There’s an African proverb it goes “When you want to measure the wellness of a community you ask: ‘How are the children doing?’

In America, the answer is very clear on how it treats its children. It is the same answer as it treats its middle aged and seniors.

It is best reflected in events in Buffalo and a week later in Texas. Middle aged and seniors enter a supermarket store to shop; ten year old fourth-grade children enter the sanctuary of an elementary school to explore words and worlds of wonder, joy, imagination, hope and fulfillment. Both groups leave in body bags. This is America.

It can not, it must not be sugar coated, this is America. Let us not be fooled. The attention and momentary outrage is due to the number of people murdered at the same location, at the same time. However, each day in the US is just another savage, blood-letting day in the Old Wild West with its shootouts and violence. Blood and bodies line the streets and alleys in America. Each day far exceeded the single day totals of the one day carnage in Buffalo and Texas.

“And the only safe place to live is on an Indian reservation. And the band played on.” Small time and small town Trenton had 40 such murders the last two years and may equal or exceed that number in 2022. No big deal, just another day in Trenton, just another day in America. It basically has just become a numbers game. We see numbers but not people. Almost similar to being at a slot machine in Atlantic City putting coins in the slot machine. After a while we forget the coins are actually money. They become something else.

Those who died in Buffalo are not people who danced, raised families; attended church; rooted for sports teams; rode the bus; played the lottery; were high school sport standouts. They are just mere statistics of who America is.

Those who died in Texas a week later were not ten and 11 year old babies who did the latest TiK Tok dances and film videos on Tik Tok; listened to the latest music; played video games and liked anything with wheels; had athlete and team favorites and favorite songs; celebrated birthdays and making the honor roll; and loved their brothers and sisters, parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles They were not ten and 11 year old innocents who enjoyed fries and burgers, nuggets and milk shakes; dreamed of playing in the NBA and MLB; becoming doctors, teachers, marine biologists, artists and lawyers, traveling to distant planets; and who could still enjoy Christmas.

No, they were not ten and 11 year old children of God fashion in His/Her/Their image who babysat younger brothers and sisters: loved pets and animals; looked forward to wearing eye black grease when playing baseball and softball; found Halloween exciting; liked soccer, basketball,,football, baseball, softball and gymnastics; saved money to go to Disney World, liked to play with Play-Doh: and enjoyed the movie :Encanto.

They too, like the dead in Buffalo, were nothing more than numbers. Nothing more than statistics. The Sunday after the murders in Buffalo how many churches, temples, mosques, whatever throughout the US failed, perhaps even refused to knowledge those deaths because the indiviudals who died were not similiar enough to the people who made up the congregations of their chruch, temple, mosque?

The Sunday after the murders in Texas how many churches, temples, mosques, whatever throughout Trenton and the US failed perhaps even refused to knowledge those children and adults who died because they were not similiar enough to the children and adults who made up the congregations of their church, temple, mosque?

Unable, unwilling to see in the faces and the stories of those children, their own children and grandchildren? That too is America.

For years, decades, Americans have been fed a steady diet of propaganda about how free and wonderful America was and is. America the greatest country in the history of civilization. Nowhere was there more democracy and freedom than America.

It was the ultimate propaganda and lie that served the American government and allied institutions well. They would point to the then-Soviet Union, Cuba, China, Iran, Iraq and other evil places where people were not free. Americans swallowed it down and asked for more.

However, how much freedom does one really have when they are afraid to go to a supermarket, sit in a park, a movie theater, a ballpark or even their house of worship for fear of not coming home due to senseless gun violence? How free and how great is America when parents, grandparents and others have to wonder if the goodbye given to their child or children, grandchild or grandchildren will be their last goodbye because America is not safe for children?

A great philosopher once said, “Don’t worry, If there’s a hell below, we're all gonna go.” It is called America. It has always been America.

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