Slanted American Tradition: Broken Children and Unbroken Barriers

Last Friday night, after hearing about the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, I spent the last hour of my son’s preschool day in class with him. I feared for his safety. The thought that scared me most wasn’t the possibility of some white man draped in a black trench coat, carrying semi-automatic weapons, charging into his classroom; it was, and is, the fact that the nation will eventually try with all its might to cut through my son’s spirit. The Sandy Hook murders were a painful reminder of the American tradition my three-year-old son will have to reckon with. This unfaltering reality frightens me because there is no emergency response for that. More »