Erika Eichelberger: Your Home is your Abattoir.

in 2nd grade a boy kicked me in an unconscionable place.
that same year i tried to push my best friend into a wall.
in 4th grade i went to school with jonbenet ramsay, who was then abducted and murdered in her own basement
that same year, a couple of towns over, the columbine shootings occurred.
i have been hit so badly i had to lie about my bruises to other people.
i have been hit so badly i've contemplated suicide.
i have witnessed someone attempt suicide.
i have witnessed two people try to knife each other on the metrobus.
two years ago some one was shot in the head by a driver, 50 feet from where i used to live.
i have been physically assaulted by a romantic partner.
i have physically assaulted a romantic partner.
i have worked with teenagers who have experienced much, much worse.

our culture of violence doesn't start abroad with "terrorists". it starts in our homes, in our communities, in ourselves. while the nra's sway over the government is disgusting, and the recent spate of mass killings horrifying, it is not surprising given the culture we continue to nurture through our refusal to confront the true violence that happens in our personal lives, violence that grows outward in the form of fear, political intimidation, appeals to 'self-defense', and ultimately, tragedy.

please stop the madness.

3 people died in the boston marathon today. 3 people. this would feel a little more significant, if i didn't walk around every day carrying the knowledge that at least 3 people within a 20 mile radius of me will have died by the end of the day. they will have died at the hands of police, wayward drivers, inadequate hospitals. they will have died and their poverty, their ethnicity, their own moral failure be held up as a reason to not be moved to action. just a few days ago a teenage rape victim in canada hung herself, and there are still commenters on the internet calling her a slut.

i am grateful for the outpouring of civic pride and generosity in the wake of the boston marathon explosion, which was a truly perverse and appalling event. but i am also disappointed at the societal forces that sensationalize some deaths while keeping others quiet, choosing to only provide rest to the dead who fit within a certain paradigm. my blood runs cold at the thought that, if the perpetrator is "foreign", it will spark the second war on terror. if the perpetrator is a u.s. citizen, well, no one will have the courage to call it terrorism.

this is an unpopular opinion, so i am writing it in a place where very little people frequent. boston seems so far away when, 5 miles away, helicopters circle and the sound of drug shootings is muffled by the barking of guard dogs, in the neighborhood where one of my students lives.