STAND UP AND SAY NO TO VIOLENCE

I am writing this a day after an 18 year old killed 19 fourth grade children and 2 teachers. He had recently [after turning 18] purchased two AR-15 [assault] rifles and carried one into the elementary school. These rifles that the NRA calls "America's rifle"can rapidly fire 40 bullets and are easy to reload. They were banned in 1994 after they were used in mass schootings and they were labeled "assault rifles." However people who already had these weapons could keep them and keep their large capacity magazines [allows someone to shoot a lot of bullets rapidly and reload rapidly]. In 2004 the law ended because of congressional inaction and the number of mass shootings in the US dramatically increased. This increase was likely in part because of the availability of large capacity magazines that have contributed to the number of people killed in mass shootings. Data on mass shootings from the National Institute of Justice's Public Mass Shootings Database shows that assault rifles were used in 25.1% of mass shootings, while handguns were used 77.2% of the time. 77% of the shooters purchased at least some of their weapons legally. In K-12 school shootings over 80% of the time the weapons were stolen from family members. Mental health issues are common in mass shootings with psychosis being noted to have a minor role in nearly 1/3 of the shootings and a primary role in 10% of the shootings. 31% of shooters had experienced severe childhood trauma and 80% were in crisis. In addition, 30% of the shooters were suicidal before the schooting and 39% were suicidal during the shooting. 92% of college age and younger shooters were suicidal. 64.5% of the shooters had a prior criminal record and 62.8% had a history of violence. Frequently the response by people who are against any restriction on what weapons can be owned is that it is really a mental health issue. It is like the notion that guns don't kill people, it is people with guns that do. It is true that mental health issues are common and yet access to weapons plays a very significant role. This is seen clearly in suicides using guns as access to guns matters since the time between a decision to kill oneself and acting on this happened in less than 3 hours 73% of the time in a paper by Laura Paashaus et al. Clin Psychol Psychother. 2021 Nov. entitled: "From decision to action: Suicidal history and time between decision to die and actual suicide attempt." This is even more significant considering that more than 50% of deaths from guns are suicides. In 2020 45,000 Americans died from guns so over 22,500 were suicides. If a wait of more than 3 hours could prevent suicides then a wait for a background check is long enough to prevent a suicide. It seems very clear that restricting access to guns would save a lot of lives including a lot of children's lives, especially as suicides are increasing in children and adolescents.

So, background checks, limits or a ban on assault type weapons, limits or bans on large capacity magazines and so called "red flag" laws taking guns away from people who are a danger to themselves or others would save a lot of lives. So, why isn't this happening? Do gun advocates not care about all these deaths, including children killed in mass shootings. I don't believe that. Something else must be keeping gun advocates from supporting laws that would save many lives. I think that it must be related to fear. This fear may be connected to messages that many of us give our brains. The focus on rights to own guns and even to conceal them, gives our brains the message that it is ok to have and to use guns, otherwise we wouldn't have so many and they wouldn't be so easy to get hold of and it wouldn't be ok to conceal that we have them. Significantly, lies are being spread that people will try to take your right to own a gun away from you and take away other rights so that you will end up being like a slave. This fear is translated into messages to our brains that we must have the right to have and to use our guns to protect ourselves, our families and even our country. This message puts our brains on high alert and the amygdala part of our brains will constantly scan our surroundings for danger and we will respond to a percieved threat in a nanosecond when we feel threatened. That nanosecond [one billionth of a second] is the speed that the amygdala in our brain responds to a perceived threat to us. When this reponse is activated we are responding before we are even aware that we are. When we are responding out of fear that fear is the number one priority for us [and for our brains] and nothing else matters. This is one reason that intelligent and compassionate people can respond to mass shootings by denying that it is related to access to guns and denying that assault style weapons are not needed to protect ourselves because their fear tells them that they must have guns to protect themselves. For people with this type of fear it feels like a matter of life and death.

So how do we help each other not to be afraid? Listening to one another's fears can help reduce them as people then don't feel as alone and are less likely to believe that other people are out to get them. Also, it can help to openly talk about fears that people of color want to make whites become slaves. These fears are ungrounded and actually the more racism and income disparity can end, the better the world will be for everyone. Even the ultra rich will be better off as they will realize that they don't need to be afraid that they don't have enough money. We feel divided by fears and to let go of the fears will allow us to let go of the "us against them" way of coping.

What do you think?

HAS BEING WHITE EVER BEEN GOOD?

If race was invented to justify exploiting other people then being white has never been good. I have listened to a radio podcast "Scene on Radio" called "Seeing White" that discusses the history of being white including how it was started and what has kept it alive for over 400 years. One of the speakers on the podcast asked the question about whether "being white has ever been good." Considering the terrible exploitation of people of color by whites over these 400 years it seems clear that being white is not good. It is also clear that institutional racism is alive and well in maintaining: the gap in income; home ownership; jobs; incarceration rate; and neighborhoods [home values]. 

It seems clear that race was created inorder to justify exploitation of people of color starting before we became a country and yet was justified in our constitution and by our founding [white] fathers. So, from the beginning the idea that we as a country are told that we believe that we are all created equal is not true. A significant percent of our population has not been treated as equal and this is still happening, sadly. 

It is my hope that our country will choose to reject racism and white priviledge, while moving toward racial and economic equality for everyone. If this happens we might then be able to call our country great.

IT IS ALL ABOUT EXPLOITATION?

Exploitation is defined as the fact of or action taken to treat someone unfairly in order to benefit from their work. Or, to selfishly take advantage of a person or persons in order to profit from them or otherwise benefit yourself. So, is every bad thing humans do related to or involve exploitation? Racism seems to be all about exploitation. Does prejudice involve exploitation as being prejudiced means that you are demeaning others and this makes it easier to justify taking advantage of them? How about corporations externalizing their costs [not taking responsibility for costs of damage to the environment, as well as paying low wages so employees require federal assistance to get by, etc.]? What about our banking systems making it harder for people of color to get loans or charging them higher interest rates? How about making it harder for certain groups of people to vote or to get an education? What about using God to justify white priviledge? What about killing and incarcerating certain groups of people at a much higher rate compared to other people.

So, why do we [humans] seem to like to or need to exploit others? I believe that we know in our hearts that exploiting others is not right. So, somehow, together, we must choose to learn how to get along with others and not exploit them. How do we do that?

THE NEW THREAT: RACISM WITHOUT RACISTS

A CNN article from November 27, 2014 by John Blake speaks about the problem of racism without racists. This concern has been around for years as people who are not overtly racist unintentionally support racist institutions that promote ongoing exploitation of African Americans. It is only more recently that more Americans have become aware of institutional racism and it's ongoing impact as it perpetuates exploitation of African Americans. So, you can be against different ways that African American's are mistreated [police brutality, unfairly imprisoned; blocked from access to home loans and neighborhoods] and still miss the point of how wide spread the influence of white supremacy is. Blake quotes Eduardo Bonilla-Silva who has written a book entitled: Racism Without Racists. Mr. Bonilla-Silva goes on to say that three phrases frequently come up in discussions between whites and blacks.  These phrases have to do with: being "color blind"; having black friends; and defending yourself by stating that you don't act in a racist manner. Responding to being color blind, this is only possible because you are white and do not need to live with the exploitation that all African Americans experience. This also relates to the response to black lives matter stating that all lives matter. Again, whites can pretend that all lives matter because they don't have to worry about being shot jogging in their neighborhood or automatically being treated as inferior or even dangerous. All lives can matter when black lives actually matter and not before. Finally, white people can feel that they are not racist as they have black friends. Having black friends really has nothing to do with institutional racism and other indications of white supremacy [priviledge]. Finally, protesting your innocence regarding racist behaviors misses the point of tolerating institutional racism.

I believe that to become non-racists we, as whites, need to begin the process of dismantling institutional racism. 

What do you think? 

SILENCE IS NOT GOLDEN IF WE ARE IGNORING RACISM, SEXISM AND ECONOMIC INEQUALITY.

There was a recent opinion piece in the New York Times regarding the problem of being silent in the face of people being racist, sexist, homophobic, etc. In his TED talk from July, 2014, Clint Smith talks about the danger of silence. He says that we spend so much time on what people are saying we overlook what they are not saying and by doing so, join them in not using our voices to tell the truth about what we see happening. We are thus complicit in their silence.

So, when is silence good and how can we compassionately use our voices to tell the truth? I have blogged about listening without our personal reactions as a way of being emathically connected to those who we are listening to. Listening without our personal reactions is also called "silent listening." One advantage of not reacting to what is being said is that the person speaking is more likely to hear themselves and may be more likely to choose to take responsibility for what they are saying. If we react to those we are listening to, we give them an opportunity to focus on our reaction and not what they are saying. So, does this mean that we should listen to people making racist, sexist and homophobic statements and not react? Yes, because of what I stated above. However, if we are listening without our own reactions and we need to say something, our brains will tell us what to say...really! And importantly, we will say it calmly and with compassion. This can be a powerful way to confront statements that we feel are wrong. However, what about people who are silent about these statements or ideas/beliefs? Well, if they hear you say something about what you believe is true, this can help them to comment on these as well [voice what they believe is true]. I believe that listening without reacting is helpful no matter the circumstances unless the person talking is being verbally abusive or threatening. Then I would walk away or back away. If we can establish and maintain an empathic connection to someone, this can help them to overcome their fears and lonliness. Then they might not have to cope with their fears and lonliness by being racist, etc.

What do you think?