The mass shooting that recently took place in Kansas City on the day the city was celebrating the Chief’s winning the Super Bowl was a tragedy.
It’s a tragedy, first and foremost, for Lisa Lopez-Galvan, who lost her life for no good reason, and it’s a tragedy for all those who love her. It’s a tragedy for the other victims who were harmed in the gunfire.
However, it’s also a tragedy for the citizens of Kansas City who are traumatized by this senseless act. And with the number of mass shootings taking place in our country, it’s a tragedy for our nation.
I mean, who should have to think twice about attending a city-wide celebration?
I don’t read or watch the news anymore. I know terrible things are happening around the globe and I’d rather not be reminded of it every moment of every day. Funk lets me know when important things occur, and that’s usually when I research the topic for myself.
This time, though, I learned about this brutal act on my own, shortly after I made my latest post on Facebook.
There I learned that the person killed, Ms. Lopez-Galvan, is a mother, wife, daughter, friend, and a beloved radio show personality. She is a stunningly beautiful woman who touched many lives and yet she prematurely crossed to the other side.
In post after post on Facebook—many penned by people who didn’t know the homicide victim—the sentiment was one of disbelief and horror, with a major theme being that “this was not the Kansas City they knew.”
Reading that, my mind immediately went to what I know about Kansas City.
Gun violence isn’t a new phenomenon, it’s been going on for years on end. In fact, Kansas City ranks 7th in the nation for murders. And most of those murders take place on the east side—otherwise known as the “Black part of town.”
When I was a young mother, my biggest fear was that one of my children would die.
Still, our family was an anomaly in Kansas City. We not only sent our children to public schools, but those schools were located on the east side. Which means, I knew many of the moms whose children went to those same schools.
With the number of shootings taking place on the east side, I didn’t know how those mothers had the courage to send their kids to school, much less let them outside to play. But what choice did they have? How could their children get ahead if not through education?
Again, it is a tragedy what happened to Ms. Lopez-Galvan and to her loved ones. So please, this post isn’t meant to minimize that pain. There is no hierarchy when it comes death and sorrow. When it happens to you, a death is a death is a death. And when death comes from murder, I can only imagine that it’s a horror that is even harder to accept.
This is just my way of responding to the sentiment expressed by many people on Facebook that “this is not the Kansas City they know.”
Because I think that’s one of the problems.
Good people said that, and their intentions are pure. But the fact remains, Kansas City is one of the most segregated cities in America and too many white people know nothing about the heartache that the mothers in the “Black part of town” endure almost daily.
What are those mothers supposed to think when they hear “this isn’t the Kansas City I know” when their loved ones are being shot up right and left over there? When their hearts are constantly ripped to shreds. Where is the outrage for them? Where is the media attention?
If I were one of those moms, I’d want to blow the whole place up.
We are one of the wealthiest nations in the world, surely we can find a way to come together and solve our violence problem. If we don’t, then it’s only a matter of time before violence touches every neighborhood in America, just like it did in Kansas City.
The Photo: Our home in Kansas City. When we lived there, I often wondered why every neighborhood couldn’t be as beautiful and safe as our neighborhood in Brookside. That’s still my question.