Nine people were killed in America

In America, nine people were brutally murdered yesterday in a church in Charleston, North Carolina. Horrible, unbelievable. My Twitter feed hasn't stopped telling me about it, newspapers are writing about it, people are blogging about it. Nine people who were not fighting or making war or killing or maiming or hurting others. Nine people, present in a house of worship. Non-combatants. Just people. Like you and me. Now dead because one man wanted to kill them. Perhaps he believed he should, perhaps he thought it was his right, perhaps he was mentally unstable, perhaps he was a very disturbed SOB. I don't know. I do know that nine innocent people are dead because someone chose to kill them. Nine black people are dead, because one white man chose to kill them. It makes me so sad yet so angry to live in a world where people do this to each other. We are all human, all one huge and extremely diverse family, all one people. And yesterday one human being chose to kill nine of his family members, nine fellow human beings. Nine innocent people. Nine lives snuffed out because one man chose to end those lives.

I didn't want this post to be about race or skin colour. Yet it is. I didn't want this post to be about 'us' versus 'them' or 'black' versus 'white' because that is not how I think, that is not how I see the world. In my world, there are human beings. Big ones, small ones. Male ones, female ones. Tall ones, short ones. Loud ones, quiet ones. Rich ones, poor ones. Old ones, young ones. Some have long hair, some have short hair, some have no hair at all. Some have big noses, others have small noses. Some have big ears, others have smaller ears. Some have blue eyes, some have green eyes, some have grey eyes, some have brown eyes. Some prefer coffee, some prefer tea. Some like to read, others like to watch television. Some wear glasses, others wear contact lenses. Some love chocolate, others love ice-cream or liquorish or cookies. We are all different and unique, all individual and special. We look different, we think different thoughts, we feel different feelings, we believe in different truths, we speak different languages, we come from different countries and regions. We are all different, both on the inside and on the outside. To me, that is what makes all of us special and unique, interesting and amazing. Yet some disagree. Because yesterday, one man killed nine people. Not because he didn't like their thoughts or their religion, the language they spoke or the clothes they wore. Nine people died, because of the way they looked, because of the colour of their skin. I really didn't want this post to be about race or skin colour. Yet it is. Because one man couldn't see how unique, special and amazing nine of his fellow human beings were, because he didn't see that despite some surface differences, they were his relatives, his family members, his own people.