Amplification

The local news story that extinguished my desire to write yesterday was this one, by Alex Mann and Jessica Anderson, promoted on Twitter by the Baltimore Sun like this: 

Brian and Kelly Sue Robinette, high school sweethearts from Cumberland, had a comfortable life in Ellicott City. Back home, the life of Brian’s half brother, Jeffrey Burnham, was going another way. On Sept. 30, their paths crossed in a deadly encounter.

In itself, the story is heartbreaking and the crime is horrific. But the power of social media means that, as I searched for local stories to write about, I kept reading those words over and over again. Tweets, retweets, quote tweets. Numerous accounts sharing the same story because they knew it would be a reliable source of easy clicks.

High school sweethearts

High school sweethearts

High school sweethearts

Somewhere in there I lost the will to write. I needed to get away from that story and from social media and live some real life for a while, and I did. It was restorative.

The thing that stays with me is the discovery, as the investigation unfolds, that a virulent anti-vaxxing mindset may have been the motive for these murders. It makes me think of all the angry anti-vaxxing rants on social media, the posts dripping with arrogant dismissal of science, the selfish claims that “you can’t make me” wear a mask or observe social distancing. 

Tweet, Retweet. Quote tweet. And more on Facebook. Not to mention all the private listservs we know nothing about. 

Posts like that have poisoned people’s minds against caring for themselves, their families, and their neighbors. They are not merely a point of view I disagree with. They have been the harbingers of death. No, more than that. They’ve invited death right into the house.

And it looks like they may have been the tipping point for a man who took a gun and killed three members of his own family. 

We absolutely do not owe these deadly points of view a place at the table of legitimate discourse. Whether they are railing against local government, local schools, businesses, on social media, or on Main Street in Old Ellicott City, their message is the same: anger and hate fueled by ignorance. And selfishness.

If it turns out to be true that these crimes were provoked by an anti-vaxxing rage, everyone who has promoted these patently false theories shares responsibility. I wonder if any of these people will ever be held to account. Some of them live right here in Howard County. 

Time will pass, and we may “go back to normal”, but I will never forget.