Printer-friendly copy Email this topic to a friend
Lobby Okay Activist Archives topic #17318

Subject: "Interesting Article" This topic is locked.
Previous topic | Next topic
Wendell
Charter member
8207 posts
Thu Mar-15-01 06:14 AM

Click to send email to this author Click to send private message to this authorClick to view this author's profileClick to add this author to your buddy list
"Interesting Article"


          

School Shootings and White Denial
Tim Wise, AlterNet
March 6, 2001

I can think of no other way to say this, so here goes: white people need to pull our heads out of our collective ass.
Two more white children are dead and thirteen are injured, and another "nice" community is scratching its blonde head, utterly perplexed at how a school shooting the likes of the one yesterday in Santee, California could happen. After all, as the Mayor of the town said in an interview with CNN: "We're a solid town, a good town, with good kids, a good church-going town…an All-American town." Yeah, well maybe that's the problem.

I said this after Columbine and no one listened so I'll say it again: white people live in an utter state of self-delusion. We think danger is black, brown and poor, and if we can just move far enough away from "those people" in the cities we'll be safe. If we can just find an "all-American" town, life will be better, because "things like this just don't happen here."

Well bullshit on that. In case you hadn't noticed, "here" is about the only place these kinds of things do happen. Oh sure, there is plenty of violence in urban communities and schools. But mass murder; wholesale slaughter; take-a-gun-and-see-how-many-you can-kill kinda craziness seems made for those safe places: the white suburbs or rural communities.

And yet once again, we hear the FBI insist there is no "profile" of a school shooter. Come again? White boy after white boy after white boy, with very few exceptions to that rule (and none in the mass shooting category), decides to use their classmates for target practice, and yet there is no profile? Imagine if all these killers had been black: would we still hesitate to put a racial face on the perpetrators? Doubtful.

Indeed, if any black child in America -- especially in the mostly white suburbs of Littleton, or Santee -- were to openly discuss their plans to murder fellow students, as happened both at Columbine and now Santana High, you can bet your ass that somebody would have turned them in, and the cops would have beat a path to their doorstep. But when whites discuss their murderous intentions, our stereotypes of what danger looks like cause us to ignore it -- they're just "talking" and won't really do anything. How many kids have to die before we rethink that nonsense? How many dazed and confused parents, Mayors and Sheriffs do we have to listen to, describing how "normal" and safe their community is, and how they just can't understand what went wrong?

I'll tell you what went wrong and it's not TV, rap music, video games or a lack of prayer in school. What went wrong is that white Americans decided to ignore dysfunction and violence when it only affected other communities, and thereby blinded themselves to the inevitable creeping of chaos which never remains isolated too long. What affects the urban "ghetto" today will be coming to a Wal-Mart near you tomorrow, and unless you address the emptiness, pain, isolation and lack of hope felt by children of color and the poor, then don't be shocked when the support systems aren't there for your kids either.

What went wrong is that we allowed ourselves to be lulled into a false sense of security by media representations of crime and violence that portray both as the province of those who are anything but white like us. We ignore the warning signs, because in our minds the warning signs don't live in our neighborhood, but across town, in that place where we lock our car doors on the rare occasion we have to drive there. That false sense of security -- the result of racist and classist stereotypes -- then gets people killed. And still we act amazed.

But listen up my fellow white Americans: your children are no better, no nicer, no more moral, no more decent than anyone else. Dysfunction is all around you, whether you choose to recognize it or not.

According to the Centers for Disease Control, and Department of Health and Human Services, it is your children, and not those of the urban ghetto, who are most likely to use drugs. That's right: white high school students are seven times more likely than blacks to have used cocaine; eight times more likely to have smoked crack; ten times more likely to have used LSD and seven times more likely to have used heroin. In fact, there are more white high school students who have used crystal methamphetamine (the most addictive drug on the streets) than there are black students who smoke cigarettes.

What's more, white youth ages 12-17 are more likely to sell drugs: 34% more likely, in fact than their black counterparts. And it is white youth who are twice as likely to binge drink, and nearly twice as likely as blacks to drive drunk. And white males are twice as likely to bring a weapon to school as are black males.

And yet I would bet a valued body part that there aren't 100 white people in Santee, California, or most any other "nice" community who have ever heard a single one of the statistics above. Even though they were collected by government agencies using these folks' tax money for the purpose. Because the media doesn't report on white dysfunction.

A few years ago, U.S. News ran a story entitled: "A Shocking look at blacks and crime." Yet never have they or any other news outlet discussed the "shocking" whiteness of these shoot-em-ups. Indeed, every time media commentators discuss the similarities in these crimes they mention that the shooters were boys, they were loners, they got picked on, but never do they seem to notice a certain highly visible melanin deficiency. Color-blind, I guess.

White-blind is more like it, as I figure these folks would spot color mighty damn quick were some of it to stroll into their community. Santee's whiteness is so taken for granted by its residents that the Mayor, in that CNN interview, thought nothing of saying on the one hand that the town was 82 percent white, but on the other hand that "this is America." Well that isn't America, and it especially isn't California, where whites are only half of the population. This is a town that is removed from America, and yet its Mayor thinks they are the normal ones -- so much so that when asked about racial diversity, he replied that there weren't many of different "ethni-tis-tities." Not a word. Not even close.

I'd like to think that after this one, people would wake up. Take note. Rethink their stereotypes of who the dangerous ones are. But deep down, I know better. The folks hitting the snooze button on this none-too-subtle alarm are my own people, after all, and I know their blindness like the back of my hand.

Tim Wise is a Nashville-based writer and activist and can be reached at tjwise@mindspring.com


Peace

Wendell

Peace

Wendell

  

Printer-friendly copy | Top


Topic Outline
Subject Author Message Date ID
this has been posted 4 times
Mar 15th 2001
1
strangely enough
Mar 15th 2001
2
OOOPPPSSS!
Mar 15th 2001
5
RE: Interesting Article
Mar 15th 2001
3
does it help
Mar 15th 2001
4
Email the author
Mar 15th 2001
6
Can the church say amen
Mar 15th 2001
7

k_orr
Charter member
80197 posts
Thu Mar-15-01 06:25 AM

Click to send private message to this authorClick to view this author's profileClick to add this author to your buddy listClick to send message via AOL IM
1. "this has been posted 4 times"
In response to Reply # 0


  

          

k. orr

http://breddanansi.tumblr.com/

  

Printer-friendly copy | Top

    
BooDaah
Charter member
32690 posts
Thu Mar-15-01 06:32 AM

Click to send private message to this authorClick to view this author's profileClick to add this author to your buddy list
2. "strangely enough"
In response to Reply # 1


          

i can't find it (that's not the strange part).

the strange part IS that i was gonna lock this until i recalled that i didn't remember actually seeing the text of the atricle (just links).

so (*ahem *toy cop* ahem*), in the interest of archiving it once and for all, please allow me...to let this one ride.

however, if you can find one of the other four, feel free to push it up and i'll get rid of this.

thanks self appointed honorary deputy k_orr

  

Printer-friendly copy | Top

    
Wendell
Charter member
8207 posts
Thu Mar-15-01 09:05 AM

Click to send email to this author Click to send private message to this authorClick to view this author's profileClick to add this author to your buddy list
5. "OOOPPPSSS!"
In response to Reply # 1


          

Obviously, I wasn't aware of that.

My bad.

Peace

Wendell

Peace

Wendell

  

Printer-friendly copy | Top

Question
Member since Feb 21st 2003
1 posts
Thu Mar-15-01 07:27 AM

Click to send private message to this authorClick to view this author's profileClick to add this author to your buddy list
3. "RE: Interesting Article"
In response to Reply # 0


          

>School Shootings and White Denial
>Tim Wise, AlterNet
>March 6, 2001
>
>I can think of no other
>way to say this, so
>here goes: white people need
>to pull our heads out
>of our collective ass.
>Two more white children are dead
>and thirteen are injured, and
>another "nice" community is scratching
>its blonde head, utterly perplexed
>at how a school shooting
>the likes of the one
>yesterday in Santee, California could
>happen. After all, as the
>Mayor of the town said
>in an interview with CNN:
>"We're a solid town, a
>good town, with good kids,
>a good church-going town…an All-American
>town." Yeah, well maybe that's
>the problem.
>I said this after Columbine and
>no one listened so I'll
>say it again: white people
>live in an utter state
>of self-delusion. We think danger
>is black, brown and poor,
>and if we can just
>move far enough away from
>"those people" in the cities
>we'll be safe. If we
>can just find an "all-American"
>town, life will be better,
>because "things like this just
>don't happen here."


That's a generalization. I'm a teenage black male and NOT EVEN I agree with that, fully. I do agree that chunks of America is very much blind, but you shouldn't be that quick to assume every white person is like that.. which is clearly what you said.

>Well bullshit on that. In case
>you hadn't noticed, "here" is
>about the only place these
>kinds of things do happen.
>Oh sure, there is plenty
>of violence in urban communities
>and schools.But mass murder;
>wholesale slaughter; take-a-gun-and-see-how-many-you can-kill kinda
>craziness seems made for those
>safe places: the white suburbs
>or rural communities.

True.. but don't look into the illusion that violence is strickly in white suburbs. I'm sure there was plenty of violence in "urban" areas you never heard about, because the media doesn't seem to care when it happens in "ghettos", but they're quick to pick up footage in mostly white smaller towns.


>And yet once again, we hear
>the FBI insist there is
>no "profile" of a school
>shooter. Come again? White
>boy after white boy after
>white boy, with very few
>exceptions to that rule (and
>none in the mass shooting
>category), decides to use their
>classmates for target practice, and
>yet there is no profile?
>Imagine if all these killers
>had been black: would
>we still hesitate to put
>a racial face on the
>perpetrators? Doubtful.
>Indeed, if any black child in
>America -- especially in the
>mostly white suburbs of Littleton,
>or Santee -- were to
>openly discuss their plans to
>murder fellow students, as happened
>both at Columbine and now
>Santana High, you can bet
>your ass that somebody would
>have turned them in, and
>the cops would have beat
>a path to their doorstep.

Very much true. An incident involving schools and police happened to me, they used "alleged" evidence to send about 80 cops to my house for no reason.

>But when whites discuss their
>murderous intentions, our stereotypes of
>what danger looks like cause
>us to ignore it --
>they're just "talking" and won't
>really do anything.

Not totally true. One of the parents who heard about the kid in Santee planning to shoot up his school told one of the kids parents.. I believe. (Not much, but something). The problem is, people always think of calling the police as a last resort before doing anything else, even when it comes to life and death situations.

How many
>kids have to die before
>we rethink that nonsense? How
>many dazed and confused parents,
>Mayors and Sheriffs do we
>have to listen to, describing
>how "normal" and safe their
>community is, and how they
>just can't understand what went
>wrong?

>I'll tell you what went wrong
>and it's not TV, rap
>music, video games or a
>lack of prayer in school.

Amazing, the media has blamed violent video games for some of the pre-meditated surburban shootings. I even heard two ladies on the radio last week blaming what they called "The Rap" for school violence among white youth. But nobody trully stopped to blame pro wrestling as the cause for the pre-teen BLACK child killing a 6 year old girl by accident. How "ironic".


>What went wrong is that
>white Americans decided to ignore
>dysfunction and violence when it
>only affected other communities, and
>thereby blinded themselves to the
>inevitable creeping of chaos which
>never remains isolated too long.
> What affects the urban
>"ghetto" today will be coming
>to a Wal-Mart near you
>tomorrow, and unless you address
>the emptiness, pain, isolation and
>lack of hope felt by
>children of color and the
>poor, then don't be shocked
>when the support systems aren't
>there for your kids either.

I agree. But you seem to always associate "ghettos/urban" with blacks. Please don't fall into the same word use and generalization as the media did with that. Nowadays "urban" is code word for "black" and suburb is code word for "white". There are black surburbs (I've been in one), and there are whites in some projects. I understand it's not like that most of the time, I just thought I'd point that out.


>What went wrong is that we
>allowed ourselves to be lulled
>into a false sense of
>security by media representations of
>crime and violence that portray
>both as the province of
>those who are anything but
>white like us. We ignore
>the warning signs, because in
>our minds the warning signs
>don't live in our neighborhood,
>but across town, in that
>place where we lock our
>car doors on the rare
>occasion we have to drive
>there. That false sense of
>security -- the result of
>racist and classist stereotypes --
>then gets people killed. And
>still we act amazed.
>But listen up my fellow white
>Americans: your children are no
>better, no nicer, no more
>moral, no more decent than
>anyone else. Dysfunction is all
>around you, whether you choose
>to recognize it or not.

Agreed.


>According to the Centers for Disease
>Control, and Department of Health
>and Human Services, it is
>your children, and not those
>of the urban ghetto, who
>are most likely to use
>drugs. That's right: white high
>school students are seven times
>more likely than blacks to
>have used cocaine; eight times
>more likely to have smoked
>crack; ten times more likely
>to have used LSD and
>seven times more likely to
>have used heroin. In fact,
>there are more white high
>school students who have used
>crystal methamphetamine (the most addictive
>drug on the streets) than
>there are black students who
>smoke cigarettes.

>What's more, white youth ages 12-17
>are more likely to sell
>drugs: 34% more likely, in
>fact than their black counterparts.
>And it is white youth
>who are twice as likely
>to binge drink, and nearly
>twice as likely as blacks
>to drive drunk. And white
>males are twice as likely
>to bring a weapon to
>school as are black males.
>
>
>And yet I would bet a
>valued body part that there
>aren't 100 white people in
>Santee, California, or most any
>other "nice" community who have
>ever heard a single one
>of the statistics above. Even
>though they were collected by
>government agencies using these folks'
>tax money for the purpose.
>Because the media doesn't report
>on white dysfunction.

True, so I suppose someone should do something about that... e.g. call in on one of those news shows and state facts to get people thinking. A lot more can be done besides that too.

>A few years ago, U.S. News
>ran a story entitled: "A
>Shocking look at blacks and
>crime." Yet never have they
>or any other news outlet
>discussed the "shocking" whiteness of
>these shoot-em-ups. Indeed, every time
>media commentators discuss the similarities
>in these crimes they mention
>that the shooters were boys,
>they were loners, they got
>picked on, but never do
>they seem to notice a
>certain highly visible melanin deficiency.
>Color-blind, I guess.

Yeah, more "irony".

>White-blind is more like it, as
>I figure these folks would
>spot color mighty damn quick
>were some of it to
>stroll into their community. Santee's
>whiteness is so taken for
>granted by its residents that
>the Mayor, in that CNN
>interview, thought nothing of saying
>on the one hand that
>the town was 82 percent
>white, but on the other
>hand that "this is America."
>Well that isn't America, and
>it especially isn't California, where
>whites are only half of
>the population. This is a
>town that is removed from
>America, and yet its Mayor
>thinks they are the normal
>ones -- so much so
>that when asked about racial
>diversity, he replied that there
>weren't many of different "ethni-tis-tities."
>Not a word. Not
>even close.

Haha

>I'd like to think that after
>this one, people would wake
>up. Take note. Rethink their
>stereotypes of who the dangerous
>ones are. But deep down,
>I know better. The folks
>hitting the snooze button on
>this none-too-subtle alarm are my
>own people, after all, and
>I know their blindness like
>the back of my hand.

Agreed.

>Tim Wise is a Nashville-based writer
>and activist and can be
>reached at tjwise@mindspring.com
>
>
>Peace
>
>Wendell



  

Printer-friendly copy | Top

    
LexM
Charter member
28342 posts
Thu Mar-15-01 07:54 AM

Click to send email to this author Click to send private message to this authorClick to view this author's profileClick to add this author to your buddy list
4. "does it help"
In response to Reply # 3


  

          

that a white person wrote this?


>That's a generalization. I'm a teenage
>black male and NOT EVEN
>I agree with that, fully.
>I do agree that chunks
>of America is very much
>blind, but you shouldn't be
>that quick to assume every
>white person is like that..
>which is clearly what you
>said.

maybe not "every" white person, but the white people where these shootings keep happening. And in this context, they're the population of white folks the author is addressing.

However (if you really wanna take color out of it) I'm willing to bet that ANY person residing in the "suburbs" who has "made it" has that kind of attitude. Money and a little peace & quiet on your street can make you awfully complacent. Living in an urban area often forces you to wake up and face reality on the daily.

What Americans need to stop assuming is that money always buys you safety and a healthy environment for your children. Ultimately, that's your job.

peace

L.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"my mama said/a lady ain't what she wears/but what she knows"~~India Arie

Ignorance: The Verbal Airborne Disease" (c) my friend Ty

~~~~
http://omidele.blogspot.com/
http://rahareiki.tumblr.com/
http://seatofbliss.blogspot.com/

  

Printer-friendly copy | Top

    
Wendell
Charter member
8207 posts
Thu Mar-15-01 09:06 AM

Click to send email to this author Click to send private message to this authorClick to view this author's profileClick to add this author to your buddy list
6. "Email the author"
In response to Reply # 3


          

with your critique.

I just posted it for discussion.

Peace

Wendell

Peace

Wendell

  

Printer-friendly copy | Top

paragon216
Charter member
5565 posts
Thu Mar-15-01 09:46 AM

Click to send email to this author Click to send private message to this authorClick to view this author's profileClick to add this author to your buddy list
7. "Can the church say amen"
In response to Reply # 0


          

"fool, Hip-Hop is what I say it is" -- Saul Williams

  

Printer-friendly copy | Top

Lobby Okay Activist Archives topic #17318 Previous topic | Next topic
Powered by DCForum+ Version 1.25
Copyright © DCScripts.com