Congressman Steve Scalese and four others were wounded two days ago when a 66 year old white, male engaged in a horrific act and shot at them. All of the victims were white, and work inside the beltway. We know the politics of the shooter, which include anti-Trump, anti-GOP, anti-Hillary, pro-Bernie (at least at some point). We also know he was divorced and his life had taken a downward turn. We still don’t really know motives, even though this and the baseball game that followed are the only thing the news has covered in the past 36 hours.

The last sentence above is the purpose of this post. The rest is terrible, but WHY DO WE CARE SO MUCH ABOUT IT?!?!?!? We have an imfatuation with violence against the rich, white and powerful, and a complete blind spot for much of the other violence that goes on around us every day.

Let’s compare: in Chicago last weekend, 40 black people were killed. 100s were wounded, and 100s (possibly thousands, since this is largely unreported) of shots were fired. And most of this happened in the poorest 5 neighborhoods in the city. Was that on the national news? Probably not, unless we hit a record (again). Was it on the local news. Only as a mention.

So based on our news coverage, the deaths of those 40 people are not worth the wounds received by 5 people in Washington DC. No one cares, except their friends, relatives, and neighbors who have to live in these communities. They are Americans, but they obviously aren’t as important as these “important” Americans who were shot in DC.

Please note that this is a statement on guns, since people using guns were involved in all of these shootings. No guns = many less deaths. Would people still knife each other? Sure they would, or use baseball bats. But what would have happened in DC if a guy came on a field with a knife and fought against a team of good GOP legislators armed with bats? My bet is on the baseball team. That’s not really the point though.

This is about HOW we perceive violence, or very often WHERE and WHEN we perceive it.

When it comes to violence among or perpetrated on poor minorities in inner cities, our society doesn’t really care. I can tell because if we did, we’d try MUCH harder to do something about it. A few suggestions:

  • we see black-on-black gun violence in particular as something that is “normal” and that “can’t be solved.” And if we can’t solve it, why talk about it.
  • we largely ignore the fact that we COULD solve it, but it would be HARD. And we’d have to have UNCOMFORTABLE conversations. And it would cost money.
  • we almost completely ignore the fact that our history as a country up to this point has put our poorest citizens together in communities where they have pretty much no hope of advancing. No hope of getting a good education. No hope of living a life beyond their parents. This is all a historical artifact of both slavery, and of public policies since that time, including now. Our current social programs are barely enough to put a band aid on the problem, and have almost zero chance of helping anyone get out of poverty and live a productive life. That’s not the intent.
  • when we do address inner city problems, it is largely by throwing bad money after good, and really by incarceration. If we lock “them” up, then the problem is even MORE out of sight. And many one day we’ll lock up enough of “them” that people will stop talking about the problem. And did I mention that private corporations can make a lot of money by locking “them” up and keeping them there?

I could give more and more specific negatives to this rant (it clearly became a rant somewhere in here…), but I don’t want to be accused of just identifying the problem (not that there’s anything wrong with that), and want to give potential solutions. So here are a couple:

  • First, fight poverty. Put money into it. As much as we need to get people in poverty out of that financial situation, and into a place where they can be economically productive members of society. Money for education, health care, child care and job training among other things. Do this and many (not all) of the social problems that contribute to violence go away. And tax the rich more to do it.
  • Second, stop imprisoning non-violent offenders, and return prison to a place that attempts to bring people back into society, instead of making them better criminals.
  • Third, start covering EVERY SINGLE DEATH as if it was the shooting of Congressman Scalese. People need to care about their fellow citizens more, and for that to happen we need to be shown their lives. Inner city violence is a “foreign” thing to most Americans, and it needs to be thrown in their faces until they realize that this is “us,” not “them.” Just because you don’t live in that neighborhood doesn’t mean that you, through your government at the very least, can avoid responsibility for that neighborhood.
  • Fourth, address the gun problem we have in this country. Take the hard step and push back against the NRA and others who have been lying to Americans for several decades now (it wasn’t always this way, we can go back to NRA policies in the early 1970s and have a very productive discussion!) Do what other industrialized countries do: license guns, no concealed carry, extreme restrictions on hand guns and semi-automatic rifles, and many other common sense provisions that will save lives. In areas where there is heavy gun violence, analyze where the guns come from and stop them at their source. Allow the CDC and others to actually do fact based studies on gun violence and its causes. Change a culture that suggests that every American has a right to take the life of anyone else when they feel threatened.
  • Fifth, change policing in our country, especially in inner cities. Bring police back to the point where they work for the community, and where the community has evidence to accept that. Bring in a culture, like many other countries and many communities in the US, where violence by police is an absolute last resort, and if violence is used this is considered a complete failure of the system.
  • Finally (for now, this is a short blog, not a dissertation), we need to continue to address race and racism in our country. I suggest using churches and community groups as a starting point. We need to fight back not just against blatant racism (“Obama is from Kenya!”), but against politics that has race as an underlying component (like voter ID laws.) We need to accept our fellow citizens as human beings, and not allow the politics of blame (on both sides) to separate us.

This blog went from the little picture to the big one, but I want to take it back for now. The non-stop news coverage of the DC shootings has been offensive to me since about an hour after it happened, not because it shouldn’t be mentioned, but because it is a MINOR part of a much bigger problem in our country. We are now talking a lot about politically motivated violence (from the right over the past 8+ years, and now a bit from the left the last couple of weeks), and this is a bad, new thing — but it is MINOR compared to the harm done every day, week and month to black people living in poor neighborhoods in Chicago. And Chicago is just one place.

I have a new idea for news coverage. Let’s start counting lives lost and drops of blood spilled, then get together as a country and do something constructive about the places with the biggest problems. Stop blaming and start fixing.