IF GUNS ARE VALUED MORE THAN AMERICAN CHILDREN, THE KILLING OF CHILDREN ELSEWHERE BECOMES ACCEPTABLE

I was a high school senior in Southeast Asia when the Columbine High School massacre took place. That was 1999, and I remember how intrigued I was to hear on the news about an unfamiliar foreign event that seemed too unbelievable to be true. Teenagers getting hold of a firearm and embarking on a massacre of their fellow classmates and teachers? This was incomprehensible to me. A documentary by Michael Moore released in 2002 provided my teenage self with some understanding of America's fear-based culture and the political influence from which it develops, and I had thought (was it teenage naiveté or mere reason?) that the US having a mirror held up to itself would finally help in its much-needed transformation.

Today, almost twenty years later, and the issue of gun control is still a debated topic in the US. Americans need to understand that for the rest of the world – and I’m willing to make that strong assumption – this falls somewhere between staggering and tedious. The only difference is that it's now children and teenagers at the frontlines, confronting the adults who are meant to protect them. The students of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School are on the cover of Time, featured in Elle, leading speeches in Washington, DC. Their names and voices dominate the news. It's all worthy of applause, but these students from Florida echo a forgotten shadow in America's violent past – the children of Birmingham, Alabama.

The Birmingham Children's Crusade of 1963 saw thousands of African American children – some as young as seven – confront the white establishment during the Civil Rights Movement in Alabama. What prominent African American leaders including Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. could not achieve through non-violent protest – Dr. King was in a Birmingham jail at the time – their children voluntarily, and courageously agreed to take on in their place. After being trained in nonviolent tactics, they took to the streets on May 2nd to peacefully protest segregation in Birmingham. Those who weren't arrested had powerful water hoses turned on them, were beaten with batons, and attacked by police dogs.

Michael Ochs Archives/GETTY IMAGES

The Civil Rights Movement continued its struggle, but that incident ensured that they could no longer go unacknowledged by the authorities. The world had witnessed through the media the vicious treatment of Birmingham's children who had been propelled into activism, and outrage ensued. Using children in what should have been an issue fought and resolved between adults was unacceptable to many even in the US, including the "radical" black leader, Malcolm X.

Bill Hudson/ASSOCIATED PRESS

After hundreds of mass school shootings in the US over the years and zero changes in gun laws, things start to make more sense to me. If the lives of American children are not important enough for changes in gun control laws to take effect, why would the lives of children in Iraq, and anywhere else that suffers from US intervention, matter? An article published by the Scientific American asked in 2015, Where Is Outcry Over Children Killed by US-Led Forces? Based on what is reported – and the statistics are still highly debated – 1,201 Iraqi children have been killed by US led forces between 2003 and 2011. US drone strikes in Pakistan have resulted in the deaths of 172 to 207 children. The US government's love affair with weapons and violence and its frivolous exertion of both on foreign lands seems to stem from its own neglect for the well-being of American citizens.

Gun control is not just an American issue. The US has made it everyone's problem, once again, like the long list of other problems it's forcibly imposed on others. And I think what the rest of the world would like to know is: why does the US consistently fail to learn from its own history? Do we have to wait until the lives of American children are valued more than guns before children in other parts of the world are given the same consideration? And how do you justify forcing children, once again, to put down their school books to confront the conscienceless and say, "You, adults, have failed us."

FRIED CHICKEN AND MODERN TECHNOLOGY

I awoke yesterday at 4am and realized it's been too long since I last had fried chicken. Living in the US has made me a borderline vegetarian these past few years, following the continual revelations of horrifying meat factory conditions here. Widespread unethical business practices in the US also extends to halal distributors, which makes eating more fruit and salads and the occasional salmon the more desirable option for me now. Can't complain, since I've always consumed a lot of fruit and veg anyway.

So I went over to the Northeastern campus where the closest Popeye's to me is, and ordered six pieces of their chicken tenders. I figured that six is a reasonable amount for anything you're not eating consistently, and on a scale of ascetic and piggish, six falls right in the middle. Glancing over, I observed the older Hispanic lady absently sweep with her tongs pieces of chicken from the display warmer thing into a box so that they tumbled into it in rapid succession. It was only when I reached home that I saw that the box contained twelve pieces of fried chicken. My first fried chicken in about five months and I get rewarded with a mound of the stuff! I hope it's not contaminated.

In other news :

Facebook turns out to be a dangerous, exploitative technological tool and people are shocked, despite brilliant minds going to great lengths to spell it out for the masses, from George Orwell to Aldous Huxley to Ray Bradbury to Ted Kaczynski, who is currently serving eight life sentences in federal prison for crimes fueled by his extreme opposition to modern technology. 

Sean Parker, co-founder of Facebook came out back in November to acknowledge that the "site was made to exploit human vulnerability" and "God only knows what it's doing to our children's brains." A month later, spurred by his guilty conscience, former Facebook Vice President, Chamath Palihapitiya echoed Parker's "regret" in being involved in a self and socially destructive social network, admitting that he rarely used Facebook and doesn't let his children use "that shit." He  also stressed that it's not an American problem, but a global problem. 

Yet these major tech companies, including Uber, who is on a determined mission to win the award for Most Unethical Company of all Unethical Companies, and Tinder are all founded in the US, growing unimpeded by any real restrictions or moral obligation due to the absence of wisdom. Regrets might come later and after they've made their millions for those who get the entire world excited and eager to buy more into the emptiness that those riding the technology wave are selling, with disastrous consequences. The compliant masses are part of the problem as well if they lap up everything that's marketed to them and allow their emotional state to be so easily influenced. But responsibility starts with entrepreneurs and innovators who think every idea should be pursued so they can have their moment, instead of recognizing a dangerous idea and burying it.

Here is what extreme individualism and disdain for any real guidance looks like, because the need to do whatever I want is of the utmost importance. All those great thinkers who felt an obligation to society and warned them of a bleak future are just useful for quoting in useless reflective news op-eds now. This is the way it is done in the US, and perhaps the rest of the world follows suit. Be "free" now, and complain later after the damage is done and irreversible.