{"id":3602,"date":"2021-03-26T07:32:20","date_gmt":"2021-03-26T11:32:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/?p=3602"},"modified":"2021-03-26T07:32:20","modified_gmt":"2021-03-26T11:32:20","slug":"this-is-america","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/?p=3602","title":{"rendered":"This Is America"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"This<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I was scrolling through Facebook earlier this week, and I saw this post from Vincent Duffy who is the News Director and my editor at Michigan Radio:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Friend: What’s the latest on the mass shooting?
Me: This is America, you’ll need to be more specific.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

It is almost word for word a conversation I had a few years ago with a work colleague from another country. He expressed concern about a gun violence event here in the US, and I had to ask him to clarify which one. How sad is that?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But what’s sadder than having those conversations is not<\/strong> having these conversations. My foreign friends and co-workers aren’t asking questions anymore. For Sandy Hook, Aurora, Vegas, Parkland, etc. they would want to know why\/how something like this could happen. They would try to understand. This past week nobody has asked me about Atlanta or Boulder. I think it’s because they don’t need to ask. They know \u2014 this is<\/strong> America.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It’s difficult to come up with something new on our country’s gun violence. Even “this is America” is a callback to a song addressing the subject released by Childish Gambino three years ago. The video, with its sudden bursts of gun violence, is particularly disturbing, but that’s the point.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is America. This is America.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It doesn’t have to be. But it is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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