We’ve barely completed one month of 2023 and there’s already been at least 49 mass shootings in the United States, according to the Gun Violence Archive. In California alone, a state with some of the strictest gun laws in the nation, there have been seven mass shootings this year already.
That is hard enough to digest.
Americans have also been processing the release of the video of another senseless death: Tyre Nichols, a 29-year-old Black man, who after a traffic stop in Memphis, was beaten by five police officers and died.
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It’s been a little more than a week since a gunman killed 11 people at the Star Dance Studio in Monterey Park. Residents there, as well as in neighboring communities, are trying to figure out how to move forward and heal. At East Los Angeles College, three miles from where that mass shooting occurred, students talked about growing up in an age where incidents like this are, unfortunately, the norm.
My colleague Jackie Orchard spoke with ELAC students like Samantha Rodriguez who are trying to figure out ways to persevere, find hope and make change for the future. Rodriguez said this incident so close to home was a “wake-up call” for her. She grew up in Alhambra and says she was heartbroken by the shooting; it made her feel "powerless." Now, she says, she feels an urge to protect her peers from violence like this. She said:
“I am not done changing the world. And one day I hope that their children, their families, generations to follow will be protected because I helped with that,"
Yesterday, at a Lunar New Year Festival in nearby Alhambra, there was also talk about grieving and moving forward. There was some dancing, candy making and calligraphy, food and games.
One festival-goer, Daisy, grew up in Alhambra and said the turnout shows they are not scared despite the tragedy:
"It shows that the community is still strong and it gives people a chance to feel better from what happened instead being fearful of Lunar New Year-related events," she said.
There, 26-year-old Brandon Tsay was honored for being a hero and disarming the Monterey Park gunman before he attempted another attack at the Lai Lai Ballroom in that city. Tsay said he believes that his community will heal, but hoped for some meaningful change to come from this tragedy.
“I want everyone to take the time to grieve, to mourn, to recover," Tsay said. "But after, I want us, the people of this nation, to take action.”
As always, try to stay happy and healthy, folks. There’s more news below — just keep reading.
(After you stop hitting snooze)
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THREE — Marie Kondo, our queen of tidiness is shelving her desire for neatness…and everyone has an opinion!
First of all, I just want to say I am a fan of Marie Kondo. Through her work with her clients, I’ve been able to employ some tactics to help me organize my hectic life. So when I heard she was “giving up” on sprucing up her own household, I was kind of sad. Then, I heard she just gave birth to a third child and it all made sense to me: it’s got to be a challenge to keep one's home clean with so many little people to take care of. As always, people on Twitter had a LOT of opinions about Kondo's new shift in life. Some folks saw it as an example of how there’s vulnerability in people’s lives. But some people weren’t as forgiving.
TWO — AJ+ and others post on pictures and videos of Tyre Nichols doing what he loved: skateboarding.
In order to keep myself sane this weekend, I made sure I avoided watching five police officers brutally beat Tyre Nichols in Memphis. Even though there were some news organizations that opted to post the video, there were those who chose to counter that imagery associated with his last moments and instead showcase his joy. AJ+ (from Al Jazeera) created a post of 10 slides about Nichols that included pictures and videos of his love for photography and skateboarding. And according to NPR, his childhood friend, Austin Robert used to record his skate videos growing up in California.
On Twitter, thousands of people also shared this video of him skateboarding.
“I want him to be remembered as the kid smiling in the skate video and not the kid that was fighting for his life,” Austin Roberts told NPR.
ONE — L.A.-based IG accounts share a really cool sunset fact.
The @losangelesbucketlist and @insta_losangeles IG accounts created a joint post about how we made it through dark winter afternoons. Did you know that the sun won’t set before 5 p.m. again in L.A. until November 2023? *raises hands as a signal to praise* emoji.
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