Since 2016, violence in its many forms (police violence, hate crimes, domestic terrorism, war) has been at the forefront of people's minds.
But one stands out among the rest - school shootings. The school shooting is a uniquely American tragedy which has inspired enough outrage, sadness, and fear to deserve the attention it gets. But rather than address the problems at the root* of the school shooting, we as a nation have chosen to ignore this in favor of disarming every person of color, every woman, every member of the LGBTQIA community who doesn't have the privilege of disarmament, of trusting the police with their lives. Once again, white privilege has won the day and the most "progressive" and "brave" movements of our time exist only to uphold the state monopoly on violence.
Before delving into why liberals have betrayed marginalized and oppressed peoples yet again, let's address how conservatives have betrayed basic human decency yet again. No, the Parkland kids are not "crisis actors." Yes, you are a scumbag for suggesting that is the case. Also, they're not communists. Moving on...
Liberals, I'm talking to you directly now, specifically you white liberals, you are and have always been the worst enemy of marginalized communities.
Martin Luther King Jr. himself has said so. You'd know this if you weren't so busy whitewashing the legacy of the Civil Rights Movement.
A black man, a father, was shot dead in his grandmother's backyard holding a cell phone. His name was Stephon Clark. Who's marching for his life? Who's marching for Trayvon Martin's life? Who's marching for Tamir Rice's life? Who's marching for Aiyana Jones' life? Admittedly, there are a few people marching for their lives, mostly people of color. But where's their air time? Where are their interviews? When black kids said "never again" they weren't heroes. They didn't get on the cover on Time Magazine. They got tear gas and rubber bullets.
And as more and more Black Lives Matter leaders are being assassinated, where are all the white liberals demanding an end to the violence? As the FBI begins prosecuting "black identity extremists", where are the white "progressives" demanding justice? Because we all know it's not "black identity extremists" who are shooting up schools. It's white men. But white liberals can't touch that; that'd be a challenge to their white privilege. They can pay lip service to it, on some level they understand that something inherent in white identity is violent, but their liberal ideology, the same ideology of the conservatives, will not allow them to do anything which is against their best interests as whites.
This is not the first time this has happened. Gun control has always had a racist history. It was the Black Panther Party which made Ronald Reagan pro-gun control while he was governor of California. And, as a white man, he should have been afraid. That was a direct threat to his white privilege. The Black Panthers weren't going to hand in their weapons to the same police, the same government, which threw them into concrete cotton plantations, which beat and killed them in the streets like animals. They were demanding and asserting their liberty.
Calls to disarm civilians but not the police and the military are efforts only to address the violence which affects you white liberals personally. You were fine with Obama's Shadow War. You're fine with a militarized police force. Why is arming the citizenry, the people of color, the women, the queers, and the workers, the line not to be crossed?
*Note to Reader: I have wanted to do an article about the underlying causes of mass shootings (addressing race, gender, etc.) for a while but never got around to it. Every time I was about to I thought: “the timings not right, wait until the next mass shooting.”
It's absolutely horrific how certain everyone I know and I are that, yes, there will be more violence in schools and, no, we won't even be shocked by it. It's expected now; just as we expect America to pursue endless war (whether we hear about it or not) and cops to keep killing unarmed people of color (whether we hear about it or not).
We are a sick nation which refuses to look itself in the mirror and address reality.
Violence will continue until we recognize that we are a colonial nation founded on violence and perpetuated by violence and choose to do something about it at the expense of our own privilege. Gun control is but a band-aid on the open wound that is colonial and imperial domination both at home and abroad.
