I didn't want to talk about this publicly until I saw last night's Daily Show. I thought it was inappropriate until Jon Stewart made a very good point: Now is the perfect time to talk about it. The only time. For what it's worth:
I wrote a blog yesterday and it was pretty shitty. That’s what usually happens when you don’t write about what’s on your mind. I didn’t want to talk about the shootings in Aurora because I never really find it my place to discuss such things. Especially on the internet. I’ve never seen anyone die, or been shot at. How could I possibly hope to empathize on even a basic level? I can pretend to, but I don’t have any honest understanding of the kind of loss and fear they felt.
But this situation is so infuriating that I feel the need to speak out. To say something. Even if it's selfish, I need to know why this situation bothers me on such a base level. And maybe someone on the internet will read this and be as upset as I am, and maybe they’ll feel a little better. Who the fuck knows? I just need to say this stuff.
I haven’t been this angry about an event that didn’t have a direct impact on my life since Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans. That was the first thought I had when I was trying to decipher why the Aurora shootings were effecting me in such a visceral way. After all, Katrina was a natural disaster. This was caused by a person (if you can call that useless pile of shit a person). But in the aftermath of Katrina, no one lifted a finger. The crimes against the people effected by hurricane Katrina were committed in the days and weeks after the storm ended. While there is no one person to blame, blood is certainly on someone’s hands.
I realized there was no great answer to the mystery of my rage. It was simple, really: I can relate. Even if I’ve never experienced anything approaching what those killed in Aurora have, I can relate to who they were. In the case of Katrina, I’m southern. It hit close to home. Even in ways as simple as aesthetic similarities. New Orleans looks a lot like the South Carolina low country. I’ve also been evacuating for hurricanes since I was 8-years-old. I slept through Katrina in my car in a Miami parking lot while on “vacation.” (Long story.) The bulk of my youth was spent living below the poverty line, and I know what it's like to live life with a pervasive sense that you've been forgotten by the rest of the planet. In the case of New Orleans, it wasn’t just a “sense.”
Now, Aurora: I’m a huge nerd. The kind of people that attend the midnight release of a comic book movie are... my people. They are my people. The geeks, the nerds, the fanboys/girls that will show up four hours before a movie starts and pay triple normal ticket price so they can spend two-and-half hours not living on this planet anymore. Living somewhere that is bigger than you, bigger than reality. It’s the escapism that a true nerds crave. Either because of social anxiety, or a mind that can’t turn off and feeds on grand concepts. The people could have been me. The people that died are people that I could easily have called friend, and I don’t even need to concentrate very hard to know the kind of decent, friendly people of which I’m speaking. I’ve been getting together with huge groups of them my entire life. In front of comic book shops or movie theaters or video game stores. The majority of geeks aren't just "not assholes," they're the sweetest, most caring group of people on the planet. In my lifelong experience hanging out with them, they never judge and they are always pleasant. I not only relate to who these people are, my entire identity is one I share with them.
If the geeks of the world (many of whom had to suffer crushing societal pressure that kept insisting they be someone else) can’t escape in a movie theater, where the fuck are they supposed to feel safe? We need that security and it’s gone now.
Not just geeks... I feel like I’m being some kind of exclusivist here, and that’s certainly not what I want to do. Humans need artistic escape. We always have. The moments when we can forget who we are and where we are and can just be for a time. How dare that useless piece of shit take that away from us. I don’t care what his agenda was. It’s not anyone’s right to take away the comfort inherent is something as universal as “going to the movies.”
It’s the destruction of innocence. For some reason it stings less when this sort of thing happens on the street, or on a subway, or near a target of political/military significance. And it does happen in those places and many others, every day, all year, all over the world. But this was just a movie theatre. A movie theatre with kids in it and people that weren’t guilty of anything other than being fans of Batman. They weren’t rallying for or against a cause. They weren’t working for “the man,” or even doing anything quintessentially American. They were just going to see a fucking movie.
I don’t want to put undo attention on James Holmes, because who gives a shit about human filth like him... But I hope you rot in the deepest corner of the darkest prison with the largest dick in your ass.
And a quick note to the media: Now is EXACTLY the time to talk about gun control. Not to ban cosplay from movie theaters.
To those in Aurora, and to those who know the victims: I am truly sorry.
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