Michigan has been front and center regarding two
separate stories in the media lately, and neither is good news. One is about
somber statistics concerning the murder rate of African Americans around the
state. The other covers the aftermath of weekend vandalism at a pair of
northern Michigan ski resorts that resulted in tens of thousands of dollars in
damage. At each story’s core is senseless and disturbing levels of violence.
Let’s get one thing straight, murder can never equate to
material carnage. It just can’t. That’s apples and oranges. The taking of human
life is reprehensible and deplorable. Still, those who have followed the ski
resort scandal and murder rate reports are shaking their heads and asking, why?
A very few others are wondering if, at some level, they
might be connected.
So what does the state of Michigan’s homicide rate share
in common with the trashing of two of its posh winter vacation spots? Most say
nothing. Yet they bear more in common than one might want to believe. First
some facts and statistics.
According to a report from the Violence Policy Center in
Washington, D.C., in 2012, 90 percent of black persons killed in Michigan by
handguns were men. This ranks Michigan third among states with the highest
homicide rate in which the victims were black.
The other story: during recent stays at several northern
Michigan resorts, students from six fraternities and sororities at a
prestigious Michigan university, caused substantial damage to the properties
where they were staying.
Something’s going on. Frankly, it’s been going on –
white middle class college students conducting riotous, property-destroying
rampages that masquerade as celebration. And black lower income men shooting
each other. On the surface, these occurrences seem unrelated. But are they?
What happens when you step and start looking at the
forest rather than the trees. A few things begin to emerge. Both groups are
young. Both are engaged in destructive activities. Both, it would seem, move in
social circles that apparently find it acceptable to participate in such action
– at least in the moment.
How are the actions of young white college students
getting so drunk they have no compunction about trashing vacation resorts connected
to young black men who are so enraged (or fearful) that they try to assassinate
each other?
What’s driving their state of mind?
There appear to be forces placed on seemingly reasonable
college students that compel them to commit violence so unreasonably. Likewise
there seem to be forces being applied to rational black men that coerce them to
behave in irrational ways. Could they be connected? If so, what’s the missing
link?
As mentioned, the destruction of life doesn’t compare to
the destruction of property, yet something is leading both groups of young
people to act out. Some deduce the pressures of school is a motivating force
for such behavior in one case. Some assume the stresses of poverty in the
other. Both are likely suspects but not the driving force.
There’s something else at play. Something tangible yet
simultaneously illusive. It’s largely invisible and running in the background,
woven into the very fabric of American culture. And, it somehow signifies to
youth that violence as a means of expression is okay.
My take? It’s white privilege. It’s also internalized
racial oppression. Both are two sides of the same coin and destructive result of
the cultural driver known as white supremacy.
Not to be confused with the more familiar white-hood-and-burning-cross euphemism.
White supremacy is a system (not an individualistic construct)
that creates and perpetuates destruction based on the notion of racial hierarchy;
in these cases, the laissez-faire destruction of property and the incomprehensible
destruction of lives. They may be of a different scale and committed by people
of different colors, but they are born of, and perpetuated, by the same system.
Follow J.R. on Twitter @4humansbeing or contact him at 4humansbeing@gmail.com.
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