Re: Gary

>I have been unable to write about the murder of Gary and Winfield
>until today.
>
>What has given me hope in the face of my anger and depression is the 
>possibility
>that Gary's and Winfield's deaths may result ultimately in revealing to the
>world how inter-related are the seemingly isolated incidents of domestic 
>terror in
>this country.

I'm glad you did write though, Deborah, and my thoughts will be especially 
with you.

I didn't know Gary personally; wish I had known him.  Any time something 
like this happens, I find myself thinking, "will this wake folks up?"  The 
answer is no and yes I suppose - I can't assume to know the thoughts of 
anyone on this list before the news came but the response certainly showed 
that people do give a damn.  It's sad to think that for most Americans, it 
will be just another headline about an unfortunate somebody somewhere.   I 
found myself with similar feelings after Columbine - will things like this 
make us look farther than making more laws and look at the real problems 
behind hate and violence in our country?  And again, the answer is yes and 
no - some people think deeply, others don't, and some will rally for yet 
another law against whatever.   But what of the continued ignorance and 
despair that encourage people to blindly follow a dogma of hate and blame of 
others for problems?   Who want to blame gay people for their marital 
difficulties because they can't solve them themselves, or blame jewish 
people for their financial difficulties because they are in the dark about 
the real forces in their economic lives?   A personal experience like this 
forces one to think harder about it and if such a dark cloud could ever have 
a silver lining, that would be it.

Being "another one" myself, I've thought a lot about hate crimes 
legislation, and find myself thinking "well, okay, go for it, but it doesn't 
look at the reasons for the hate and the ignorance behind it."  And so it 
seems to me that yet more legislation to try and combat this will be sort of 
like (where's a good garden metaphor here?) trying to get rid of some weedy 
tree by picking the fruits.  It might solve the immediate problem but we are 
going to be mighty busy, and as the tree gets bigger every year, we'll spend 
more and more time trying to control the fruit it bears.  Sooner or later we 
have to look and find the root and do something on that level.  Why seek out 
and kill a gay person, or find and firebomb a synogogue in the first place?  
What's the motive here?  "Hate" is an easy answer, but why hate, why now, 
why these people who have harmed nobody?  Why are people needing a scapegoat 
so badly?

Each of us will come to different conclusions. I don't pretend to have all 
the answers and don't think there is only one right thing to do.  Neither do 
I want to turn this into an argument about "what should be done" --  I've 
maybe gone too far in that direction already for this list.  But I do hope 
that each of us will think beyond the grief of the personal loss, to the 
bigger issue, and as Deborah has pointed out, remember that the political, 
the happenings "over there" have had immediate and unavoidable consequences 
in our own lives right here.  And that we all have votes and a political 
voice.

Some may see talk about society's problems now as trivializing Gary's death 
- but his death being inseparable from these issues, if we didn't think 
about them, his death would be even more of a waste than it already is.

Bob



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