Mass Shootings and Outrage Fatigue

If you are reading this and live in the Philadelphia area, or pretty much any city in the USA, perhaps you are feeling ambivalent about the media coverage of the latest mass shootings. The Souls Shot Portrait Project set out to focus on the everyday violence that takes some lives and ruins others on a daily basis. Of course I am saddened, of course I am outraged, of course I think there needs to be change in the destructive gun culture in our country. But time and again I see this full blown media attention on the mass shooting and all the questions about the shooter’s motivations, mental health, etc. and I wonder if the victims we portray in our portraits were featured “front page” and the shooters were similarly analyzed if maybe policy wouldn’t change. Would there be more equity in education for all communities? Would there be more funding for mental health services? Would their be more incentive to break free of systemic racism?

If you are reading this perhaps you read the blog post yesterday by artist and board member Ann Price Hartzell detailing the pain felt by families who deal with the end result of these inequities, this callous reluctance of government on all levels to deal with the systems that sustain this type of violence in so many communities.

Please don’t become fatigued by these tragedies. Become energized. Become active. Press our leaders from community level to the very top to take this crisis of gun violence seriously not just when it is front page news. It is a complicated undertaking but it can and must be done. As Senator Art Haywood says, this is a marathon, not a sprint. We need to keep our strength up and keep going.

Our sincere condolences go out to all who have been touched by this epidemic gun violence and our hope is for a continued push for peace and equality.

Laura Madeleine

Portrait of Damon Stafford by Mary Brady Begnardi oil on lexon 8” x 10” 2010