"Nothing more uncivilized" than U.S. politics' inurement to constancy of mass shootings: NYT

NEW YORK, May 30 (Xinhua) -- There is nothing more uncivilized than the political establishment's inurement to the constancy of mass shootings in the United States, said a recent opinion on The New York Times, criticizing U.S. politicians' hypocrisy as they called for civility facing protests against prevalent gun violence.

"When politicians talk about civility and public discourse, what they're really saying is that they would prefer for people to remain silent in the face of injustice. They want marginalized people to accept that the conditions of oppression are unalterable facts of life," said contributing writer Roxane Gay in the article "Don't Talk to Me About 'Civility.' On Tuesday Morning Those Children Were Alive."

An 18-year-old man opened fire at an elementary school in Uvalde city in the U.S. state of Texas Tuesday afternoon, leaving at least 21 people dead, including 18 children.

"Time and again we are told, both implicitly and explicitly, that all we can do is endure this constancy of violence," the author said. "And if we dare to protest, if we dare to express our rage, if we dare to say enough, we are lectured about the importance of civility."

However, the history of the United States, founded on stolen land, built with the labor of stolen lives, has witnessed much incivility, she said. "The document that governs our lives effectively denied more than half of the population the right to vote. It counted only three-fifths of the enslaved population when determining representation."