Sound Familiar? 5,000 Comments Later The Washington Post Discovers the Relationship Between White Men and Mass Shootings

Imagine if African American men and boys were committing mass shootings month after month, year after year. Articles and interviews would flood the media, and we’d have political debates demanding that African Americans be “held accountable.” 

Then, if an atrocity such as the Newtown, Conn., shootings took place and African American male leaders held a news conference to offer solutions, their credibility would be questionable. The public would tell these leaders that they need to focus on problems in their own culture and communities.
But when the criminals and leaders are white men, race and gender become the elephant in the room. 

Nearly all of the mass shootings in this country in recent years — not just Newtown, Aurora, Fort Hood, Tucson and Columbine — have been committed by white men and boys. Yet when the National Rifle Association (NRA), led by white men,held a news conference after the Newtown massacre to advise Americans on how to reduce gun violence, its leaders’ opinions were widely discussed. 

Unlike other groups, white men are not used to being singled out. So we expect that many of them will protest it is unfair if we talk about them. But our nation must correctly define their contribution to our problem of gun violence if it is to be solved. 

When white men try to divert attention from gun control by talking about mental health issues, many people buy into the idea that the United States has a national mental health problem, or flawed systems with which to address those problems, and they think that is what produces mass shootings. 

But women and girls with mental health issues are not picking up semiautomatic weapons and shooting schoolchildren. Immigrants with mental health issues are not committing mass shootings in malls and movie theaters. Latinos with mental health issues are not continually killing groups of strangers.

Hmmmm, I wonder where I heard a similar argument?

I do not make a habit of credit claiming. I also understand that writing under a pen name does make it difficult to get the shine one has earned and deserves. In my work, I try to proceed from a principle where I link to others who are making similar claims and whose ideas inform my own--what was likely an apocryphal story about a Yale PhD student who failed his defense because of a dropped footnote has scarred me for life.

I am not suggesting any ill-intent by Charlotte Childress and Harriet Childress, the co-authors of "White men have much to discuss about mass shootings" in the opinion section of The Washington Post. Let me be precise. I am not calling them "shark-biters," per se.

However, I will be emailing them a kind email about the originality of their opinion piece. I do hope that others make similar inquiries.

 I am only suggesting that when one is late to the party, and has an argument which is not at all original, that they try to give some love to those folks who they are building upon.

As I discovered here on We Are Respectable Negroes, as well at the Daily Kos, and Alternet, White Masculinity is feeling very imperiled in the post civil rights era. David Sirota felt the heat as well from the Right-wing media who issued a virtual fatwa on him for daring to discuss the relationship between White men and mass shootings should be explored.

Ultimately, White Masculinity that defines itself through access to guns is feeling particularly under siege in the Age of Obama. White Conservative Masculinity in general is throwing a national temper tantrum and has been since 2008 (or perhaps even back to the late 1980s and the Cultural War moment).

I am an advocate of ignoring brats and telling them to go sit down, facing the corner. Unfortunately, such a solution is impractical when faced with the acting out of the Gun Right , the Tea Party GOP, and aggrieved White Masculinity. I am a loss as to the parenting strategies that will help them become more responsible social actors who work towards the Common Good. Any suggestions?