Folks, I received this from an associate and thought I share it with you'll.
  I hope it adds value to what you already know.

Chi Jaama

Joe Sambou
______________________________ Forward Header
__________________________________ Subject: Fwd: Interesting Article on
school shooting
Author:  [log in to unmask] at PO_EXTERNET Date:    3/13/01 3:59 PM


Subject: [Fwd: Interesting Article on school shooting]

This recent article was sent to me, and I thought I'd share it with you.
What struck me as interesting is that it's
written by a white journalist that seems to have his head on straight.  Hope
is alive and well.  Enjoy!

It's long but worth a read.

School Shootings and White Denial
>
>Tim Wise, AlterNet
>
>March 6, 2001
>
>I can think of no other way to say this, so here goes: > white people need
>to pull our heads out of our
>collective ass.
>
>Two more white children are dead and thirteen are
>injured, and another "nice" community is scratching its > blonde head,
>utterly perplexed at how a school shooting > the likes of the one yesterday
>in Santee, California
>could happen. After all, as the Mayor of the town said > in an interview
>with CNN: "We're a solid town, a good > town, with good kids, a good
>church-going town.an
>All-American town." Yeah, well maybe that's the problem. >
>I said this after Columbine and no one listened so I'll > say it again:
>white people live in an utter state of
>self-delusion. We think danger is black, brown and poor, > and if we can
>just move far enough away from "those
>people" in the cities we'll be safe. If we can just find > an
>"all-American" town, life will be better, because
>"things like this just don't happen here." >
>
>Well bullshit on that. In case you hadn't noticed,
>"here" is about the only place these kinds of things do > happen. Oh sure,
>there is plenty of violence in urban
>communities and schools. But mass murder; wholesale > slaughter;
>take-a-gun-and-see-how-many-you-can-kill
>kinda craziness seems made for those safe places: the > white suburbs or
>rural communities.
>
>
>And yet once again, we hear the FBI insist there is no > "profile" of a
>school shooter. Come again? White boy
>after white boy after white boy, with very few
>exceptions to that rule (and none in the mass shooting > category), decides
>to use their classmates for target > practice, and yet there is no profile?
>Imagine if all
>these killers had been black: would we still hesitate to > put a racial
>face on the perpetrators? Doubtful.
>
>
>Indeed, if any black child in America-especially in
>the mostly white suburbs of Littleton, or Santee-were
>to openly discuss their plans to murder fellow students, > as happened both
>at Columbine and now Santana High, you > can bet your ass that somebody
>would have turned them
>in, and the cops would have beat a path to their > doorstep. But when
>whites discuss their murderous
>intentions, our stereotypes of what danger looks like > cause us to ignore
>it-they're just "talking" and
>won't really do anything. How many kids have to die > before we rethink
>that nonsense? How many dazed and > confused parents, Mayors and Sheriffs
>do we have to > listen to, describing how "normal" and safe their
>community is, and how they just can't understand what > went wrong?
>
>
>I'll tell you what went wrong and it's not TV, rap
>music, video games or a lack of prayer in school. What > went wrong is that
>white Americans decided to ignore
>dysfunction and violence when it only affected other > communities, and
>thereby blinded themselves to the
>inevitable creeping of chaos which never remains
>isolated too long. What affects the urban "ghetto" today > will be coming
>to a Wall-Mart near you tomorrow, and
>unless you address the emptiness, pain, isolation and > lack of hope felt
>by children of color and the poor, > then don't be shocked when the support
>systems aren't > there for your kids either.
>
>
>What went wrong is that we allowed ourselves to be > lulled into a false
>sense of security by media
>representations of crime and violence that portray both > as the province
>of those who are anything but white like > us. We ignore the warning signs,
>because in our minds
>the warning signs don't live in our neighborhood, but > across town, in
>that place where we lock our car doors
>on the rare occasion we have to drive there. That false > sense of
>security-the result of racist and classist
>stereotypes-then gets people killed. And still we act > amazed.
>
>
>But listen up my fellow white Americans: your children > are no better, no
>nicer, no more moral, no more decent
>than anyone else. Dysfunction is all around you, whether > you choose to
>recognize it or not.
>
>
>According to the Centers for Disease Control, and
>Department of Health and Human Services, it is your > children, and not
>those of the urban ghetto, who are > most likely to use drugs. That's
>right: white high
>school students are seven times more likely than blacks > to have used
>cocaine; eight times more likely to have
>smoked crack; ten times more likely to have used LSD and > seven times more
>likely to have used heroin. In fact,
>there are more white high school students who have used > crystal
>methamphetamine (the most addictive drug on the > streets) than there are
>black students who smoke
>cigarettes.
>
>
>What's more, white youth ages 12-17 are more likely to > sell drugs: 34%
>more likely, in fact than their black > counterparts. And it is white youth
>who are twice as
>likely to binge drink, and nearly twice as likely as > blacks to drive
>drunk. And white males are twice as
>likely to bring a weapon to school as are black males. >
>
>And yet I would bet a valued body part that there aren't > 100 white people
>in Santee, California, or most any
>other "nice" community who have ever heard a single one > of the statistics
>above. Even though they were collected > by government agencies using these
>folks' tax money for > the purpose. Because the media doesn't report on
>white
>dysfunction
>
>
>A few years ago, U.S. News ran a story entitled: "A
>Shocking look at blacks and crime." Yet never have they > or any other news
>outlet discussed the "shocking"
>whiteness of these shoot-em-ups. Indeed, every time > media commentators
>discuss the similarities in these
>crimes they mention that the shooters were boys, they
>were loners, they got picked on, but never do they seem > to notice a
>certain highly visible melanin deficiency. > Color-blind, I guess.
>
>
>White-blind is more like it, as I figure these folks > would spot color
>mighty damn quick were some of it to > stroll into their community.
>Santee's whiteness is so > taken for granted by its residents that the
>Mayor, in
>that CNN interview, thought nothing of saying on the one > hand that the
>town was 82 percent white, but on the
>other hand that "this is America." >
>Well that isn't America, and it especially isn't > California, where whites
>are only half of the
>population. This is a town that is removed from America, > and yet its
>Mayor thinks they are the normal ones-so
>much so that when asked about racial diversity, he > replied that there
>weren't many of different
>"ethni-tis-tities." Not a word. Not even close. >
>
>I'd like to think that after this one, people would wake > up. Take note.
>Rethink their stereotypes of who the
>dangerous ones are. But deep down, I know better. The
>folks hitting the snooze button on this none-too-subtle > alarm are my own
>people, after all, and I know their
>blindness like the back of my hand. >
>***
>Tim Wise is a Nashville-based writer and activist and > can be reached at
>[log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]>

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