It saddens me how ignorant people are about violence and PTSD

I had a conversation with my mom about traveling and she asked me to pick something different, so I said “ok how about Chicago?”, she scoffed at me and said “no way, it’s bad, really bad”.

I asked why. She replied “too much violence and killing there, it’s really bad now”. I told her “it’s always been bad”. She said “well yeah, but it’s worse now”. I shake my head at this. I find it so painful to talk to someone like her and get her to see the positives in something because she only wants to see the bad in things.

I know this sounds hypocritical for me to say, but hear me out. You see, my parents and I have only been to Chicago once when I was 10 years old, I had a great time there, but my parents were very VERY boring and nitpicky. These days I cannot trust them to bring them on vacation because they always moan and argue over everything. Please note, I cannot just go on a vacation myself as I cannot drive even though I am an adult.

My state doesn’t allow me to drive by myself unless I get a license, which I don’t have. And the only so-called reliable adults I have with me are my parents sadly which these days are very difficult for me to get along with. The reason I postponed my driving is because they scared me on death and going to hell because I’m not a “true Christian”.

Back to the original topic, my parents and I have always lived in a Midwest conservative countryside neighborhood, normally I don’t mind except for the anti-feminist, racist, and anti-trans propaganda that goes on in that region. However, it’s whenever we travel to cities that have an average population of people of color, particularly black and brown people, they start complaining that it’s dangerous, therefore it’s a bad place.

Though I can agree the majority of cities populated by people of color are more dangerous, they seem to get offended about it for the wrong reasons. You see, my parents hate Chicago because it’s dangerous because it will kill THEM instead of feeling any concern about the black and brown population who have NO CHOICE but to live there. They say it’s dangerous but it’s ONLY when concerning THEM and they don’t give a s*** about any of the innocent black and brown lives in those cities!

It sickens me as my parents are the type of white supremacists that only care about themselves and usually the violence against black and brown people are caused by white people. They want no violence in the cities yet they are too cowardly to give any effort to give help and support to the individuals who are severely traumatized by these shootings.

It scares me that aren’t many protection services to help these victims and so many tend to take the issue the wrong way. Anyways, rant over.