Endemic

There is much hand-wringing and concern and, even, panic over the Ebola virus.  There is considerably less panic about Enterovirus D68, even though it's exponentially more likely that you, or your neighbor, or your cousin's kid will get EV-D68 than Ebola.  And still, many Americans won't get their flu shot, which is exponentially more likely to infect than either EV-D68 or Ebola.  I guess we like the adrenaline rush of the panic.  Sigh.

What's endemic and largely ignored and is killing us and hurting us in large numbers is something much more insidious: violence.

I just heard the story (yes, I'm late to the game in this case) of the Freshman boys in Sayreville, NJ who were hazed by upperclassmen.  This hazing wasn't the despicable yet widely accepted punching, shoving, shaming, and other bullying tactics.  This involved digital anal rape while the Freshman boys were held down by other teammates.  And THEN the 13 and 14 year olds were made to LICK the finger just used to rape them.

How did the upperclassmen think of this sadistic rite of passage?  It was done to them.

Let's not pile on Sayreville and think that it's in any way isolated.  Violence is endemic in our society and we are doing very little to stop it.  While NFL players get the spotlight, don't forget that Domestic Violence is an epidemic that isn't going anywhere: facts.  Neither is child abuse, even when the cameras go away from that house of horrors in Blackstone, MA where the bodies of three infants were found along with children who were obviously maltreated.  Then, of course, there's the gun violence.  For every Sandy Hook or Aurora, as horrifying as those are, there's somebody getting shot right about now, since the rate of firearm homicide is about 30 per day.  [Please note that the stats from the Bureau of Justice are intended to show how the rate of firearm violence has DECREASED.  God help us if 11,000 deaths per year is a good thing.]  There's the father of two who made the mistake of confronting a guy with a short trigger and a loaded gun over a driving dispute.

After the shooting at the Navy Yard in Washington, DC, the Chief Medical Officer and Trauma Surgeon spoke so movingly and eloquently.  When she said, though, that "this is not America," I think that she was wrong.  I think that it is, sadly and tragically, America.  And that only Americans can change the culture of violence here.