Very good editorial in the Washington Post today. I praise it for content and courage. A lot of black people I know cross their fingers hoping the perpetrators of heinous, publicized crimes aren't other black people. We know bigots will use the news as weapons in their attacks and suspicious about all blacks. These two women ask, why shouldn't white men feel the same when discussing America's mass shootings.
White men have much to discuss about mass
shootings
By Charlotte Childress and Harriet Childress, Published:
March 29
Charlotte and Harriet
Childress are researchers and consultants on social and political issues. They
are the co-authors of “Clueless at the Top: While the Rest of Us Turn Elsewhere
for Life, Liberty, and Happiness,” on outdated hierarchies in American culture.
Imagine if African
American men and boys were committing mass shootings month after month, year
after year. Articles and interviews would flood the media, and we’d have
political debates demanding that African Americans be “held accountable.”
Adam Lanza
Then,
if an atrocity such as the Newtown, Conn shootings took place and African
American male leaders held a news conference to offer solutions, their
credibility would be questionable. The public would tell these leaders that
they need to focus on problems in their own culture and communities.
But when the criminals
and leaders are white men, race and gender become the elephant in the room.
Nearly all of the mass
shootings in this country in recent years — not just Newtown, Aurora, Foot
Hood, Tuscon and Columbine — have been committed by white men and boys. Yet
when the National Rifle Association (NRA), led by white men, held a news
conference after the Newtown massacre to advise Americans on how to reduce gun
violence, its leaders’ opinions were widely discussed.
Jared Loughner (AZ)
James Holmes (CO)
Unlike other groups,
white men are not used to being singled out. So we expect that many of them
will protest it is unfair if we talk about them. But our nation must correctly
define their contribution to our problem of gun violence if it is to be solved.
When white men try to
divert attention from gun control by talking about mental health issues,
many people buy into the idea that the United States has a national mental
health problem, or flawed systems with which to address those problems, and
they think that is what produces mass shootings.
But women and girls with
mental health issues are not picking up semiautomatic weapons and shooting
schoolchildren. Immigrants with mental health issues are not committing mass
shootings in malls and movie theaters. Latinos with mental health
issues are not continually killing groups of strangers.
Eric Harris & Dylan Klebold
Columbine
Each of us is programmed
from childhood to believe that the top group of our hierarchies — and in the
U.S. culture, that’s white men — represents everyone, so it can feel awkward,
even ridiculous, when we try to call attention to those people as a distinct
group and hold them accountable.
For example, our schools
teach American history as the history of everyone in this nation. But the
stories we learn are predominantly about white men. To study the history of
other groups, people have to take separate classes, such as African American
history, women’s history or Native American history. And if we take “Hispanic
American History,” we don’t expect to learn “Asian American History,” because a
class about anyone but white men is assumed not to be inclusive of anyone else.
This societal and
cultural programming makes it easy for conservative, white-male-led groups to
convince the nation that an organization led by white men, such as the NRA or
the tea party movement, can represent the interests of the entire nation when,
in fact, they predominately represent only their own experiences and
perspectives.
If life were equitable,
white male gun-rights advocates would face some serious questions to assess
their degree of credibility and objectivity. We would expect them to explain:
What facets of white
male culture create so many mass shootings?
Why are so many white
men and boys producing and entertaining themselves with violent video games and
other media?
Why do white men buy,
sell and manufacture guns for profit; attend gun shows; and demonstrate for
unrestricted gun access disproportionately more than people of other
ethnicities or races?
Why are white male congressmen
leading the fight against gun control?
If Americans ask the
right questions on gun issues, we will get the right answers. These answers
will encourage white men to examine their role in their own culture and to help
other white men and boys become healthier and less violent.
