Do All Children Matter? Do All Lives Matter? Student Protestors Make Us Think

Every woman in America has felt broken hearted since the horrible elimination of 17 lives in Parkland, Florida last week. No human being alive can do anything but ask the powers greater than ourselves, why? How does this happen? How do we prevent it from ever repeating itself?

From Parkland all the way to the White House, people are talking, protesting and feeling outraged. Kids, the most precious and innocent amongst us, we're taken so viciously,  so unfairly.  We as a people must do something.

Crazy Sweet CuteWear has me write blogs because I'm not afraid to be bold. Just as they are not afraid to make bold styles and place bold and empowering slogans on their clothing. This shooting has generated some bold thoughts I'm about to share directly.

Do all children matter in America? Do all live matter?

The answer is No.

I'm serious. Really ask yourself and think about it for a moment.

Let me get right to the point.

Every day in this country kids  and parents from racial and economic minority groups are killed by guns. Often, many of them are parents, and too many far younger or the same age as the kids at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. Too often as well, the parents killed leave behind young children. Taken together these deaths drastically outnumber the 17 wonderful souls lost on Valentine's Day. But yet, somehow, despite the similar cause of death or age of the victims, the reaction we have as a people and certainly the coverage by the media is literally like black and white.

For example, not long ago, in August 2016, the first cousin of basketball star Dwyane Wade, Nykea Aldridge, 32, a mother of four, was on her way to register her children at school when she was shot and killed while pushing her 3-week-old baby girl in a stroller on the south side Chicago. She was not the intended target. 

The only reason anyone heard about it was because she was the relative of a highly regarded professional basketball player. There was no wall-to-wall national news coverage with anchors broadcasting from the scene on the horror of gun violence. No protest, no town hall meetings, and no one was invited to the White House to discuss solutions with the President.

The cold, hard not so pleasant facts are that we are selectively outraged and inspired as a national community to care when certain children and adults die. The media leads this abhorrent trend by only reporting intensely on a specific brand of the gun-violence. Others, whether children died or not, may only get a head nod, a 15-second mention, placed on the last page of a newspaper or website, if acknowledged at all.

Why is this? It's impossible to ignore this reality.

Crazy Sweet CuteWear is proud of the students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School and other students around the country who are getting on buses, talking to lawmakers, protesting, and fighting for real change. They are doing important work. Furthermore, whether they know it or not, they are standing up for all children. Because all children do matter. All lives matter.

As we all support the kids from Parkland and around our nation, it is imperative that we also take a look within ourselves. Ask the tough and bold questions. Because if we don't, nothing really changes.

I'm upset and devastated by the senseless deaths of the 17 students  and faculty at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. I'm also upset that we all, including the media, are not equally upset whenever any child or adult dies as a result of gun violence.

I invite you to voice your opinion.