I've been seeing posts like these recently and the comments that inspire them, and it has me vexed. This constant need to explain away the crimes of entitled white people is inane and utterly exhausting. I was bullied in middle school. I was a skinny, little girl about 4 inches shorter than I am now. A boy physically bullied me and it physically hurt. Badly. That year, a lot of other stresses were culminating in my life and that's when my anorexia began, which continued for the next six years. I was in physical and emotional pain, and yet I didn't go on a rampage and I didn't hurt other people. Frankly, I was too busy hurting myself, which is not a healthy reaction either, and I certainly don't advocate it. But I didn't think others deserved to suffer for what I was going through, even when others were downright causing it. I stood up to my bully once after months of harassment and that, thankfully, put an end to it. I know other bullying stories don't always end so well and I am grateful it did not continue to escalate. But that doesn't mean that it, combined with everything else I was going through, didn't take a significant enough toll. And yet, here I am, a relatively healthy and balanced person and distinctly not a shooter of any kind, let alone a mass killer.
Mass shooters are overwhelmingly straight, white males, who are mostly conservatives, often claim to be Christian, aren't overweight, and don't even wear glasses. Do you have any idea how much teasing I endured for wearing glasses at the age of 7? And I rocked them just as well then as I do now! Yet conservatives are spouting nonsense like we should be kinder to people and that girls should stop rejecting guys so they don't become shooters. First of all, plenty of people who are treated nicely hurt others. And plenty of people who are treated badly hurt no one. Yes, we should all be kinder to each other but some people will play the victim no matter how good their life is. And I'm not going to blame someone who had problems of their own, as we all do, for not noticing the one quiet kid. We all go through stuff and while we have a responsibility to those around us, it is unreasonable to expect that we make everyone we come into contact with happy. Secondly, it's your choice what you do to people. If they aren't nice to you, it's still on you if you retaliate. And thirdly, why should girls date ANYONE they don't want to, let alone someone who has the potential to kill people because they didn't get everything they wanted in life? Can we stop putting the blame on anyone, but especially women, for the actions of hateful men? When does the blaming of women for not wanting men that want them end? When? Because I, myself, have been a victim of it more times than I care to count and it is such an immature, pampered, self-centred, and generally hateful mindset to have. And US conservatives, who have the audacity to still believe they actually stand for anything close to family values, are suggesting we pimp ourselves out to avoid violence from men lest their outrage be justified? Just let that sink in for a second.
Men have shot up workplaces that didn't offer them a job, workplaces that fired them with reason, and workplaces where they were still employed. They have shot families at a concert, people at a nightclub, elementary school kids, church goers, restaurant and cinema patrons, shoppers at a mall, and people walking down the street. These are men who believe the world owes them something and therefore believe they are entitled to hurt anyone in that world. They don't lash out exclusively at those whom they perceive wronged them. They make a scene, exert their power, and wield a deadly weapon that has been marketed as a tool of manliness.
When the demographics that get picked on the most are not the ones doing the murderous tirades, this argument just sounds like willfully tone-deaf lunacy. Stop blaming doors (yes, a Texas official said schools should have fewer doors so shooters can't get in as easily), and teachers who aren't armed, and students who didn't high-five the loner enough. Blame easy access to guns and a culture of toxic masculinity that breeds aggression, resentment, and the notion that your own desires and feelings take precedence over the desires and rights of others. And stop tolerating for a second when anyone wants to give more sympathy to the shooter than his victims because they somehow twistedly deserved it on some fabricated level. Do not entertain the media when it wants to spend weeks pouring over the personal life of every white shooter, interviewing distant relatives, reading diaries, desperately searching for a shred of justification so we don't have to admit that white people can be straight up violent - so we don't have admit that we're actually the most violent - when we label any person of colour who commits any crime a "terrorist" before we even know their name.
We need to stop showing the shooters' pictures on the news. I'd be for omitting their name from public record. The Parkland shooter, whose name I refuse to look up right now, is getting fan mail in prison, for goodness' sake! I say, instead, we exclusively flood the news with details on every single life that was stolen that day. We do not let the shooters go down in a blaze of glory seeking infamy. We show them they will gain no notoriety and no one will even know their name. And instead we refer to them as what they are - mass murderers. Not "lone wolves," not the bullied loner, not the mentally disturbed teen. Mass -- murderer. Anything less is inexcusably racist and morbidly indulgent. Any murderer has mental problems. You'd have to be crazy to intentionally kill anyone, let alone a bunch of people, but it's not an excuse. There are plenty of people with real and debilitating mental disorders who don't go on killing sprees. The causation simply isn't there.
What would happen if most mass shooters were women? We'd be treated like the brainless, hormonal, second-class citizens we were seen as mere decades ago. We'd probably be fighting for the right to vote again. What if most of them were black? Would we be saying it's a case of mental illness, while simultaneously refusing to make access to mental healthcare more easy and affordable like we do now? You know we wouldn't. And you know exactly why we wouldn't. We need to stop letting white men make the decisions that enable other white men to hurt so many.
Gun violence is not the price of freedom; many perfectly free countries do not endure the tragedies of the United States. Rampant, uncontrolled gun violence is the result of an anarchy spurred by greed and it threatens the lives of more citizens than it protects. Gun control now. Stop assigning blame to everything but what is to blame and start protecting our safety, our freedom, and our children already.
