David McElroy

The murders of nine people at a Charleston, S.C., church this week were a tragedy, but I’m just as appalled by the reaction to the shootings as I am by the murders themselves.

Nine peaceful human beings were worshipping and praying at Emanuel A.M.E Church in Charleston. They were joined by a young man named Dylann Storm Roof, who sat among them for some time before pulling out a gun and murdering almost all of them. This story would already be a horrendous tragedy, but it’s been turned intensely political by the fact that the victims were black and the murderer is a white man who hates black people.

Nobody on any political side has anything to say that would solve the problem of racial hatred or bring back the dead victims, but that hasn’t stopped people from trying to prove themselves right by turning this into an excuse to push their existing political agendas.

I’ve seen some conservatives try to turn this into an argument in favor of having more people armed. Those people say that if the victims had armed themselves at their prayer meeting, someone would have pulled out a gun and shot Roof. I’ve also seen some conservatives who say that racism wasn’t an issue in the shootings, despite the fact that the murderer has made it very clear he hates black people and wants to start a race war.

I’ve seen some progressives try to turn this into a debate over the Confederate battle flag. Those people apparently believe that if that old symbol of the South didn’t exist, there wouldn’t be racists and the murders wouldn’t have happened. I’ve seen others — including both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton — use the murders as an excuse to push their existing anti-gun agenda, apparently forgetting that those who want to murder people doesn’t necessarily need guns.

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It’s hard for me to explain “the voice” to anyone, but it’s constantly there.

I’m driving into a parking lot to go to a bookstore. There are half a dozen different routes through the parking lot and I randomly choose one. The harsh voice screams at me.

“You should have turned at the other entrance. You’re wasting time. What’s wrong with you?”

I’m sitting alone in my own home and I have my legs propped up on my own coffee table.

“What are you doing with your feet on the furniture?” the voice snaps in anger, as though to a child.

I’m exhausted and don’t feel like doing anything this particular morning, so I sleep late. But I have trouble sleeping, because the voice is yelling at me.

“Why are you so lazy?” the voice shouts. “I’m disgusted with you. Get up. You are lazy.”

In big ways and small ways, the voice is with me much of the time. When I eat poorly and I’m “self-medicating” with sugar, the voice attacks me. It viciously points out the weight I’m gaining. It reminds me that no one likes a fat man. It reminds me that a woman isn’t going to love me like this, because fat people are disgusting and embarrassing.

The harsh and critical superego inside my head is always there. It’s always telling me that I’m a failure. It’s always telling me that I could do so much more with my life if I would just fix everything about myself. There’s always “one correct way” to the voice. Unless I do things in that one way, I am a failure.

That harsh voice constantly reminds me that I’m not OK — that I’m not good enough.

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