Dona E. Bowens

Now it’s personal. Me—a middle-aged, menopausal, over-educated Black woman was nearly shot in a drive-by shooting yesterday. Three in the afternoon on a Tuesday. In the Midwest. The Rustbelt city of Akron, Ohio. Minding my own bizness and house hunting with my realtor/friend in a neighborhood that’s attempting to gentrify. Obviously some have given up the attempt at gentrification as evidenced by the bargain basement price of the century home I was this close to making a bid on.

This close to making a bid until shots rang out from a passing car just as my friend and I were leaving the property. We were exposed to the bullets, in the middle of the street, frozen like the proverbial deer in goddamn headlights until my mind kicked into gear. And there goes my old ass, running for cover and landing in the mud behind my car, fully expecting to get shot or at least to have my car windows blasted out. I don’t know who led who, but my friend ended up kneeling in the mud behind my car with me and she breathlessly asked me, “Are you ok?” I confirmed that I was and returned the question. She confirmed she was ok, too. “What do we do,” she asked. “We wait until the coast is clear and then we get the fuck outta here,” I said.

As the shots rang out, I didn’t wish that I too had a gun to shoot back. I only wished for the shooting to stop so that I could get the fuck out of Dodge.

When the coast was clear, we got in our cars and high-tailed it. I think my friend got her car up on two wheels as she bent the corner. It was then that I knew, in this country of more guns than people, if it can happen to me, it can happen to anyone, anywhere, anytime.

I heard something the other week from a British commentator in response to whatever shooting happened the other week. He said, “You can’t feel sorry for a people who refuse to make a change.”

Well, feel sorry for me, goddamn it. I vote for people who want to make a change and I refuse to own a gun myself because why? If I’d been packing yesterday, I didn’t even have enough wits about me to return fire. Ohio is an open carry state. What am I going to do? Go strapped to the dentist? Words have always been my weapon of choice, so anyone so determined could easily relieve me of my gun and shoot me with it. Wouldn’t that be embarrassing AF?

So no, I won’t become a gun owner any time soon because I’d just be adding to the problem.

You can’t feel sorry for a people who refuse to make a change

Unknown Brit

That quote keeps coming back to me. Americans do so much navel gazing without realizing how childish we look to the world. That quote hits me in the guts because the world no longer mourns our dead lost to gun violence. They think we deserve it. And let’s be honest, some of us do deserve it because with their votes and habits, they refuse to make a change. Sadly, the rest of us who desperately want change get caught in the crossfire, literally. We are held hostage, at gunpoint, by the mouth-breathing, tiny-dicked, dry-vaginaed, poorly-educated, lunatic right fringe. Those motherfuckers want us all dead. And the world doesn’t give a damn anymore.