Safer?

Never!
(Received this in the mail post-Orlando.) 

 It's not uncommon for me to bring current events into my ESL classroom. They're all adults, and it's empowering for them to be able to voice opinions about their new country in their new language.

After Orlando, I wanted to talk with my students about it. But how? Most of them come from religious backgrounds that prohibit homosexuality. Their reaction to the subject tends to be about the same as a seven-year-old boy who hears the word "underpants". There is whispering and giggling.

I decided to approach it from the issue of guns. I asked the basic question that America is facing. Do more guns make America safer?

Many of these students have extensive experience with guns. They have seen chaos and bloodshed on a scale Americans can't imagine. After discussion, they unanimously expressed support for strict gun control. "Only the government needs guns. To protect us." Black Lives Matter would have squirmed to hear the naive trust these new black and brown Americans have in our institutions.

Then someone asked, "Teacher, can't the president do something?"

"Remember when we studied government? All laws have to come from Congress. And Congress won't do anything."

Their trust crumbled, just a little.

The House Democrats tried. They sat. They spoke. They shouted...Nothing.

Our representative, Eric Paulsen, who passes himself off as moderate because he never voices an opinion, voted to do nothing.

So it was ironic that the next week, the NRA sent a membership solicitation warning me that I am under attack. Especially by the "freedom-hating Hollywood elite." These moustache-twirling evildoers are plotting to take my guns. And my children's! How could they? Only the NRA can save me. Putting an NRA member sticker on my car will send tremors of fear through local politicians. Just $25 buys me this super power for one year. Or, if I'm a bargain shopper, I can get three years for $70 or even five years for $100. There are some nifty member gifts, too.

It's the NRA who keeps telling us that more guns = more safety. But we haven't heard much from them this week, when Philando Castile's gun made a police officer nervous enough to kill him.

It's easy to fault the cop for being nervous. It must mean he's racist. Black = bad must be at work in his soul. Like so many before him, he saw black. He killed black.

Dallas reminds us that police officers have a right to be nervous. Police are some of the first to say that the more guns = more safety formula doesn't work for them. It puts their lives at risk.

But this can't continue. 

     More guns

  Nervous cops 

+  Black is bad 

       More death 

"Teacher, can't the president do something?" 

"No." I said. "All laws have to come from Congress. And Congress won't do anything. But you can. When you vote, think about guns." 

Farmer's Market

It seems like every time I'm wearing a t-shirt that announces my advocacy for gay rights (I have quite a collection), I run into my Baptist neighbors. They're wonderful people who may very well support gay rights themselves, but we don't discuss it, and I'm left to wonder what they think of me.

Last Saturday, I went to the Farmer's Market. The first of the year. My expectations for produce were low, since it's still early in the growing season, but I headed out to see what could be harvested. I was wearing one of those t-shirts—the gay ones—though I'd thought momentarily about changing, given the possibility that I would run into one of my adult ESL students, who snigger every time the subject of same-sex marriage comes up.

Sure enough, while waiting to cross the street to the market, I stood behind a woman whose t-shirt bore the names of local mega-churches and organizations that had tried so hard to make sure no gay couple would ever wed legally in Minnesota. I know, because I worked hard to help defeat them. Across the street, Jehovah's Witnesses stood on the sidewalk, over-dressed for vegetables. They would have been happy to answer any questions I may have had about my eternal damnation. Inside the market, Somali families carried bags of food that they couldn't touch until sundown because it was Ramadan.

This was one day before the carnage in Orlando. In the aftermath, people who worship guns—for having, not hunting—have claimed once again that only more guns will make us safe. But if all of us who wear our conflicting identities so publicly, backed up our differences with weapons, going to the farmer's market would be as dangerous as going to a movie theater. Or an elementary school. Or a community center. Or a Bible study. Or a nightclub.