I am supposed to be publishing a blog post about a fun new savings strategy that R and I are using to help us afford more vacations in the future, but I can’t today. My apologies to the amazing Ashley Feinstein, my new friend and the financial guru behind The Fiscal Femme. I will get the really great story we collaborated on up on the blog soon, just not today.

Today I can’t stop scrolling through my Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and CNN.com feed reading about the #CharlestonShooting. I’m back where I was after #Ferguson and #EricGarner and #FreddieGray and also #Newtown and #JamesHolmes and the list is way too long. These instances aren’t the same, to be clear.

This shooting was a TERRORIST ATTACK committed by a WHITE SUPREMACIST. It was a HATE CRIME. It was an act of DEEP RACISM. 

But the saddest thing to me is what it wasn’t, which is surprising. I was not surprised when the news flashed onto my TV screen last night. I didn’t even gasp, shocked at the fact that something so terrible could happen on US soil in the year 2015. I was not surprised. I think I even said, “here we go again.” That is a tragedy. My reaction is a disgrace. As is the thought that followed this morning: maybe I shouldn’t post about this on my blog because I don’t really get involved in political conversations.

Fuck that. Everyone who has a public forum of any kind should be using it to talk about the #CharlestonShooting today. Then after we’re done posting our posts and tweeting out our tweets we should talk about it with our parents, husbands, colleagues, friends, neighbors AND MOST OF ALL OUR CHILDREN. If you don’t want to subject your children to a conversation about extreme violence, fine. Talk about race. Talk about equality. Have a dinner conversation about how brave Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was and what, exactly, he fought for throughout his life. Go to Barnes & Noble and buy a children’s book about a friendship between people of different races. Here is a whole list of those book. Do something, anything to make sure you primary world is a place that does not stand a chance to breed this kind of hate.

Today I’m going to talk to my mom about what her New Jersey school district does when this kind of tragedy occurs. If the answer is “nothing” I’m going to beg her to change that. That feels like the absolute least I can possibly do, but it is something. And I have to do something. We all do. Because this has to change. Now.

And if you’re also stuck in a spiral of reading, here is a very powerful and very accurate piece on the #CharlestonShooting from Esquire. Click on the image to read then share it with EVERYONE.