Two major obstacles to curbing gun violence in America are: the concept of good guys/bad guys as a static thing or type, and then the partisan practice of demonizing the political opposition.
When we create a world view where there are good people and bad people, and that they will both always be that thing, and then we paint our political opposition as the bad guys, there will never be any room to collaborate or compromise – ever. Because in this worldview the other political side will always have bad intentions and always be working toward bad outcomes. One will be fighting against that opposition’s assumed identity rather than addressing the issues at hand.
We cannot allow ourselves to give in to this bias, not just because it is based on a fundamental lie about human nature, but also in that it absolutely cripples our ability to improve society.
People are not fundamentally good or bad. Even the most extreme evil doer will also be capable of benevolent acts. A mafia don may both order a murder and then financially support those in need. A person who has done nothing but good, maybe even been heroic, can later commit acts of atrocity. Those who have done horrible things, might never repeat such acts but rather commit their lives to humanitarian service.
Humans are neither static nor one dimensional.
The idea that bad people will always do bad things no matter what laws we pass might be true at an incident level, as in bad things might always happen no matter the law, but it is completely untrue at an individual human level. Meaning, an individual may or may not have their actions influenced by any given law at any given time. A young man may have bad intentions and try to harm a large crowd of people at one point in his life, but if the tools are unavailable or inconvenient, requiring additional effort and a longer timeframe, it cannot be assumed that this person will maintain those bad intentions indefinitely.
Our intentions and energy level fluctuate. Anyone who has attempted to get or stay “in-shape” knows this at a fundamental level. While an individual’s actions or motivations vary through time, there may at any given time be enough actively engaged fitness minded people to keep a gym in business, though the individuals actually showing up will always be in flux. Bad things may continually happen but they are not necessarily done by a stagnant, limited, group of individuals.
Political parties are made of people. Party platforms shift and change. The idea that one party is all good or all bad, or that either party will stay whatever it is forever, is wrong. To believe as much is the definition of bias.
Such biases are magnified in the gun debate.
The safety of children cannot be managed via political tribalism.
Arming the good guys to defend against the bad guys assumes that we know in advance who is who. Disarming bad guys in advance requires the same assumption.
I do not know how much I will weigh next year, but I do know I eat less when food is less convenient. I also know that working out takes a lot of work and sacrifice and maintaining motivation over a long period of time, is hard. I usually give up. Or slack off. Because I’m a person and my mental and emotional state shifts over time.
We need to keep this fluctuation in mind when crafting policy, passing laws, voting, or in our pursuit of justice.
When a system, or representatives of a system, attempt to explain away the racial component of the killing of Asian people because of the ‘words’ of a white killer, despite the evidence and consequences of the the killer’s actions, we are witnessing the systematic shift from white privilege up to white supremacy.
If a person enters a place primarily inhabited by Asians, and then kills several people there, the impact of the death and destruction is born primarily by that Asian community. The stated intentions of the perpetrator do not change who bears that impact.
Microagressions are small, often unintentional slights, not even necessarily insults, but little pin pricks based on a marginalized characteristic (such as race, sexual orientation, gender, nationality).
Any one instance of such would be no big deal, but the thing is, they add up.
It’s like when my older brother used to hold me down and begin tapping me on the forehead till I could name ten fruits. It wasn’t painful but man it was annoying and made it super hard to do something that was normally simple- naming ten varieties of fruit.Microagressions are just like that, except instead of my big brother its American society and instead of naming ten fruits, Black people are just trying to live life.
The concept of microagressions fit solidly within CRT in that they become very evident and pervasive (endemic) when we listen to non-white people (counter-storytelling).
American law is based on property rights, not human rights.
If American law had been based on human rights rather than property rights, slavery and the confiscation of Native American land would have never been legal. But both happened- with official sanction.This prioritization of property over people was evidenced in proposals to emancipate slaves via slave owner compensation- rather than prosecution for a violation of human rights.
The caveat is that White people have in fact been protected under the law in a similar way to property, making Whiteness itself a form of property. This would help explain why stand your ground law tends to favor White shooters over Black victims, but not vice-versa, or, why there may be more systematic reaction to property damage from a Black Lives Matter protest than there is systematic reaction to the killing of an unarmed Black person.
CRT investigates how Whiteness acts as a form of property.
All people generally think of themselves, and their own needs, first.
This is often an assumption when we consider the workings of both capitalism and democracy. CRT theorists have found that programs, laws, or movements directed at combating the effects of racism, usually only have staying power, or in some way “work”, if whatever is being asked also, in some way, benefits White people.
Race is never the only thing going on in a Black person’s life.
Or anyone’s life for that matter. People “experience” race at the same time they experience sex, gender, wealth, poverty, nationality, or any other aspect of human socialization. All of those things are ever-present and must be known and addressed.
So, if we pass a law making it illegal to segregate schools by race, and then all the White people move away, we need to know that wealth plays a role, gender plays a role, sexual orientation, and many other things, all play a role.
Considering how multiple factors happen all at once, is called “intersectionality”.
We must listen to how the non-white people say stuff happens or works.
If we want to know about the ocean, we cannot only pay attention to the water, we also need to know about fish. If the water claims it is the perfect temperature, but all the fish are freezing- there is a problem.
When it comes to racism in America, we should listen to what the non-White people are saying. There are plenty of studies, plenty of lawsuits, and lots of stories about race and racism coming from White America. CRT turns this around and centers the stories and viewpoints coming from non-White Americans.
This is called counter story-telling.
So, if we pass a law making it illegal to segregate schools by race, and then all the White people move away from the school, CRT does not begin by asking the White people what is happening but rather listens to the Black students left at the school.
Racism is not an isolated incident, but rather, an interwoven part of everyday American life.
This is rooted in the reality that from the founding, and through the formative years of American history, being white was a requirement for American citizenship and all of its associated rights or privileges. That was racist. The consequence of this, is that society developed in a way that naturally operates to the advantage of White people, independent of anyone’s intentions.
For example, you can pass a law that makes it illegal to segregate schools by race, but that doesn’t really matter if all the White people choose to move away from the schools with Black students. It doesn’t really matter why those people are moving away, the effect remains the same.
This is what it means when CRT theorists say “racism is endemic”
Civil rights laws were good, but sorta didn’t fix the problem.
Critical Race Theory began as a critique and rethinking of our legal system with the awareness that civil rights legislation or legal cases, even when “won” haven’t necessarily helped Black people. For example, Brown v Board of Education made segregation in public schools illegal, yet all these years later, more Black students experience a segregated education than was happening before.
I’m in a Facebook group. It’s a sort of neighborhood watch for the development in which I live, and it has shown me more about where I live, than physically living here ever has.
When we first moved here we took home baked cookies to all the houses on the block with no observable consequences. People were friendly enough, but we haven’t had a follow up conversation with anyone since, at least not in person.
Our real introduction came last Thanksgiving. I saw a notice from Facebook that the group had new comments. I opened it up to see a long thread of mean-spirited notes about parking. It included a story about how multiple complaints had been previously made, there were accusations of inconsideration, and lots of rhetorical questions of how stupid someone must be to park such a way. There was absolute consensus that not only was this bad parking and bad form, but that something must be done. Yes, the abuse had gone on too long and gone too far.
The best part of the thread was the photo of my car.
There it was, plain to see, with passenger side tires on the sidewalk. I had indeed parked it that way- and did so on a regular basis. But there was also another car, my next-door neighbor’s, right in front of mine, parked the same way.
The day we took our initial tour of the property as potential tenants I noticed that this block parked on the walk. I thought it a bit odd, but funny enough, not new to me. I had previously lived 7 years on a narrow block where one had to park similarly in order for cars to have room enough to pass. That was back when I first learned that rear view mirrors folded in for reasons other than the car wash. But that was then and there, here, in my new suburban community with a gate out front, the road was wider, but I shrugged and followed suit. I did as the Romans without asking why.
And here were the Romans ready to turn me into pre-revolutionary Spartacus.
I posted an apologetic comment with a promise to reform, and a deferential request that if I offend in the future, that I would be happy to atone-especially if my errors were in fact brought to my attention.
The thread did a turn-about. There were apologies and discussions about actually getting to know each other in person. One of our neighbors even brought us over a Black Lives Matter yard flag and the moderator of the group even changed its name from a “watch” to a “community”. I appreciated that act. The online reform was sort of nice.
Sort of.
Since then, I have seen things.
Mostly complaints about the front gate not working. There was that one time someone posted a picture of a crane, like the long-necked bird, walking through the subdivision, and then the images of stray trash cans after a windstorm. But I also saw doorbell pictures of the neighbor’s children who I knew, with the heading “beware white car using children to steal packages.” I know those kids from church. They were delivering gifts to the homes of other members of our congregation. I saw a blurry image of a kid on a BMX bike with the text, “Does anyone know this person? He is suspiciously riding around the neighborhood.”
I didn’t know him nor could anyone from the image quality. Photos of cars are posted regularly being declared suspicious or unknown with the caution to beware. I have seen pictures of teenagers hanging out at the park with the caption “troublemakers hanging out at the park being disrespectful.”
And then there was that one time someone posted a video of what appeared to be a teenaged girl wearing a bikini and slippers standing, and sort of dancing, in the middle of the street.
The person taking the video was asking the girl to identify herself and repeatedly asked her if she lived in the community. She refused to answer. The person who posted the video, who I am guessing was the videographer, was asking the community if anyone knew her and insinuated the girl was on drugs.
I wondered to myself why the avenue of the filmer’s inquiry was bikini girl’s address. She was being asked to prove where she lived, insinuating she didn’t live here, which in tun insinuated that the acceptability of her behavior hinged on her residence as well as the assumption that people who own these homes are incapable of acting that way.
Curious. The nature of poster’s question disturbed me much more than the girl’s exposed stomach and legs.
The video was quickly taken down.
Just yesterday there was a complaint about illegal fireworks that inspired the moderator requesting decorum.
The resulting comments included a man who insisted this online group exist as a watch, because people are too dangerous these days to speak with in person. I, not exactly naïvely but with misplaced hope, offered that in order for community to exist, we must be willing to engage each other directly. He did not agree.
He aggressively countered with “Have you ever had your life threatened?” because he of course had. “Had I ever had someone threaten to kill me just because I asked their children to get off my property?” Because of course he had, and he will never talk to anyone with whom he doesn’t already have a relationship, because people will shoot you for no reason these days.
I withdrew from participation on that thread without pointing out that no one had in fact shot him for no reason in his anecdote. Nor did I post the local crime data I Googled.
Our little city does indeed have incidents of crime; packages are stolen from porches, houses get burgled, and someone painted a penis on the picnic table at the park. Last year, 2 people were murdered. That gave us a 2.2% murder rate, compared to a national average of 6. We have an assault score of 194 compared to a national 282, robbery at 60 compared to 135 nation-wide, and burglaries come in at 329! The national average is 500.
All of these scores have declined since 2017.
I am having trouble understanding my neighbor’s fear.
In fairness, part of this, or even most of this, lack of understanding comes from me not actually knowing my neighbor.
Another part is fed by where I lived before.
My previous neighborhood’s murder rate was 22%. Not 2.2, that is where I live now, but rather “twenty-two”. Assault scored 486, robbery 331, but then burglaries were closer, coming in at 409 (note, Philadelphia is below the national average in burglaries!!!). I was there for almost 8 years, experienced several conflicts with neighbors, and yet, unlike my suburban neighbor, no one threatened to kill me.
I am not relating this to win, danger is not a contest, but more because I worry about fear. People make poor choices when they are afraid, or rather, we are willing to go to extremes when danger is perceived. And fear is a feeling, a perception, not an analysis of data.
I experience danger and fear differently than some. I am just over six feet tall and a bit more than “just” over 200 pounds. I am an adult white man who appears middle class. I walk the world, both corporate corridors and back alleys, knowing that I am physically more imposing than average people and that if cops are called, they will likely see me as an ally or at least they will listen when I speak.
Not everyone has these privileges.
But my fearful neighbor does. Unless he is using a misleading avatar, he is a grown white man just like me. But he is afraid – of me. I don’t think he is anomalous.
I have never hurt anyone, nor even attempted to hurt anyone (sports don’t count) in my life, and yet my Facebook neighbors feel fear. The data show that the things to be feared, are not likely. I do not know what has happened to all those who live nearby, but I can calculate the likelihood. But that isn’t the issue as much as their impressions are.
Now, as I go outside for some COVID fresh air, and ride my bike, or cruise on my long board, or walk with my kids, I know that behind those doors are people who see me first with suspicion and possibly as a threat. Me, and I don’t feel welcomed or safe.
And then I imagine what it must be like for those who aren’t large middle class white men.
How welcome are Black women or brown men? How safe do those who aren’t physically imposing, or whom the police don’t assume are safe, feel? If you are so afraid of me that we cannot speak, how do you react to them?
How safe are they from your fear?
If I don’t know you, or if we won’t get to know each other, how can we fix this? And also, most disappointingly, because of who is afraid and how fearful people act, it looks like it is completely up to those who are feared to attempt building bridges.
Brohammas 