As the country continues to reel from the horrific act that took place in Uvalde, Texas, politicians are once again divided on what caused the incident to happen. One politician in particular is U.S. representative Ronny Jackson, who serves Texas’ 13th congressional district. During an interview on Fox News, Jackson stated how much different things were when he was growing up in the Lone Star State:
“I grew up in a small town in West Texas, not too much smaller than Uvalde, and I could never imagine something like this happening when I grew up, but when I grew up, things were different. There was a focus on family and community and church, and I think we knew each other. And I’m not saying that the people in Uvalde don’t know each other, but I think that’s been robbed from us. I think that our culture has changed over the last 30 or 40 years, and there’s been an attack on those things in particular.”
Jackson then directed his blame to various things that he feels are negative to children, including hip hop:
“And I just think that kids are exposed to all kinds of horrible stuff nowadays, too. I look back and I think about the horrible stuff that they hear when they listen to rap music, the video games that they watch from a really early age with all of this horrible violence and stuff, and I just think that … they have this access to the internet on a regular basis, which is just not good for kids, I don’t think.”
Finally, Jackson — who’s currently being investigated by the Office of Congressional Ethics for unrelated issues — stressed that everyone as a whole needs to figure out “why” and “how” such a tragedy could have happened.
