gun laws haven't changed despite what clearly is a current, well-documented epidemic of gun violence in our country. To learn how to take action, there ARE resources, including the following: 

• Social Media Action Kit out of Sandy Hook.
• Survivors Empowered is another nonprofit organization that also has a kit that features Uvalde, TX and Buffalo, NY, on its website.
• The Gun Violence Archive is yet another authoritative source on gun violence in America.

A second May 25, 2022 NPR piece titled, "27 school shootings with injuries or deaths have taken place so far this year." This figure doesn't count the fact that, according to Education Week, there have been 119 school shootings since 2018.

There is so much gun violence in America that President Joe Biden and Vice-President Kamala Harris had to split up to cover the horrific, recent shooting in Buffalo, New York—that took the lives of 10 people in the Black community—so that he and Jill could make it to Uvalde. 

Children walk hand in hand in a street near the scene of a shooting at a supermarket in Buffalo, N.Y. on May 15. Matt Rourke/AP

This NPR piece covers both incidents, drawing similarities: 2 mass shootings — 1,700 miles apart but bound by startling similarities: In the 10 years since Sandy Hook, gun laws in the U.S. haven't changed much.

Emilio and I indeed found it comforting to be sitting close to them both in yesterday's Sunday mass at Uvalde's Sacred Heart Cathedral where I got the chance to thank them for coming. "Your welcome," he responded quietly. 

I appreciated that Archbishop Gustavo García-Siller officiated in English, intermixed with Spanish, with the Bidens in attendance, receiving, along with the rest, his words of solace and reassurance. This apparent decision to not have Biden speak assured that the service would be centered on a community's healing rather than politics. Although he did speak to the families afterwards in a private session, I imagine that as a Catholic himself, he likely preferred to be consoled rather than to console as he often does. 

A wonderful gesture by the archbishop was his calling all of the children attending mass to the front of the church where he expressed words of support and comfort to them all in a soft-spoken, loving voice. At least one small child near us sobbed throughout inconsolably with his mother having to pull him out of the service earlier than the rest. It's all so heart breaking.

For all of us who have children, grandchildren, or who work closely with children, all of this must surely have special resonance. In our case, we have a grandson who is the same age as many of these children at Robb Elementary. He knows about what happened and said to us on Saturday that "It's sad," adding that "this shouldn't happen to children." We work closely with this age group and their families at our Saturday school, Academia Cuauhtli. We are planning a healing ceremony for the children and families that we work with that is scheduled for Sunday morning June 5, 2022. 

Our intentions are to listen to what our children and youth have to say about all of this since we know it's affecting them, perhaps making them fearful of attending school. Such thoughts are sure to lurk in many teachers' minds, as well, such that we all need to do what we can to embrace them while simultaneously advocating for meaningful gun reform legislation at this crucial point in our history as a country.

To be sure, the trauma that Uvalde is experiencing right now is reverberating across the country with children and teachers, respectively, fearing schools as  potentially dangerous places to attend and work.

To be of help, here is an extensive list of verified fundraisers where you can donate to help cover not only funeral, but also counseling, costs. Here is an excellent May 25th NPR piece on other ways to help, including support for volunteer legal services and blood donations.

This is for the long haul, my friends. 

These survivors will need every penny to become not so much "whole," since that's impossible for survivors, but at least "more whole" with effective counseling and therapy. 

In the meantime, let's all hug our children and their teachers even as we contemplate how a world without guns is actually a much safer world than one with them. Collectively, let's commit to changing not just gun laws, but also our hideous culture of gun violence. 

-Angela Valenzuela

#RememberUvalde

#UvaldeStrong

Anxiety Over School Shootings Finding proactive ways to deal with worried feelings Rachel Ehmke

Great advice here from the Child Mind Institute. Not that the probability of a school shooting in any given school is zero, but still very unlikely. Still, adults need to be careful that children pick up on their anxieties and this can be very unhealthy. Especially in the case of active shooter drills, let's do our best to not make it a scary experience for children.

Here's the Spanish-language version, el artículo en español.

-Angela Valenzuela

Anxiety Over School Shootings

Finding proactive ways to deal with worried feelings

Rachel Ehmke | Child Mind Institute

Quick Read

School shootings have made a lot of parents in America anxious. Parents are often more worried about it than younger kids are. But kids pick up on their parents’ fear. And parents worry that seeing news reports of school shootings may be harming their kids. Some also worry that the “active shooter drills” many schools are practicing could cause more harm than good.

The truth is that school shootings are very rare. But when one does happen, we are overwhelmed by the constant news about it.  When this happens, the first thing to do is shut off the news.

If you are very anxious about school shootings, one way to feel better is to take action. You can get involved in anti-violence activism or start or join a parent group that helps figure out what the school needs to do to be safe and prepared.

Talking to kids about school shootings is important. Kids actually feel less scared when they get to talk about scary things. You can answer their questions and tell them that school shootings are rare. If their school does drills, you can tell kids that they are practicing how to be safe. Active shooter drills should help kids feel safe, not scare them. They shouldn’t use fake guns. That will just scare kids and teachers more. They should be used like fire drills. They should get kids used to practicing a plan, so they know what do to in a real emergency.

It’s also important to let kids know that if another child seems to be very scared, they should let a grown-up know. And kids need to know it’s important to tell an adult if another kid writes or says something scary.

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5 min read

Anxiety over school shootings has become a common fear in America. When something that once seemed unthinkable happens with some regularity, added to our feeling of horror that it’s happened (again!) is another kind of alarm: Could this happen at my child’s school?

And many parents have begun to worry whether the news of school shootings, along with the active-shooter drills most schools are now conducting, are frightening children in a damaging way.

Responding to this concern, Jamie Howard, PhD, director of the Trauma and Resilience Service at the Child Mind Institute, says that parents tend to worry about school shootings more than their children do. “Even though they’re the ones going into school every day, I just don’t hear a lot of kids worrying about it,” she says. “When children are younger they’re more egocentric. As they get to become teenagers this changes.” Thisdevelopmental selfishness is a quality that often protects younger children from the kind of anxiety that the adults around them are experiencing.

This is good news for parents who worry about their children feeling afraid. But kids are very good at picking up on the fears of their parents, and if they sense that Mom or Dad is afraid, they will take notice.

Unhealthy anxiety

Psychologists sometimes describe anxiety as the body’s internal alarm system. You want your alarm system to go off if there is a threat nearby. But sometimes the alarm is triggered too easily and you are alerted when there isn’t any danger at all. Or maybe there is a threat, but it doesn’t actually warrant a full-fledged alarm response.

The way school shootings are covered on television and discussed on social media is intense. We can hear about the tragedy throughout our day, often for several days, whenever we look at a screen. Besides making us feel upset and frustrated, it can also make us feel less safe. “Because it’s so horrific and scary and important it dominates the media and therefore our minds, and we think of it as a much bigger threat than it is, explains Dr. Howard. “The more you watch, the more it tricks your mind into thinking it’s an increased probability of occurring.”

School shootings actually are not very common, so while they are a threat, the likelihood that one will personally affect you is slim. In Dr. Howard’s words, “some anxiety is warranted, debilitating anxiety is not.” If you feel that you are more anxious than you should be, a good first step is always to take a break from any media that might be focusing your attention in an unhealthy direction.

Look for ways to be proactive

Because anxiety is meant to prepare us for action, it makes sense to channel the worries you are feeling into something proactive you can do. One of the things Dr. Howard recommends is forming a parent group at the school. Assessing what the school needs, getting involved in the planning process for drills, and having ongoing conversations about keeping the school safe can make worried parents feel better.

Likewise, participating in political activism or efforts to support mental health and wellness in your community can make you feel like you are making a difference. It also sets a good example for your children, who may want to get involved, too. Many of the students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School began lobbying lawmakers after the tragic shooting at their school, and they inspired students across the country to think about ways they might make their own voices heard. Participating in a school walkout or even just getting their opinion across in a conversation with a parent can make kids feel like their thoughts and values matter, which will feel reassuring.

Talk to your children

Parents are sometimes afraid to bring up school shootings with their children, because they don’t want to scare them. But children will have often heard about a school shooting that is getting a lot of attention in the media, and bringing it up can actually alleviate any anxiety they might be feeling. Avoiding potentially scary topics can make them scarier to children.

These discussions are a chance for you to answer questions that they might have and provide some reassurance. While you can’t promise that their school will never have a shooting, you can in good faith tell them that school shootings are actually very rare and remind them that they practice drills at school to keep them safe.

If you aren’t sure what to say, you can always ask your kids if they have any questions. Use common sense about how much detail to go into, and try not to use euphemisms or fuzzy language, which can make a young child’s imagination run wild.

You can also take this opportunity to share important messages that you want to communicate. For example, Dr. Howard suggests saying, “If a classmate of yours is struggling, we don’t do nothing. We don’t gossip about them. We tell a grownup so they can get help.” Or if your child is a teenager, and another student says or writes something scary, the same advice holds: they should let an adult know.

Active shooter drills

Most schools today practice active shooter drills. The goal of these drills should never be to scare children. Just as we don’t use fake smoke in fire drills, schools don’t need to use fake guns during active shooter drills. Schools who try to make the drills as realistic as possible risk scaring students (and teachers), and miss the point of these drills in the first place.

Schools have active shooter drills to get everyone used to their safety plan. “The more you practice something, the more you rehearse it, you lay the mental tracks so that you decrease the tendency to freeze in the case of a real emergency and you can go quickly into action,” explains Dr. Howard. “In the military you do realistic drills because you really will be in combat, but this is a low-probability event. You just need to lay the tracks so you decrease those few seconds of reaction time.”

When teachers (and parents) talk about the drills, they should do it with a lot of confidence. They should make it clear that school shootings, just like fires, are unlikely, but, says Dr. Howard, “We are going to be ready if it happens. This is what we’re going to do to stay safe.”

El Paso is Terrorized and Trump Smiles After Audience Member Suggests Shooting Migrants

Another terribly sad day for our country.  

Violence against immigrants, Mexicans, and brown people as a whole, is getting trumpeted from the highest level in our country.  Check out Trump's response from a rally in Florida on May 9, 2019 to the suggestion by someone in the audience to shoot migrants (see video and transcript below).  

Well, "shooting them" is exactly what happened yesterday en masse in El Paso as most of us already know by this morning from today's news, including this New York Times piece titled, "Day at a Shopping Center in Texas turns Deadly," with 20 people killed and 26 injured, some critically.

https://tinyurl.com/y2s2kvv7

What might could get lost here is the possibility of this presumed "lone wolf" killer like the one in 
Gilroy a week ago, consisting of individuals who belong to a U.S. Nazi movement that specifically encourages "lone wolf" actions like these.  




For more information, I strongly encourage you to check out this November 20, 2018, PBS Frontline video that exposes this violent, white supremacist underground movement of terrorist cells that are additionally connected to extremists within the U.S. military titled, "Documenting Hate: New American Nazis."

Among other things, including impeaching our "hate mongerer in chief," our government should do everything in its power to eliminate white nationalist extremists in the U.S. military—as research on these groups and movements draw a straight line from the military to this white nationalist movement.

Moreover, white leadership in all places and locations, clergy and non-clergy alike, need to stand up, in a consistent manner, with well-organized responses against these extremist forces of domestic terrorism that have already taken and shattered far too many lives.  

TRANSCRIPT:  “You have hundreds and hundreds of people and you have two or three border security people that are brave and great — And don't forget, we don't let them and we can't let them use weapons. We can't. 

Other countries do. We can't. 

I would never do that. But how do you stop these people?" the president said.

As the president posed that question — a rally attendee in the crowd shouted:  “shoot them.”

The president paused and instead of condemning the remark he said:  “That’s only in the panhandle, can you get away with that statement.”

The crowd erupted in cheers and laughter — after another brief pause, Trump repeated:  “Only in the panhandle.”

A Week From Hell by Charles M. Blow

Here is one of the best, heartfelt and poignant statements that I've read on the immense amount of tragedy that we've encountered this week.  This piece by Greg Dworkin titled, Abbreviated Pundit Round-up: White America must see what it does not want to see is also helpful.  We as Texans and Americans are very saddened and heartbroken for all of the suffering that families are enduring in Dallas, Texas, Falcon Heights, Minnesota, and Baton Rouge, Louisiana even as our memories of Orlando are fresh.

What can you do?  Consider signing this petition to end the gag order on studying gun violence which you can read about here.

Thanks to Kenneth Bernstein for sharing.

Angela

A Week From Hell

Charles M. Blow JULY 8, 2016

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Photo

Demonstrators protesting killings by the police blocked Highway 880 in Oakland, Calif., on Thursday night. Credit Stephen Lam/Reuters

This was yet another week that tore at the very fiber of our nation.

After two videos emerged showing the gruesome killings of two black men by police officers, one in Baton Rouge, La., and the other in Falcon Heights, Minn., a black man shot and killed five officers in a cowardly ambush at an otherwise peaceful protest and wounded nine more people. The Dallas police chief, David O. Brown, said, “He was upset about Black Lives Matter” and “about the recent police shootings” and “was upset at white people” and “wanted to kill white people, especially white officers.”

We seem caught in a cycle of escalating atrocities without an easy way out, without enough clear voices of calm, without tools for reduction, without resolutions that will satisfy.

There is so much loss and pain. There are so many families whose hearts hurt for a loved one needlessly taken, never to be embraced again.

There is so much disintegrating trust, so much animosity stirring.

So many — too many — Americans now seem to be living with an ambient terror that someone is somehow targeting them.

Friday morning, after the Dallas shootings, my college student daughter entered my room before heading out to her summer job. She hugged me and said: “Dad, I’m scared. Are you scared?” We talked about what had happened in the preceding days, and I tried to allay her fears and soothe her anxiety.

How does a father answer such a question? I’m still not sure I got it precisely right.

Truth is, I am afraid. Not so much for my own safety, which is what my daughter was fretting about, but more for the country I love.

This is not a level of stress and strain that a civil society can long endure.

I feel numb, and anguished and heartbroken, and I fear that I am far from alone.

And yet, I also fear that time is a requirement for remedy. We didn’t arrive at this place overnight and we won’t move on from it overnight.

Centuries of American policy, culture and tribalism are simply being revealed as the frothy tide of hagiographic history recedes.

Our American “ghettos” were created by policy and design. These areas of concentrated poverty became fertile ground for crime and violence. Municipalities used heavy police forces to try to cap that violence. Too often, aggressive policing began to feel like oppressive policing. Relationships between communities and cops became strained. A small number of criminals poisoned police beliefs about whole communities, and a small number of dishonorable officers poisoned communities’ beliefs about entire police forces. And then, too often the unimaginable happened and someone ended up dead at the hands of the police.

Since people have camera phones, we are actually seeing these deaths, live and in living color. Now a terrorist with a racist worldview has taken it upon himself to co-opt a cause and mow down innocent officers.

This is a time when communities, institutions, movements and even nations are tested. Will the people of moral clarity, good character and righteous cause be able to drown out the chorus of voices that seek to use each dead body as a societal wedge?

Will the people who can see clearly that there is no such thing as selective, discriminatory, exclusionary outrage and grieving when lives are taken, be heard above those who see every tragedy as a plus or minus for a cumulative argument?

Will the people who see both the protests over police killings and the killings of police officers as fundamentally about the value of life rise above those who see political opportunity in this arms race of atrocities?

These are very serious questions — soul-of-a-nation questions — that we dare not ignore.

We must see all unwarranted violence for what it is: A corrosion of culture.

I know well that when people speak of love and empathy and honor in the face of violence, it can feel like meeting hard power with soft, like there is inherent weakness in an approach that leans so heavily on things so ephemeral and even clichéd.

But that is simply an illusion fostered by those of little faith.

Anger and vengeance and violence are exceedingly easy to access and almost effortlessly unleashed.

The higher calling — the harder trial — is the belief in the ultimate moral justice and the inevitable victory of righteousness over wrong.

This requires an almost religious faith in fate, and that can be hard for some to accept, but accept it we must.

The moment any person comes to accept as justifiable an act of violence upon another — whether physical, spiritual or otherwise — that person has already lost the moral battle, even if he is currently winning the somatic one.

When we all can see clearly that the ultimate goal is harmony and not hate, rectification and not retribution, we have a chance to see our way forward. But we all need to start here and now, by doing this simple thing: Seeing every person as fully human, deserving every day to make it home to the people he loves.

I invite you to join me on Facebook and follow me on Twitter (@CharlesMBlow), or e-mail me at chblow@nytimes.com.
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