Letters: 3/20 Coalition aims to reshape community; Return to morality would benefit society

3/20 Coalition aims to reshape community

Despite the divisions we see in our town in the long wake of Osaze Osagie’s death, I believe our community can empathize with the pain of losing a son, a brother, a loved one. What does that loss feel like?

Thinking from this painful space, what if that loss resulted from the history and systems our society is built on? If your appearance or the state of your mental health increased your risk for violent or fatal encounters with law enforcement, this reality would be deeply unfair.

The 3/20 Coalition is trying to remedy this reality for our Black and brown neighbors and ultimately help us all by advocating for supportive, accessible systems for anyone in crisis; advocating to provide human needs of safety, housing, and medical care first so that fewer crisis calls are made, to consider alternatives to police for mental health calls, all of which would make an officer’s job safer. The goal is not to take away but to reshape how our community is protected and supported.

While we may feel separate from one another, we belong to the same town. When any part of us lives in pain, fear or distrust, this ripples through us all, just like the coronavirus, traveling invisibly across the globe, making it difficult to see and trust one another. For too long, we’ve been looking at each other to find blame for the pain in our lives, but it’s time we look at the structures around us instead.

Return to morality would benefit society

Once again, our nation is grieving over mass shootings. I do not own a gun, and I do not have a position on the politically charged issue of gun control laws. But I do have an opinion on why this is happening. Once upon a time, in this country, people were taught that there is a “right and wrong” determined by a deity to whom they were responsible. They were taught standards of ethics based in the Bible. Over the last two centuries, these beliefs have been intentionally undermined. We have entered a post-Christian culture where there is no absolute moral standard. Strong nuclear families, where Dad is faithful to Mom for life and where children grow up with a sense of belonging and purpose, are no longer the societal norm. The Ten Commandments, including “Thou shalt not murder,” have been removed from public places. We are taught that life originated from pond scum and there is no higher power to whom we are responsible. People are desensitized to killing through violent movies and taught to enjoy it through violent video games. It is possible that stricter gun control laws would prevent some mass shootings. Totalitarian regimes can control people’s behavior. But the only way to retain the societal freedoms we have always valued while preventing disastrous social ills is through a return to a morality based on the Judeo-Christian worldview, where “You shall love your neighbor as you love yourself” is implanted in the conscience.