On Tuesday evening, TJ Williams and two unidentified men went live on Facebook using the platform's popular streaming feature. They were hanging out, smoking, and listening to music in their car in Norfolk, Virginia. Five minutes into the stream, chaos ensued. About 30 gunshots rang out as Williams' phone hit the floor of the car. One of the men screamed for help and pleaded for someone to call an ambulance. Emergency responders arrived. The three men - two of whom sustained life-threatening injuries - are recovering in a nearby hospital.
Once again, a tragedy was captured on video for all of America to see. But this time, it was not considered breaking national news. Unlike recent tragedies, this shooting will not bring national vigils and protests. The names of those shot will not be uttered by President Obama in a televised address or become hashtags trending across social media platforms - two of the men have not even been publicly identified at this time. There will not be the same public outcry for justice. Why not?
Is it because T.J. Williams and his two friends were injured rather than killed? Is it because they were not injured in a mass shooting? Possibly. But there are 90 Americans who are shot and killed every day in America, and, outside of their families and friends, we as a nation rarely grieve for them.
Is it because they might have been smoking marijuana? Even if the victims were smoking marijuana - and it is not clear they were - we should still care. Time after time, we have seen African-American victims dehumanized, blamed for their own deaths or injuries when the behaviors under scrutiny are relatively common across all demographics. White men smoking marijuana are called "hippies" or "stoners" while black men are called racist names like "thugs" and "gang bangers." Their deaths are dismissed as unavoidable "inner city violence." These are terms are perpetuated by the gun lobby to diminish the value of black, brown, and beige lives.
Is it because they were not shot by a police officer? The recent deaths of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile were horrific, and justice should be pursued in both cases. These men did not deserve to die. While the split-second decisions police officers make every day are difficult, excessive gun violence at the hands of a law enforcement officer is gun violence nonetheless. We were raw, hurt, angry, and shocked by the senseless and avoidable tragedy of these deaths. We should also feel raw, hurt, angry, and shocked by the shooting of three young African-American males sitting in a parked car. But this is the type of gun violence that is largely ignored by the media, elected officials, and in communities across America.
Here is the reality: we have become so desensitized to day-to-day gun violence - particularly when the victims are black men -- that when three young men are shot live on a video stream, we do not even blink. We know that 33,000 Americans are killed by guns every year. We know that 90 Americans are shot and killed every day, and we know that eight children are among those killed. Yet the gun lobby discounts them with phrases like "black-on- black crime" and argues that suicide deaths are not preventable and therefore should not be counted. In doing so, they negate the value of so many lives - the lives of people of color, the lives of people in crisis, the lives of children accidentally killed. They tell us these casualties are the price of freedom.
Every time a mass shooting occurs, it requires more shock value to capture our attention. Four people shot in a mass shooting is not a front page story anymore. School shootings have become so commonplace they are barely mentioned. Day-to-day gun violence in communities like Norfolk are so far down the list that they are not considered newsworthy by many media outlets, even when captured live on Facebook.
The morning after the attacks on Dallas police officers, Twitter user Erin Simpson summed up how many Americans feel:
If we do not want this, we must be proactive. I pray for the recovery of TJ Williams and his friends. I grieve for the lives of Alton Sterling, Philando Castile, Lorned Ahrens, Michael Krol, Michael J. Smith, Brent Thompson, and Patrick Zamarripa. I grieve for the hundreds of family members who have been affected by gun violence in America this week and the hundreds more who will be affected next week.
But prayers and grief do not preclude action.
As tempting as it may be to divert our attention, we cannot look away and still maintain our humanity. We have to keep our eyes wide open and face the agonizing reality of all the lives destroyed by guns - not just the ones that grab the media's attention. The high-profile deaths are tragic, but our gun violence problem goes well beyond the headlines. We must recognize that every life lost to gun violence is a national disgrace. Everyday gun violence is a stain on this country that can only be cleansed by action. The names of the fallen - all of them - are our motivation to act quickly. Let's get to work!
(To find out how you can get involved in the movement to save lives, see the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence's "Eight Actions You Can Take to Stop Gun Violence.")