August 17, 2009

We must become the change we want to see in the world.
— Mohandas Gandhi

The nation’s vampire community greatly mourns the loss caused by the cowardly terrorist attack in Dallas. We offer our thoughts and prayers to the many people affected by this devastating tragedy.

Reacting to the senseless cruelty of the act, at the ancient lives and the millennia of wisdom so thoughtlessly squandered, it would be easy to call out for vengeance. Even great societies have betrayed their values when faced with an evil so ugly and inhuman.

But as Vampire-Americans, we understand nothing if not history. We seek a way out of the quicksand of ignorance and violence that has trapped and strangled our peoples. We dream of a time when children will look back at this watershed moment of terror and shake their heads, wondering how people could have been so full of hate, so casually murderous, while the country looked on.

If this is that moment of change, these remarkable vampires will not have perished in vain. Let us remember them for their sacrifice, and remember, too, that for all that we have accomplished, there is still much to do before every American is free.

Nan Flanagan
for the American Vampire League