Wow.
As if the stress of the membership drive wasn't enough (and a number of personal family issues leading up to tonight) then just as I was entering the studio, the news of the attacks on Paris were announced in the phone room.
It was at that moment that my first instinct was just to pack up and leave. Not speak to anyone, not offer an explanation, just up and leave. Quit the show. Never enter the doors again.
I mean, after all, here we are raising money to keep a community radio station alive and on the air, and there are people not only in Paris but globally who are dying and being injured for something they have absolutely no control over. There will be more people who will suffer the injustice of racism and hate when they were in no way involved in the agenda that brought this and other acts of terror about.
Kids, young people, the elderly, citizens like you and me, all wiped out without the perpetrators even knowing who they were.
This is fucking insane.
Anyway, I did after all do my duty to the station. I was numb but comforted to know that some folks heard what I did and valued what community radio stood for. And then it slowly dawned on me that there was a reason for it to continue, a real purpose.
Without this kind of operation, those of all cultures and ideas do not have the same access to a voice, even in a small way. Without CIUT, we lose another chance to connect with groups and ideas outside of our own.
It seems like a small thing in light of what is happening. But it is something. And change happens from a growing number of somethings: ways of thinking, seeing and hearing the other side of every story and connecting the voices of real people to those things.
I need some silence and peace right now.
I will return.
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