What happened in Newtown is horrific and overwhelmingly sad. I’m assuming that if you heard about it, read about it, were close or distant from it that your life was altered or affected in some way, even if that way was only to feel sorrow for a few moments. Immediately following the shooting twitter, facebook and news sources started in with the opinions on what was the cause and what is and is not ok to talk about and when. You know. The usual tangling up the discourse and telling people how they are allowed to feel or not feel or how they are allowed or not allowed to react to horrific things in their world. We do not have to buy into this. It is possible and perfectly fine for anybody and everybody to try and figure out the cause of horrible things when they occur. It is also ok to feel whatever you are feeling and want to talk about it. I saw a lot of silencing, like in this image
This was the first post about it in my Facebook newsfeed. I disagree with it.
where people would declare that now was not the time to talk about mental illness, gun control, racism, or whatever other thing makes them uncomfortable. Now is the time. It is always the time. How many mass shootings have we had this year? Are we not averaging out a new one every couple of months? When would be a better time to talk about it? A week before the next one, a week after? Let’s not put this off any longer.
Now is the right time. It’s always the right time. We cannot hope to decrease the amount of violence in our culture without engaging in an open, honest, and ongoing discourse that allows us to wade through this and find answers. It needs to be ongoing. It must be ongoing. We also do not need to assume that there is one root cause behind mass shootings. It is possible and likely that there are multiple conditions that lead to these horrors and that we will not find one lone, isolated and magical cause. It’s a cultural illness, a thing that once was an aberration but that is now becoming a norm. So we should talk about it now and often and we should separate out the issues so that we can look at how they intersect and what can be done and what we personally can change to make a small difference that could eventually be a big difference.
Here is a compilation of some tweets that discuss various topics considered to be the cause or partial cause of this phenomenon of violence.
gun control, mental illness, god, masculinity…nobody is wrong except for the god people.
The tangled conversational tropes has some pointing to a lack of gun control as the cause, while others are pointing toward an absence or rejection of god, untreated and unfettered mental illness, or an american concept of masculinity that is rigid, limiting and harmful.
The only one I consider to be ‘wrong’ is the god one. I don’t think it warrants any discussion here and I will discuss why in a separate post. So moving on to actual points of discussion that make sense:
Mental Illness: Mental illness was brought up immediately. People generally seemed to be more comfortable and willing to talk about and point a finger toward mental illness than to tdiscuss gun control. I found this odd primarily because it was not known for certain whether or not Adam Lanza had a mental illness, but it was known with absolute certainty that he had a gun. The thing is, and I think this gets widely overlooked, people can go into a classroom full of children, murder them all, and not be mentally ill. So before we attribute crimes to any mental illness we should first know whether or not the perpetrator of a crime has one. In our culture, mental illnesses are widely stigmatized and resources for help are scarce and sometimes unattainable. So here’s how we can break this down:
1 Mental Illness is widely stigmatized in American culture.
2. Access to care and resources for the mentally ill and caretakers of the mentally ill are not always available and, when they are, are not always affordable.
3. People can commit violent and horrific acts without being mentally ill.
Gun Control: People started talking about gun control right off the bat and an attempt to silence those voices was made by many. Why people seemed to be so much more comfortable pointing a finger at mental illness than to widespread availability and ownership of guns is beyond me. Nobody knew if Adam Lanza had a mental illness. We all knew he had a gun. We should talk about it. Here are some ways we can break this down:
1. Gun control does not mean gun elimination
2. We can have a fact-based conversation about guns per capita and rates of gun violence because these statistics exist. Speculation doesn’t even really need to be made about numbers. We can look and see.
3. The 2nd amendment gets brought up a lot. It’s time for us to look at it in historical context, evaluate whether or not it is still applicable and go from there. And really, a bunch of citizens with guns is not a well-armed militia. Further, Jefferson saying that citizens should be able to protect themselves with weaponry against their military is neat and all, but please tell me how your semi-automatic and automatic weapons will stand up to larger, military grade weapons and troops? They won’t. Let’s let that ideology go. I would throw that in with the god aspect because it is so irrelevant and makes no sense, but people are really hanging onto that idea, so it forces itself into the conversation.
Masculinity- A lot of good points have been raised around this topic, and I think they are worth noting. This is a discussion we must have. Our ideas of gender roles and masculinity are enforced by a patriarchy that most of us uphold in some way. Feminism is the belief that no matter where you fall on the gender spectrum, you should be treated equally, right? Right. And feminists have been saying for ages that the patriarchy hurts men, too. And it does. By assuming and enforcing the idea that men must act a certain way, we limit the average of their ability to exhibit an emotional range and to process anger, fear, or intimidation. Here’s some ways we can break this down:
1. Male privilege. These shootings are being acted out by men and not women. Why?
2. What does it mean to be masculine in our culture?
3. What can we do differently?
And race. It’s mostly white dudes doing this. Let’s not pretend it isn’t. You can name 1 or 2 POC who have pulled a mass shooting, but come on. When you heard that this had happened, did you think or assume it was anybody other than a white man? I didn’t. When we talk about this, white privilege and male privilege both need to be discussed.
The thing is, it is ok to have all of these conversations and to discuss all of these topics. I think that intersectionality matters and that all of these things tie in together and that none of these (except the god idea) are entirely wrong. They might not all apply in this specific situation, but they all deserve discussion, introspection, and action. I still don’t know if Adam Lanza had a mental illness, which is why I am not saying they all definitely apply here. Do any of you know?
Small ways we can make change in the world around us is in the way we use language when interacting with others. Our language usage can increase or decrease the stigma around mental illness. Our language usage and how we interact with others linguistically can change perceptions of masculinity and femininity one small utterance at a time. And the language of the constitution made sense in a different era, but may need to be revisited now, and that’s ok. It is completely ok for us to look at this one issue with all these ongoing conversations where everybody is trying to pinpoint one specific cause and to say ‘No. There is more than one facet to this. There is more than one contributing factor, so let’s talk about it’.
What do you think? What’s missing? What do you want to say about any of these topics?
Sherry
/ December 20, 2012There has also been the usual chorus blaming violent video games. Which I think is bunk, except where it intersects with defining masculinity.
Sara
/ December 21, 2012I’m glad you bought up video games. I used to think that was entirely bunk as well, but I’m starting to wonder. I’m wondering in part because when you think of how many hours some people immerse themselves in violent video games, it’s odd to me that we expect that to have no impact or detriment on an individual. We expect them to be able to discern reality when they are immersing themselves in violent variations of our reality. However, marketing companies know that they can advertise on tv or the radio and implant seeds within us that leave us influenced or thinking about their product long after we’ve reviewed the message. Maybe we’ve even forgotten why we want a chicken nugget or tamagochi or whatever it is that we want, we just know we want it. So if an advertiser can plant a seed in under a minute and it stays with us and shapes what we want and that is sort of just generally expected or understood, why is assumed that video games of a violent nature in which one immerses themselves for hours, sometimes without breaks and often until it is completed, don’t also impact our feelings or wants?
feimineach
/ December 21, 2012Great post, Sara. I agree with you about the complexity of these issues and I have been similarly frustrated by attempts to reduce what happened to one factor, no matter what it is. It’s the issue of masculinity in which I am most interested because it ties in with some of own research, and I have yet to see a convincing account of that. (This is my new username, by the way.)
Sara
/ December 21, 2012The discussion of masculinity is really interesting and I think it warrants discussion. I also think that it is too fledgling of an idea to warrant true merit until it has been further investigated and researched. And I think what bothers me the most about the concepts relating to masculinity is that it ignores race. This seems to be a white masculinity problem, and we need to discuss the how and why of that.
Whit
/ December 21, 2012Preach! I’m so sick of people saying this isn’t the right time to be talking about gun control (in the wake of a shooting). I’m sorry, WHEN exactly IS an appropriate time? Because it seems to me that we are always in the wake of a shooting. AND I think it’s an excellent point that the perpetrators are usually white men… I wonder if we’d be making the same claims about mental illness, masculinity, video games, etc if this were a POC and if we would be so intent on finding an excuse or explanation as to why this happened. My guess is that no, we wouldn’t.
Sara
/ December 21, 2012That’s a really good point. The way we and the media treat these issues is different for white men than for PoC. White men are hardly ever called domestic terrorists, which is why I referred to Adam Lanza as a domestic terrorist in my post. If a PoC had done this, his religion or culture would have been to blame. If he wasn’t black, but was from the Middle East, I feel pretty safe in assuming that people would have labeled him a terrorist almost immediately. Mental Illness is hardly ever brought up when PoC commit a crime. It is assumed that they are naturally violent. the fact that mental illness is assumed when a white person commits a crime says a lot about our culture and how we sort of try to let white people off the hook a bit by attributing their crimes to mental illness rather than a personal directive or intended and planned out action, void of any mental illness.
robin claire
/ December 21, 2012Hi Sara,
This is a very good post. You have been blessed with a fine mind Sara. But I hope you don’t take credit for having this sharp a mind. Remember, you were born with it. You didn’t create it yourself. Were either of your parents as sharp as you are?
I can see how having a regular gun might be necessary – but where do we need to have automatic weapons with 30 rounds of ammunition in a clip??!! Clinton enacted a law that made it illegal to have this kind of mass-destruction weaponry, but Bush let it expire.
Also, about the possibility of him having a mental illness. I am bipolar – and the stigma continues because of these kinds of things, and this kind of thinking. People say; “Those with a mental illness are dangerous and we should be afraid of them”. Did you know that some bipolar people have a very difficult time staying of their meds? Many like the “high” too much. I don’t. My “highs” were wrapped around psychosis and always left me devastated. So I take my illness very, very seriously. I take my meds responsibly. I was lucky, I’m so bipolar that I caught the attention of the authorities, and got diagnosed. Did you know that only a small fraction of mentally ill people get this kind of public attention and then are diagnosed? My father was an undiagnosed bipolar (I inherited the illness from him). He had it pretty bad, but not to the point where he was caught by the authorities, just to the point where his kids greatly suffered under the havoc it wrought. People need to be more aware of others mental states so that more can be medically diagnosed.
robin claire
Sara
/ December 21, 2012I did know that some people with bipolar disorder have hard time staying on their meds. Part of that is some might like the high, but another part of that is sometimes when a medication starts working and it works effectively for a long time, people feel like they don’t need it anymore. Which is understandable and I can see why that happens. I’m glad you got the help you need and am happy that you’re doing better. I’m also really glad that you’re talking about it because I think people talking openly and often about mental illness will help to normalize it and remove some of the stigma. These are good steps to take, talking being an action.
Karena
/ December 27, 2012Idk if this is the appropriate to express this at this point, but. I love your blog!!!! You are smart. We need to have a conversation about stuff like this IRL some day. And I wish mental health was treated the same way as physical health in this country. They’re both as important!! Insurances cover physical examinations and shit, but they won’t cover counseling, psychologist visits, etc. WTF. <3
Sara
/ December 28, 2012You are smart and I love you! Did you notice that when you were posting this comment last night, I was texting you to see if you want to have dinner tonight? FATE!
I am in complete agreement with you about mental health needing to be treated the same as physical health in this country. The stigma needs to be removed and access to mental healthcare needs to be available on a widespread basis. I think people forget that the mind is part of the body.