The Recent Mass Shootings
There has been a spate of mass shootings lately, mostly involving Black juveniles and young adults in party settings. After a few hours of revelry and boozing, one boy turns on another, and they start fighting. Other boys take sides and join the fray, until someone pulls out a gun and sprays the area around him—usually the loser in the fray using a gun to settle scores.
Well-off adults digest these events with dispirited calm. Harnessed to their routines of marriage, a regular job, and social networks, they forget the impulsiveness, temperamental angst, and romantic rivalries of youth. Harmless sassing can lead so easily to a fist-fight, and from there to the violence of a mob mentality, where nobody is safe.
In my novel from 2007, The Results of Polar Bear Research, the main character John lusts after a girl named Harriet, whom everyone calls "Harry". The problem for John is that the other boys flirt relentlessly with Harry, just to goad or taunt John. Mix that sexual tension into a group of rutting males, add in plenty of alcohol, and you have a combustible situation.
On the other hand, the recent spate of mass shootings involves young Black males. I grew up in the South and knew many Black males from school. If I had to describe the vibes I pick up from them, it is "Don't mess with me." Young teachers that I used to know told me they picked up those same vibes from their Black pupils. They had rough-edged junior high kids in their classes who scared even the high school boys! The teachers had to handle them carefully.
No one should have any illusions that the "don't mess with me" attitude grows out of the inherent resentment of a second-class mindset, meaning that it is easy to antagonize Black people, because they have little to fall back on—no faith in themselves, no self-respect, and a hopeless chasing after "equality" or "inclusion", as if the Whites can make them equal. It will be in vain, however, if they start from a position of subordinating themselves to the Whites.
Black Americans need to remember that they are wedded to the Whites via slavery. Slavery teaches slaves to depend on their masters for everything. The slaves resent the masters for mistreating them, but they cannot go forward without their masters leading the way. There is no other reason for us to be together.
Many times in our collective history, the Whites have tried to help the Blacks better their lives, and cannot understand why the Blacks express contempt and paranoia about their efforts. The reason is because they see White enthusiasm as paternalistic, which subtly suggests the Whites' superiority to them.
The Blacks need to learn what the Jews learned during World War II, that citizenship in your own country works better than living as a minority in someone else's. Citizenship improves your overall psychology: You gain an independent identity, national pride, and a sense of belonging somewhere. Marcus Garvey expressed it best: "Nationhood is the highest ideal of all peoples."