Tag Archives: Violence

The Mind of Violence

I wish I could say this was a happy post. I wish I had good tidings to bear, or that perhaps I could recount the extensive traveling I’ve done in the past week, from Toronto to the Grand Canyon. I wish I could talk about anything other than what I’m going to.

But I can’t. This week there were three mass shootings in the United States: Gilroy, Dayton, and El Paso. Between them, at least thirty-two people were killed. Coincidentally, it marks the thirty-second shooting this year in which at least three people died. For all I know, by the time you read this there will have been another.

The worst part, though, is not the shootings. It’s not the deaths. The worst part – of which I’m guilty myself – is the crass, apathetic reaction of the country, the total lack of surprise, and the disaffection that accompanies these tragedies. Even as it crossed my newsfeed, I couldn’t stop my own thoughts: “Guess it happened again.”

I just kind of switched off. I didn’t want to, couldn’t, internalize yet another instance of senseless violence, of brutal slayings and now-childless parents. I couldn’t react in horror … because there was no horror left.

This kind of violence has become so frequent and commonplace that I’ve started to become completely desensitized to it. It’s just part of the background of living in the United States. Of course, many of us continue to go about our days, saying it could never happen to us, but the truth is that the odds are stacking against us, and one day it will be you under fire at a concert, or a Home Depot, or at your school.

But until that day comes, we all just continue to sit back, watch it happen, and condemn the shooters on one hand whilst continuing to silently approve the system that allows these things to happen at all.

By system, of course, I don’t only mean the ease-of-availability of firearms, or the payouts to the NRA, or the heavy-handed police brutality that leads to so many unnecessary deaths; it also includes the indoctrination that violence is a part of free speech; it includes the incessantly hypocritical reactions from politicians and leaders; it includes the simple fact that no other developed nation has anything close to the level of outright violence that has become second-nature to our country.

Violence has become something less than a tragedy; human life commoditized. It’s one thing to suggest that society is desensitized to violence through TV and popular media – realistically, I think most people are aware enough to know that TV violence is not a suggestion that such things are okay. It’s the frequency of real-world violence that desensitizes the masses to just how horrific such things actually are. And when we look at the culprits of the most recent mass shootings, none of them were ‘foreigners’, or ‘immigrants’ (I use these terms loosely, as we are all immigrants at some point or another) – there were young, disaffected white men who somehow came to believe that it was within their right to end the lives of other people.

It’s difficult to learn why these people do such things, as they are often killed themselves during their rampages. We talk to their families, interview their friends, and learn that they were ‘good people’, and that ‘no one suspected a thing’.

I call bullshit.

There are a lot of angry people in the world, and a lot of reasons to be angry. I get it. I’ve been filled with fury, with anger and with hate at times in my life. I’ve sought to place blame on everyone other than myself. I’ll readily admit that I’m far from a perfect member of society, even if I can’t imagine hating so much that I’d want to actually kill other people. The mind of violence is hard to understand.

But the biggest problem is that these people – disgruntled, prone-to-violence, hate-filled people – are allowed to purchase weapons whose sole purpose is to kill other humans. A lot of people argue that guns don’t kill people, people kill people – but people without guns kill far fewer people than those armed with them. Perhaps we can’t change how or why these people think the way they do, but there’s absolutely no reason we can’t stop them from accessing devices intended to end life.

Weapons of any kind are a holdover from a medieval culture where feudality and territorialism were the law; when if you didn’t have a sword or an axe, your neighbor might steal your sheep and murder your family.

Aren’t we past those days?

Aren’t we supposed to be living in an enlightened society, one where understanding and tolerance are meant to be the gold standard to which we aspire? If so, then what purpose do weapons serve at all? I can understand the desire to hunt, the desire to kill food for yourself – there’s a deep-rooted instinct in some of us to see and taste the blood of a fresh kill. But there is no reason in the world to need to kill another human being – even under threat, if that person has no weapon to threaten you with, you have no reason to kill them in self-defense.

The worst of it is the people marauding around proclaiming weapons as a part of free speech – that taking away their weapons takes away their freedom.

Again – I call bullshit.

We live in a society with tens of thousands of rules – laws, as they’re called – imposed upon us. These laws are entirely arbitrary, save for the concept that by enforcing these laws, we create for ourselves a safer, more tolerant and livable society. I’m not allowed to drive faster than 65mph on the highway – if I do, I get punished. I’m not allowed to steal from my neighbor’s house – again, I would be punished.

So then why do we continue to provide access to things that allow us to break the laws imposed upon us by our society? Why do we make cars that can drive at 130mph? Why do we sell lock-picking kits, when any conceivable use for them is illegal? And why on earth do we sell handguns and automatic rifles when anything you could do with them is against the law?

Free speech can only extend so far. It cannot be allowed to extend to hate speech; it cannot be allowed to extend to discrimination and bigotry. And it cannot be used as an excuse to provide access to dangerous, violent weapons. It isn’t a violation of your freedom to take away your guns; it’s a violation of our human rights to allow you to keep them.

Tell me I’m wrong.

Brett Kavanaugh and the Proliferation of Rape Culture

I learned last week that Brett Kavanaugh is going to be voted into the Supreme Court of the United States of America.

I felt sick.

Picking my wife up from the airport, we briefly discussed it, and I had a minor revelation as to the importance of this controversial decision. My wife wondered aloud if teen boys would see this confirmation on TV, and think to themselves that it is totally okay to sexually abuse women without repercussion.

I think the damage is far more subtle, and far more wide-reaching, than a few kids watching it on television. I don’t think there are very many teenage boys who have the self-reflection to consciously – or even subconsciously – think this gives them the go-ahead to rape women. I think ‘those’ boys will try it anyway, and unfortunately, they’ll – for the most part – get away with it.

No – I think the deeper problem is the judicial bias against women reporting sexual abuse in the first place. The precedent here is that women are not to be listened to, not to be believed, and that they are to be held wholly responsible for whatever heinous acts are committed against them. Our own president openly mocked Dr. Ford, claiming that her inability to clearly remember the events indicated they were largely fabricated.

There are countless statistics indicating that rape is already grossly underreported in the United States. According to a DoJ study in 2014, 66% of rapes go unreported, and women who are frequently assaulted are less likely to report than women who have never experienced sexual assault at all. And 1/4 of all women will be raped at some point in their life.

These are numbers that are utterly unacceptable – and appointing Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court is – literally – making it okay. What is the likelihood that Brett Kavanaugh will rule for the condemnation of a rapist, were the case to be brought to him and his peers? What are the odds that he would side with the rapist – perhaps suggesting that the woman ‘had it coming’, or ‘asked for it’?

The problem here is not that there are a few young men who will think it’s okay; the problem is that there are tens of millions of women who have just been told that they might as well suck it up and take it. Tens of millions of women who for decades have been turned away and dismissed, and who have now been told that at the absolute highest level of law in the country that this is what to expect.

There are a great number of men who will never understand the trauma of sexual assault. There are men who absolutely cannot comprehend that non-consensual sex leaves indelible scars in the psyche of the victim. There are, as sad as it is, men who believe they are the victim for having been caught. Men who will defend to the death that they did nothing wrong, all the while knowing that they used their privilege and their strength to take forcefully what they wanted.

So yes – I am sickened that a man like Brett Kavanaugh is now one of the supreme lawmakers of this country. I am sickened that he was even considered. And I am sickened that the testimony of a victim was considered by the highest powers of our country to be worthless, attention-seeking lies.

Is there are fix to this? Sadly, it may require women to continue to report their assaults. Because so long as men refuse to believe them, women will need to persist, to fight, and to show that they are as worthy of trust as anyone. So long as men continue to be taught that there are no consequences to their actions, women will need to defend and protect themselves.

And so long as women are raped, men will continue to to think that sex is their right.

It isn’t. No more than owning humans is a right, sexual contact is something that must be consensual. And if it isn’t – at any point – then the person forcing themselves on the other must be held accountable.

Dr. Ford – I’m sorry. I’m sorry we didn’t listen. I’m sorry that a few despicable men overpowered you – both then and now. It isn’t right. But thank you for speaking up. You gave a voice to millions who’ve been silenced for generations.

It’s time for those voices to be heard.