How has our country changed in your lifetime?

My daughter bought me a subscription (or should I say bought herself) to Storyworth for Hanukkah one year as a way to consolidate and memorialize family and personal stories. Every few weeks, a question pops into my personal email to which I respond with stories and pictures. This week's question prompted more than just stories. Here is my response:

The answer to this question could fill volumes. I'm writing this following two mass shootings, one in Buffalo, NY and one in Uvalde, TX. The Buffalo shooting was a hate crime against people of color, the Uvalde shooting took the lives of children.?

There have been 300 shootings in schools alone in the past 20 years. The only mass shooting I remember when I was young (1966) took place in Texas.?A gunman climbed into a tower at the University of Texas and opened fire on people walking across the square below. It rocked the country even though we were embroiled in unrest with fairly violent protests against the Viet Nam war and civil rights marches and riots in Detroit, LA and Chicago.?

There is a distinction between civil unrest and mass shootings of innocent people by lone gunmen.?

I looked up the timeline of mass shootings in Texas (we lived in Houston from 1959 - 1960) and interestingly, there wasn't another mass shooting in Texas until 1980 when there were two on the same day. 14 years between mass shootings. Then 11 years later in 1991 there was another one, followed by one 8 years later in 1999. Things were quiet until 2009 when an army psychiatrist killed 13 people on an army base.?

Side note - mass killings were escalating across the country not just in Texas, with one nearly every year since 2012 (2014 was a quiet year). Texas, however, remains the State with the highest number of mass shootings in the U.S.

Back to Texas. 2014 just 5 years later there was another shooting at Fort Hood. Fast forward to 2016 and 2017 and 2018 and 2019 (there were 2) and now in 2022.?

Hate has always existed. I believe hate is based on three things - insecurity, fear and greed. Our country has changed because our complexion is changing. Our culture is changing. Fear and insecurity are fed by change. America is and always will be a melting pot of peoples.

Yes, it was founded in violence by white men who stole land from the first families (indigenous peoples) and brought slaves from Africa. Slaves, who are in no small part responsible for building the America we live in today. Now, 300 years later, white men are afraid of losing the power they once had. America is on the threshold of being a minority majority country and hopefully of being racially blended.

"If nativists overlook the fact that this nation is a nation of immigrants, the future will help remove all doubt."

The United States is experiencing something unprecedented in its 237-year history. Census data and polling conducted by The Associated Press highlight a future where non-Hispanic whites will lose their majority in the next generation.

Fear, of losing power/control. Insecurity, what does this mean for me? Greed. I don't want to lose standing, money, power and if I'm not in control, I will.?

What has changed in the country during my lifetime? Everything and nothing. We continue to be a violent nation. People with power cling to it like their lives depend on it. The difference is that now hate and fear are spread from the top down. Now, rather than use civil disobedience, young men are being radicalized to kill their fellow Americans. Hate is spread with impunity.?

History dictates that somewhere around 250 years, civilizations tend to collapse. According to the report,?democracy?tends to falter over a long period of time, starting with voters believing in candidates who make tempting promises and brazen claims, but?it always results in a dictatorship

Our Republic will be 250 years old in 2026. No Republic in history has lasted more than 250 years. We are already treading on thin ice with corrupt politicians and the strong man mentality of office holders. I am an eternal optomist always looking for the best path forward.?

My bet, my hope is that we will save our Republic and be the first to survive political corruption and authoritarianism. There's work to be done. Just do it.?