Tweet
The most recent massacre, the one at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, took the lives of 6 and 7 year-olds. It has shaken our nation to its core.
The enormity of this devastation is incalculable. There are the small coffins of the victims killed during a holiday season at a tender age. It is also the death of the safety of a Norman Rockwellian. We now know that none are safe.
This shooting, like so many others before, has sparked a debate on gun control and the need for adequate healthcare for our nation’s mentally ill. But glaringly omitted from the national discourse is the motive of these mass shootings that are purported predominately within a specific demographic group— young white privileged men.
“I think we need to examine critically, the fact that most mass shooting are done by young, white, relatively economically privileged males. What is it about their socialization that results in the manifestation of their mental illness in a rage-fueled carnage of this magnitude? If we don’t ask these questions, along with all the others, I fear we are missing an important factor in this and other mass shooting tragedies,” wrote an academic administrator from UMASS Boston in an email to me.
The Columbine High School massacre in 1999 involved two young white males, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold. Both were from an affluent suburb of Colorado. Their massacre of schoolmates called attention to the killers next door. At least for a while. Loners wearing trench coats dominated the news then faded into the background.
This oversight in examination might be one of the reasons mass shootings by white young men from middle class families seems to be happening more frequently.
For example, a list of mass shootings compiled by the online blog “Think Progress” of this specific demographic group reveals, not including Newton, that this year alone there have been seven:
- December 11, 2012. On Tuesday, 22-year-old Jacob Tyler Roberts killed 2 people and himself with a stolen rifle in Clackamas Town Center, Oregon.
- September 27, 2012. Five were shot to death by 36-year-old Andrew Engeldinger at Accent Signage Systems in Minneapolis, MN. Three others were wounded. Engeldinger went on a rampage after losing his job, ultimately killing himself.
- August 5, 2012. Six Sikh temple members were killed when 40-year-old US Army veteran Wade Michael Page opened fire in a gurdwara in Oak Creek, Wisconsin. Four others were injured, and Page killed himself.
- July 20, 2012. During the midnight premiere of The Dark Knight Rises in Aurora, CO, 24-year-old James Holmes killed 12 people and wounded 58.
- May 29, 2012. Ian Stawicki opened fire on Cafe Racer Espresso in Seattle, WA, killing 5 and himself after a citywide manhunt.
- April 6, 2012. Jake England, 19, and Alvin Watts, 32, shot 5 black men in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in racially motivated shooting spree. Three died.
- February 27, 2012. Three students were killed by Thomas “TJ” Lane, another student, in a rampage at Chardon High School in Chardon, OH. Three others were injured.
“White men from prosperous families grow up with the expectation that our voices will be heard. We expect politicians and professors to listen to us and respond to our concerns. We expect public solutions to our problems. And when we’re hurting, the discrepancy between what we’ve been led to believe is our birthright and what we feel we’re receiving in terms of attention can be bewildering and infuriating. Every killer makes his pain another’s problem. But only those who’ve marinated in privilege can conclude that their private pain is the entire world’s problem with which to deal. This is why, while men of all races and classes murder their intimate partners, it is privileged young white dudes who are by far the likeliest to shoot up schools and movie theaters.”
While I contest that the overarching problem is that the construction of most male masculinities perpetuate a violent patriarchal society, Schwyzer’s analysis should invite dialogue.
If the men were males of color, poor white males or Muslim these recurring mass shootings would be stereotypically explained as inherent to their make-up, affirming and fueling continued fear of them.
Male violence in this country is too easily associated with poor white males and males of color, ignoring that male violence is, unfortunately, a universal problem regardless of social and economic class. And will continue to be so as long as patriarchy rules the day.
How male violence expresses itself depends on the demographic group. Every country needs to stem the havoc it wreaks.
There is even more tragedy from the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School—young men need mental health help. Young males of color, poor white males, and other marginalized male subgroups in this country, and even young privileged white males. Is anybody listening?
NOTE FROM PAM: Two other stories exploring this demographic…
- How a boy becomes a killer By James Garbarino
- Rejection, bullying are risk factors among shooters By Elizabeth Landau
11 Comments
There is an article in CNN World from Feb 28, 2012 by Katherine Newman about “failed Joiners” titled “Why we miss school shooting warnings” where she identifies traits consistent with the Sandy Hook shooter. When I was that age, I almost fell into the same description, except I did succeed in Boy Scouts and being a photographer for both high school and college newspapers allowing me to be a successful joiner. Later, after college, it was square dancing and car racing. I see the parallels with my own life. Some really too close for comfort. I also see the differences that kept me from going that far.
I will also add that to the negative for me, adding to the failed joinings for me, was the Boy Scouts insistence on religious beliefs to belong in the Boy Scouts, and the Religious Right’s adherence to strict, extremely selective, interpretations of the bible causing me to be physically thrown out of a bible study for my slightly different interpretation of “Genesis.” Today, our young men also have to contend with the Boy Scouts objections to gays. And if I was closer connected to my being transgender as a teen, the Boy Scouts would have been a negative, but the Girl Scouts would have been a positive.
Thank you, Rev Irene.
You and Schwytzer are both right. It’s really a combination of both toxic patriarchy and toxic privilege.
Many of the bloggers and commenters over at Freethought Blogs (freethoughtblogs.com) cover the patriarchy/misogyny/privilege beat extensively and well, if anyone needs another source. (Word to the wise, Freethought Blogs is un- ir- and often anti-religous. Best to lurk rather than comment unless you want to do combat with logic and reason.)
I fear this is exactly what Phil Zimbardo has been talking about lately.
He argues that “guys are flaming out academically,” that “they’re wiping out socially with girls, and sexually with women.” He sees them laboring under “a new fear of intimacy,” of “physical, emotional connection with somebody else, especially with somebody of the opposite sex who gives off ambiguous, contradictory, phosphorescent signals.” Outperformed by girls “at every level,” guys would rather play video games or watch football with a barful of strangers than engage in direct, meaningful human contact.
Zimbardo blames this allegedly poor showing by the modern male on… the broader development of all sorts of technologies all geared to deliver “change, novelty, excitement, and constant arousal.” This, according to his argument, has thrown a wrench into the mental machinery of today’s guys, rendering them totally ignorant of “the language of face contact” and “the rules that enable you to talk to somebody else, to listen to somebody else.”
http://www.openculture.com/2012/09/psychologist_philip_zimbardo_says_to_young_men_youre_educationally_and_sexually_doomed.html
As to why this is a cohort of young white privileged men; their families had the resources to be the early adopters of, “all sorts of technologies all geared to deliver “change, novelty, excitement, and constant arousal.”"
The popular phrases “he’s quite a pistol,” or “he’s a straight shooter” and many others that revolve around gun euphemisms are part of our language for a reason. Proficiency with weapons was once a critical part of every boys up bringing in this culture. A well regulated militia back at the founding of the Republic meant every male 21 yrs. of age was expected to own a fire arm and usually one of a certain type and be available for Militia duty if the State called upon him. It was once a time honored tradition until we established a permanent military, which wasn’t till after the Civil War. Up until that era wealthy men could raise their own regiments and many such rich men’s regiments fought on both sides in that war. This came to us from the English tradition, when Lords would raise their own armies to fight in succession wars ( like the War of the Roses) and even Civil Wars. Today the only remnants of this culture are still alive among certain extremely racist paramilitary groups mostly based in the south and Midwest.
I’m glad you wrote that. I was thinking of adding the only govt policy that might move the needle on this would be Universal Military Training (which Presidents Truman and Eisenhower strongly endorsed but Congress never, ummm,pulled the trigger). Singapore adopted a system like this, and as you’d expect from Singapore, it seems to work all too well.
)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscription_in_Singapore
I don’t think it’s only young white men, although that profile fits many of the mass murderers. As we’ve seen with Tea Party gun enthusiasts and unemployed white male workers, a range of ages of white men appear to be caught in crises. I think this will be apparent if we analyze the whole spectrum of violence. The behavioral manifestation is often domestic violence, which is rampant. Professor Schwyzer’s observation of the perception is clearly valid here: “We expect public solutions to our problems. And when we’re hurting, the discrepancy between what we’ve been led to believe is our birthright and what we feel we’re receiving in terms of attention can be bewildering and infuriating.” Society’s expectations of white males are indoctrinated from an early age, and if they fail or fall short for whatever reason (which may be no fault of their own), they may feel a need to demonstrate their potency through violence.
Thanks.
You make sense. But it says nothing that denies or disagrees with the irrefutable truth and implications of this statement in the essay:
“If the men were males of color, poor white males or Muslims these recurring mass shootings would be stereotypically explained as inherent to their make-up, affirming and fueling continued fear of them.”
I don’t think there’s any doubt that there is a biological reality there that makes men more violence prone, but it doesn’t mean that society has to accept mass shootings as inevitable. Men fight our wars for us, despite the new p.c. token presence of women in the fighting ranks today.
The poster racializes male violence, but in fact, what she calls ‘men of color’ are doing most of the violence today. Black men are constantly shooting each other, but the structure of the violence is of course different. Most of those shootings probably occur in gang and drug related situations, revenge shootings and the like. It is all too common.
It may be that white men ‘of privilege’ are suffering in some way because their experiences in life are not measuring up to their expectations, and that a handful are lashing out because of it. But if you want to look at things that way, it could just as easily be said that anti-male attitudes on campuses dominated by liberals and feminists send a rejecting attitude toward ‘males,’ as the author puts it. Thus, the falling rate of male college attendance. Of course, the liberals will not want to blame their own attitudes for falling male participation in college or for young men’s feelings of being rejected.
It is unpopular with liberals now, but mass media’s influence over boys and men must be considerable. Who could doubt that ultra-violent video games, ultra-violent television and movies encourage boys and men to be violent? Justice Scalia seemed to enshrine our society’s attitude towards violence and sex when he ruled it is unconstitutional to restrict ultra-violent video games to minors, but indecent materials can be restricted because such restrictions are ‘customary’.
Could it be that these privileged white boys see privileged white men get away with stealing from the lower classes (I’m looking at you, banksters, corporate CEO/sociopaths, the entire Catfood Commission, etc.), and thus give themselves permission to treat the “Other” with ultimate contempt?
Then in the case of, say, Sandy Hook, who is “the Other?”
because it’s not as if these young white privileged men are going into the ghetto or the barrio or the trailer park and shooting up Others.
They’re mostly shooting up their own communities (thus, reminding me vaguely of the occasional 20/20 hindsight joking about blacks rioting and destroying their own neighborhoods..I may be stretching a little bit making that connection…)