Every time an act of violence occurs somewhere in the world it has become a haunting sense of déjà vu. If we were to screenshot our news and social media feeds from every mass shooting, remove any indications of time and place and line the images side by side -- they'd probably be identical. Comments and arguments on gun control, terrorism, mental illness, healthcare, double standards, and backlash emerge within seconds. Tragedies are instantaneously politicized.
National and global tragedies have become chess pieces in the larger political game. How someone responds to these events have become blatant attempts to gain points on the political score board. When the Paris attacks happened media agencies could not wait for confirmed details and immediately begin speculating the identity and background of the perpetrators.
Within hours, GOP candidates used the tragedy happening across the Atlantic to somehow justify gun rights in the United States. Politicians began arguing responses to the refugee crisis citing safety concerns, and here in the U.S. they even used the tragedy to call for and pass a House bill that could limit Syrian and other refugees.
When the devastating shooting in San Bernardino happened this week, immediately President Obama and Democratic candidates Bernie Sanders and Hilary Clinton focused on the need to increase gun control while gun advocates and GOP candidates remained eerily silent, until a name was attached to the suspect.
And when the name of the suspect was first revealed, even before being confirmed, assumptions on whether it's considered "terrorism" or not emerged, including from the FBI -- because apparently violence is only terrorism when committed by specific demographics. Media outlets have even been allowed to enter the suspect's house, some would argue a crime scene in an on-going investigation, to speculatively report on what they happen to find.
The political framing of tragedies makes one wonder why out of 355 shootings in the United States in 2015 alone, do we only hear about the ones that spark political rhetoric which serve self-indulging agendas?
There is no need to try and label which tragedies are worse than the other, as loss of any innocent human life through acts of violence is incomprehensible, but how many lives have been lost that have never received wide attention or are even mentioned? How many lives have been lost and we have yet to see any justice? How many innocent lives have been used to justify the death of other innocent lives?
Despite what our own political preferences are or what legislative or non-legislative solutions we believe in, there is something to be said on how even in times of tragedy and loss we live in a society that cannot stop itself from polarizing, stereotyping, and continuously trying to gain the upper hand. Agencies, institutions, and individuals focus on how they can leverage calamities for their own gains, even if it fuels the continuous perpetuation of this vicious cycle we have found ourselves in as a country.
Yes, politics are important. Yes, conversations on legislation and law will and need to happen. And yes, we have to do something about the state of our society before other tragedies happen. But until we're able to view these issues through the lens of humanity and not through a political power struggle, we will continue to see human lives degraded to the status of computed numbers. And we'll keep questioning how did this happen again.