We need one courageous parent who will insist we don't look away.
In 1955, Emmett Till, a 14-year-old Black boy from Chicago, was brutally murdered by two white men who were outraged because the boy flirted with, whistled at or briefly touched — maybe simply spoke to — a married white woman during a trip to Mississippi to visit his uncle. The woman’s husband and his brother several days later dragged Emmett from his bed, beat and mutilated him, gouged his eye out, shot him in the head, and then chained a heavy fan to his body and threw him in a river. His body, recovered from the river three days later, was returned to Chicago for burial. His mother, Mamie Till-Mobley, made the excruciating and courageous decision to have an open casket at a public funeral. Tens of thousands of people attended the funeral or filed past the casket during the five days it lay open in the Roberts Temple Church of God; tens of thousands more saw the photographs of the funeral and the boy’s mangled, bloated body that were published in Jet magazine and other Black-oriented publications.
Let the world see, the grieving mother said. “Let the world see what I’ve seen.” Let the world see what they’ve done.
Now, as America sorts through another incomprehensible mass murder and the legislative paralysis that is sure to follow, maybe now more than ever, we need to see what we’ve done.
To date, nothing else has stopped this scourge — no amount of outrage, no number of protests or lawn signs or letters to Congress, no garment rending, no body count. Maybe in the face of such failure, we need to see what we have wrought, what we have lost, with our eyes wide open.
On Tuesday (May 24, 2022), just days before summer vacation was scheduled to start in Uvalde, Texas, an 18-year-old with an AR-15 and a staggering amount of ammunition entered an elementary school and gunned down 19 little kids and two teachers, all of them huddled in the same classroom. Minutes prior to the massacre, the gunman shot his own grandmother with weapons that he bought legally and easily in the days immediately following his 18th birthday. He turned 18 on May 16; eight days later, he had perpetrated one of the largest, most appalling mass murders in U.S. history. And he, himself, was dead.
Those are just the details. They change with each atrocity, but sometimes we don’t even notice because we turn away so quickly.
Did you know that many historians consider the Boston Massacre the first mass shooting in American history. That happened in 1770, more than six years before the Declaration of Independence. It doesn’t fit the current definition of one shooter and four or more victims, but five people were killed and five others injured after British soldiers, without orders, opened fire into a crowd. The first school shooting in which students were targeted happened as far back as 1891 when a 70-year-old man opened fire on a group of children on a school playground. Several students were injured, but no one died. Or ever hear of this one: In 1949, an honorably discharged veteran, who had a hard time holding a job after his return to civilian life, systematically killed 13 of his neighbors, including a shoemaker, barber, insurance salesman, pharmacist, tailor and two children, 2 and 6 years old. My parents were young adults at the time. I never heard them mention that massacre.
In the intervening years, it has become even easier to commit such as atrocities. We have more powerful weapons that shoot more rounds of ammunition more quickly. We have bullets that can pierce what is supposed to be impenetrable. We have technology that allows us to amass weapons of war and astounding stockpiles of ammunition virtually undetected. We have lax laws, increasingly so, and government representation that lacks the moral fortitude to do not only what is right but what the majority of Americans demand of it.
The University of Texas Clock Tower massacre in 1966 is said to be the first “school shooting” in modern American history. 1966, so long ago. Did you realize that? The grandparents of the children who died Tuesday were likely grade-schoolers themselves when America was stunned by that horrific crime. I wonder how long it took us to turn away back then.
Did you realize that the teens who survived the Columbine massacre in 1999 are approaching 40 years old now? They are the parents now, sending their own beloved children off to school in an American social climate grown only more strident, more divisive, more intransient than that of their traumatic childhoods.
We didn’t turn away from that horror for months it seems, or years, parsing every shot, every step, every missed clue and every stifled cry of desperation, every act of heroism and profession of faith, every failure from every friend and teacher and parent and therapist and cop. We wrote books, filmed documentaries, formed commissions.
And yet, 23 years later, you can still walk into a gun store on your 18th birthday and walk out with a weapon of war, and enough ammunition to destroy scores of families, with little more than a driver’s license and a short stack of bills.
Since Columbine, there have been thousands of shootings at American schools, 14 of them mass shootings, and more than 100 mass shootings at churches, grocery stores and malls, night clubs, concerts, birthday parties, massage parlors, breweries, banks and post offices and hospitals and newspapers, army bases and naval yards.
According to the Gun Violence Archive, there have already been 213 mass shootings in America this year.
According to Reuters, at least 2,000 people have been killed in mass shootings in America since 1999.
Two thousand. That’s the size of my high school graduating class, times 3½. It’s as if a gunman took out every single person who lives in Telluride (or every person who lives in San Luis, Fairplay and Winter Park, Colo., combined). It’s as if a shooter went to Elitch’s on a full-to-capacity day and shot every other person who came through the gate — or killed every person at Water World, two days in a row.
So maybe, even after Columbine and the long, drawn-out national soul-searching that followed, we did look away too soon. Because how could we see that and allow it to continue?
How could we continue to turn away?
On Tuesday, after news of the massacre in Uvalde, J. David McSwane, a reporter at ProPublica and former investigative reporter at some of the most influential newspapers in the country, said this on Twitter: “Every reporter who has had to cover one of these mass killings comes across sensory detail and info they decide is too horrific to responsibly report. And each time it happens, it’s all you can think about.”
I get that.
I used to be a reporter; and although I covered more courts than crime, I did see some things that stay with me. Not of course to that extent, not a mass shooting, not the senseless slaughter of babies. But there were some stories that I remember all these years later for which I withheld details, thinking — likely arrogantly and incorrectly — that readers didn’t want to digest or couldn’t stomach such harsh reality in their morning paper: the ribald jokes of men searching through a burned-out potato warehouse for the remains of a fallen worker; the sexually explicit testimony and graphic images in a domestic violence murder trial; the creak of a gurney when a body bag is lowered onto it; the smell of blood — or death — at the scene of an officer-involved shooting.
I was young then; and although there were sensational mass shootings even then (22 killed, 19 injured at a McDonald’s in San Ysidro, Calif., two months after I graduated from college), it seems now like an easier, more peaceful time. News companies took their gatekeeper role seriously, giving readers (or viewers) the stories and information they needed but shielding them from the sickening details and allowing them to turn away. I think now that they took that responsibility too seriously.
In December 2012, just days before school recessed for Christmas break, a disturbed teenager killed 20 first-graders and six adult staff members at an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut. In the days that followed, a broken-hearted nation demanded change. The grieving president spoke to the country: “… we’re going to have to come together and take meaningful action to prevent more tragedies like this, regardless of the politics.” And he spoke at a prayer vigil: “In the coming weeks, I will use whatever power this office holds to engage my fellow citizens … in an effort aimed at preventing more tragedies like this. Because what choice do we have? We can’t accept events like this as routine.” Legislators proposed a litany of gun control measures: universal background checks, an assault weapons ban, restrictions on large-capacity magazines, red flag laws, mandatory waiting periods, controls on Internet sales.
I remember thinking then that there was no way those baby steps would fail to pass because so many Americans wanted action and, come on, the victims this time were first-graders.
But the federal legislation did not pass. None of it. Most Republicans shamefully voted against the sensible bills and Democrats dishonored those little children by failing to try again.
Since the massacre in Newtown, we have wept then turned away, chosen inaction instead of action, in places all across the country including Charleston, S.C., Orlando, Fla., Las Vegas, Sutherland Springs, Texas, Parkland, Fla., El Paso, Texas, Boulder, Colo., Buffalo, N.Y., and now Uvalde, Texas.
They say that Emmett Till’s open-casket and the photographs of his funeral reignited the civil rights movement. Rosa Parks was reportedly thinking about the murdered teen when she refused to give up her seat on the bus. President Dwight Eisenhower signed the Civil Rights Act just two years after Mamie Till-Mobley said, “Let them see what I’ve seen.”
That’s what we need now, in this heart-wrenching, horrifying, uniquely American quagmire:
> One courageous official who escorts members of Congress, all of them, through the classroom where bullets and bodies still lay giving testimony to what we’ve become.
> One courageous publication that opens the gate and says, let the country, the Congress, the NRA see what has been sacrificed to their heartless rhetoric and appalling cowardice.
> One courageous mother who opens the casket that cradles her baby and says let the world see what we’ve done.
There is still time to change this if we collectively commit ourselves to a better, safer America. If we embrace the courage of our lost innocents and, against all odds, seek solutions instead of arming ourselves with blindness and intransigence. If we choose forward movement and rebuke political paralysis and moral stagnation. If we own our complicity — historical, traditional and personal — and refuse, finally, to look away.
The Pie
Chocolate-Balsamic Strawberry Pie
My dad kind of lost his appetite when he got sick. He eats OK but just OK and you can’t count on him to still be in the eating mood when dessert is served. Because of that, the pie-a-week experiment kind of came to a halt. I haven’t given up on the idea. I intend to keep going until I get to 52; but by the time I get to the end, this may be more like every-other-week pie.
This pie, No. 36, is a great exploration of subtle flavors. On one of her excursions through cooking catalogues, my sister discovered a beautiful bottle of chocolate balsamic vinegar. It’s tasty drizzled over vanilla ice cream, but it’s both elevated by and elevating to a plump, sweet strawberry. Unlike traditional chocolate pies that can be heavy and cloyingly sweet, the vinegar adds a soft hint of chocolate and an acidic zestiness that counterbalances the sweetness of the fruit. With berries in abundance in the grocery stores right now, this recipe is well worth the search for the vinegar.
It’s hard to turn away from this treat.
The Recipe
2 ½ pounds strawberries
1 cup granulated sugar
6 tablespoons tapioca starch
¾ cup sugar
¾ cup raw turbinado sugar
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
2 tablespoons chocolate balsamic vinegar
Buttery All-Purpose Crust
Trim and quarter strawberries. Place in large bowl. Sprinkle with 1 cup sugar; toss to combine. Let stand 20 minutes at room temperature.
Meanwhile, roll out dough, approximately 1/8 inch thick. Line 9-inch pie plate with extra dough overhanging (about 1 inch). Place in fridge while you prepare lattice.
In a small bowl, whisk together tapioca starch, ¾ cup granulated sugar, raw sugar and salt.
Drain strawberries,. Add sugar and tapioca starch mixture, then add vanilla and chocolate balsamic vinegar.
Transfer filling to the prepared pie dish, packing in slightly. It is OK if it mounds a little because the fruit will cook down a lot.
Prepare lattice on top of pie. Crimp edges.
Rest pie in fridge for at least 30 minutes.
Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
Place baking sheet on bottom rack.
Brush pie with egg wash (for a shiny crust) and sprinkle with raw turbinado sugar.
Bake for 20 minutes or until pastry is set and beginning to get golden. Reduce oven temperature to 375 degrees and bake until pastry is deeply golden and filling is bubbling — 40 to 50 minutes.
Remove from oven and cool on wire rack. Allow to cool completely before serving.
Store leftovers at room temperature for up to three days.
Buttery All-Purpose Crust
2½ cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons salt
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
¾ cup (1 ½ sticks) cold unsalted butter, cut into 1-inch pieces
¼ cup (4 tablespoons) cold vegetable shortening
¼ cup (4 tablespoons) cold vodka
6 tablespoons cold water, plus extra as needed
In a large bowl, mix together the flour, salt and sugar until thoroughly combined. Add the butter and shortening and cut together with a pastry cutter until the mixture forms small pea-sized crumbs.
Pour the vodka over the mixture, a tablespoon at a time, using a rubber spatula. Add the water and press the dough together to form two large balls. If the dough seems dry or does not hold together, add extra water a tablespoon at a time until all the ingredients come together. (Be careful not to work the dough too much to prevent the crust from being tough.)
Press each ball into a 1-inch disk, wrap each in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least an hour — or up to two days — before rolling out.
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