Oct. 05--Something struck me last week as President Barack Obama stood in the White House's press briefing room addressing the nation after the mass shooting in Oregon.
I wondered what would happen if the president took to the airwaves every Monday after Chicago's weekend death toll. What if he delivered remarks similar to those he gave in response to the nine people killed at Umpqua Community College?
"So tonight, as those of us who are lucky enough to hug our kids a little closer are thinking about the families who aren't so fortunate," he said, "I'd ask the American people to think about how they can get our government to change these laws, and to save these lives and let these people grow up."
Save these lives and let these people grow up. Yup, I'm happy to think about it.
But whose lives was the president asking America to consider and save? Everybody affected by gun violence or just a few folks?
Obama lamented how powerless he is without the help of Congress to strengthen gun laws and how "routine" mass shootings have become in this country.
His speech was impassioned, necessary to help the country grieve, and yet, woefully predictable.
It's clear why the president doesn't respond this way to mass shootings such as those perpetrated by gangbangers. It's clear why we all view urban killings as an afterthought, a footnote, the same old same old.
What's happening in our cities -- such as the uptick this year in murders in Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Louis, New Orleans and Baltimore -- isn't considered aberrant or extraordinary. No one wants to admit this, but what's worse is that we consider it to be, well, normal. We expect mass shootings in tough neighborhoods in the city. We don't expect them in small towns such as those in Oregon and Connecticut and Colorado.
But we've long felt this way. The spray of bullets seems to fit in with the crime and decay in our poor city neighborhoods. Not so much with our idyllic and idealized middle-class communities and small towns.
Perhaps our great challenge, even beyond gun control, is to stop viewing street violence as routine and see these young black and brown men who stockpile guns and shoot up their communities as being as mentally deranged and disconnected as their white counterparts who shoot up theirs.
One reason it's so difficult to make this connection is that we tend to see young black men as inherently violent and irredeemable. It's hard to acknowledge their physical and mental health; substance abuse problems; their family relationships, or lack thereof; their high incarceration rates and low academic achievement as playing a role in their creation stories.
Sean Joe, a professor of social work at Washington University, said the disconnected male between the ages of 15 to about 29 is a challenge no matter his race.
Joe began studying self-destructive tendencies after his younger brother, who was a drug dealer, was murdered.
"Whether it's social isolation or structural isolation -- such as being disconnected from employment opportunities, training, or family and friends -- there's an increased risk for engaging in ... violence," Joe told me. That violence can be directed toward others or themselves.
Joe said a lot of young black men feel angry and alone. They feel that no one cares about them, and they wind up engaging in the world in a way that's corrosive.
The president is right to be upset that we're viewing Oregon-like mass shootings as routine. But we're only treating them the same way we've long treated mass shootings in tough neighborhoods.
We've come a long way since 1999 when Columbine happened. The massacre at that high school was so extraordinary that it seared itself onto our consciousness, along with the names of Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris. When 7-year-old Dantrell Davis was killed in 1985, caught in gang crossfire while walking to his Chicago school, that story was so outrageous that it made national news.
Now, pop quiz: Can you name the gunmen who shot up the movie theaters in Aurora, Colo., and Lafayette, La.? No? Try this: What are the names of the pregnant mother and grandmother who were killed here just last week?
More than our inability to pass stricter gun laws, our memories and lack of motivation -- those are the greater dangers.
dmturner@tribpub.com
