I do have to go serious today. Yesterday my Ex and I spent the day in Santa Fe enjoying great New Mexican cuisine and wandering through the art galleries both on the Plaza and up on Canyon Road. As we were driving into town we noticed that Old Santa Fe Trail past the legislature was blocked off and there was a large police presence and the Round House itself is surrounded by tall fencing.

I am certain this is because of January 6th when a lot of deluded people who had been lied to for months by a former president and representatives of the Republican party, and a not insignificant number of white supremacists and fascists tried to overthrown American democracy.

And yesterday a young man who could get a gun on the same day, did so, and then went and killed 8 people. (If only voting in Georgia were so easy.) Six of the eight victims were Asian women. It should not be lost on any of us that the former guy continuously addressed the pandemic with racial slurs which his party continues to this day. Or that incidents of violence against Asian citizens in this country have increased significantly. Or that Georgia sheriff who seemingly tried to excuse the killer by saying he “had had a really bad day”, well, it turns out the sheriff himself owns a jacket using the racial slur rather than calling the virus Covid-19.

So why did this white kid go on a killing spree? Was it misogyny mixed with racial animus? A steady diet of Fox, ONN, InfoWars and a plethora of other right wing sites? His apologists were quick to point out he was a “good Christian”. Did he hear in church that people who didn’t worship their god were less than, evil, bad?

Honestly I don’t care. I want this hate to stop. I want people to be allowed to live their lives free of fear. I want people to be able to love who they want, worship as they please, identify in whatever way is right for them. I want free, open and easy access to the voting booth. I want guns to be less easily available in this country. I want a political party that traffics in racism, voter suppression, lies and conspiracy theories to go the way of the Whigs.

I want the fences to come down and the divisions between peoples based on race, religion, ethnic origin, gender, sexuality to be erased. I want us to actually live up to the ideals we espouse, but have yet to achieve.