Today there was a shooting (actually more than one) - but the high profile one was in Alexandria involving Representative Scalise and congressional staff and Capital police officers. I hate it, and I hate the ease with which we seem to be able to maim and kill each other. I pray for all who suffer under violence.
After learning that the shooter had been a volunteer in his campaign, Bernie Sanders made a statement of his horror and condemned the actions. In his statement, he said this: "Violence of any kind is unacceptable in our society... Real change can only come about from non-violent action and anything else runs counter to our most deeply held American values."
I deeply respect Sanders' comments and believe they come from an authentic place of sorrow for what happened today.
But something about his words struck me. I'm in the middle of reading Ta-Nehisi Coates' book "Between the World and Me." Through this book, I've already been introduced to concepts that have completely transformed my thinking. Coates speaks about American history in contrast with African American history. Growing up, the ascribed American heroes (founding fathers, war heroes, etc) are heroes in violence. They are conquerers. They fight for our freedom, they stake their claims, they are enmeshed in war and violence. African Americans were not allowed the same heroes. Their heroes had to be that of non-violence to fit into history books. I finally understood the appeal of Malcolm X. It was a light bulb moment for me as I re-watched the scenes of American history through this new lens. I am not saying it nearly as eloquently as Coates, and I recommend that if you have never read this book, you do so soon.
This thing that Coates brought to my attention, I never really saw it before. And now, I can't unseen it. As a Christian, I believe deeply in non-violence. I believe that it is the moral high ground as well as the best and true way to begin a new thing. I agree with Martin Luther King, Jr. that "hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that."
However, as I listened to Sanders' speech, I couldn't help but think... No- no, violence isn't unacceptable in our society. In fact, we are deeply violent. Look at our justice system, with capital punishment that is the very epitome of the "an eye for an eye" mentality. Look on social media when people speak about things that other people disagree with- you will find horrifyingly violent responses. Minorities and women seem to be the most common victims of these violent outbreaks. We have a government who is unable to pass reasonable gun legislation for the very reason of violence: people want to be able to 'protect their own' from the Other. That means, in Florida, that if you look scary to me, I have a right to shoot to kill. (I may be maligning the legislation, but I certainly am not maligning the interpretation of the law in courts.)
We are not a non-violent society. We have the most powerful (ridiculously) military and weapons in the world. And we use them. We use rhetoric that dehumanizes enemies, such that we don't feel so bad (in fact we feel great) when we annihilate a "target."
Of course there is the other side of the coin, we have amazing humanitarian efforts in our military, government, private and public sector. But as a society, we are NOT primarily non-violent. Violence is completely acceptable (applauded!) to more Americans than I would like to admit. I'm learning that as I get older. People threaten to beat someone up over getting cut off in traffic. Someone wants to kill someone else's dog because that dog pooped in their yard. Someone hopes a certain political figure will have a heart attack so we don't have to deal with them. Someone wants to kill the rapist. Someone wants to hurt the person that hurt their friend, family member. We don't want any of this to happen to us, and we certainly assume people will give us the benefit of the doubt if we happen to make a mistake. But we feel justified in carrying out our own brand of justice if it corrects a perceived wrong.
We are violent. And I'm not excluding myself from that. I have been conditioned by my family and religion to be on the lesser end of the violent scale, but I can't deny I have had my thoughts of violence pop up. But even as I seek to find more productive ways to deal with anger and frustration, I witness a culture that sponsors the opposite in the people around me: HOW OUTRAGED ARE YOU ABOUT THIS?! WILL YOU FIGHT FOR YOUR RIGHTS?! THIS SCUM WILL SERVE TIME IN JAIL, IS IT ENOUGH?! WAR ON YOUR DEEPLY HELD BELIEFS, WILL YOU SUBMIT OR FIGHT?!
Our entire American existence right now seems to be in all-caps. Everything is a big deal and everything is something to fight about. Our society has been pumped with adrenaline and outrage, not non-violence.
Perhaps this is part of the problem. When violence happens that we don't like, we act like non-violence is a social norm, when it isn't. Sanders said that "real change can only come through non-violent action." While I believe that is true at the deepest of levels, history teaches us differently, doesn't it? Violence changed a hell of a lot. Violence nearly wiped out the Native Americans. Violence was the foundation for a slave-trade that we still can't talk about in America like normal adults. Violence is the knee-jerk reaction for solving world problems, and has been the ongoing heartbeat of all our conflicts across the globe over time. We've improved our weapons, but not so much our negotiation and communication skills. Violence spread certain religions over certain places at certain times (nearly all religions and political regimes bordering on religious zealotry have had their turn in human history). Violence has actually been a MAJOR function of change in history, and especially in American history. Some of it we laud as heroic and sacrificial.
This history of violence has disproportionately negatively affected the poor and minorities. This history of violence has disproportionately negatively affected the poor and minorities. This history of violence has disproportionately negatively affected the poor and minorities. This history of violence has disproportionately negatively affected the poor and minorities. This history of violence has disproportionately negatively affected the poor and minorities.
Because violence by those in power is glorified, while violence by those without power is demonized.
Violence enacted by those in power (be it physical, mental, financial) seems to be sifted through a lens of just-war negotiations or at least an attempt to understand and justify. Violence by the poor and downtrodden are dismissed as savage and stupid.
Our deeply held American values need a gut-check. We are a violent society. Denying that is to be deeply unself-aware. Violence is not only accepted, in the right context it is honored, and we do not do nearly enough to check this. Violence lives and breathes in our legal (and penal) system, our financial institutions, our daily interactions with each other, our glorification of violence in our past (or, equally damaging, our erasure of it) and in many other tiny crevices I haven't noticed yet.
We need to be more self-aware America. We love violence, and the more we pretend we don't, the less we will be able to fight the violence that we have been planting the seeds of since day one.
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