Tag: guns

Categories
asides

The Education of X González

From The Education of X González:

That evening, [the March for Our Lives activists] were invited to a reception overlooking the Capitol in D.C., all lit up… A white-haired man who had clearly had a few drinks came up to me. With all the positivity in the world, he clapped me on the shoulder and said, “Well, it’s on you kids now; we fucked it all up, and now it’s your job to fix it.” How nice that must have felt for him, or for the countless people who would, in the coming years, say exactly the same thing to me, offloading the capacity to make change to us as a way of absolving themselves of their own role in America’s problems.

Categories
politics

The Shooting Death of a Traitor

During Wednesday’s violent insurrection against the United States Congress (incited by the President of the United States and his rich cronies), a Capitol Police officer shot and killed a 35-year-old Air Force veteran, Ashli Babbitt, as she tried to force her way through what one independent journalist called “a vital and final door leading to Congresspeople.”

In their profile, Who Was Ashli Babbitt?, the New York Times reports that Ms. Babbitt’s “social media feed was a torrent of messages celebrating President Trump; QAnon conspiracy theories; and tirades against immigration, drugs and Democratic leaders in California.”

Ironically, as a member of the Air Force Reserve, Ms. Babbitt was a member of the Capital Guardians, the only branch of the National Guard responsible for protecting the national government (the others protect the various states), and whose mission includes defending the U.S.’s capital city against “civil disturbances.” 

In one of her last tweets, Ms. Babbitt wrote about the upcoming rally for the President: “Nothing will stop us. They can try and try and try but the storm is here and it is descending upon DC in less than 24 hours …. dark to light!”

Many are, if not celebrating, at least not feeling any remorse for the death of Ms. Babbitt, and I can appreciate that sentiment.

She did as she planned to do: She stormed the United States Capitol with every intent of violently overturning the results of a relatively free and fair election and installing Donald J. Trump as an illegitimate President of the United States.

When she tried to breach the security force’s last line of defense, an officer chose to defend the heart of our Capitol building and the Congresspeople inside by shooting her in the neck. She later died of the gunshot wound.

To some, Ms. Babbitt’s punishment fits the crime of insurrection. U.S. Code § 2383, however, defines the penalty for insurrection as either a fine or ten years in jail, plus the loss of the right to hold any office under the United States.

Unlike treason, which generally means the accused betrayed the country by acting on behalf of a foreign government, the crime of insurrection, which generally means committing a violent act against the country or its officers, does not result in a penalty of death.

(Unlike the insurrectionists, President Trump should probably be charged with sedition, “which is the organized incitement to rebellion or civil disorder against the authority of the state.”)

It is true that Ms. Babbitt was in the vanguard of an unruly mob whose actions resulted in the death of at least one police officer, and thus it makes sense for the officer responsible for the shooting to have feared for his life in the face of her rage.

It is also true that she was warned to get back before being shot.

It is also true that Vice President Pence was inside the building, and government security forces generally don’t take kindly to those who threaten the safety of presidents and vice presidents.

But according to a report in the Washington Post, it may also be true that Ms. Babbitt was unarmed during the insurrection.

And according to video footage of the incident, at least four armed police officers were standing behind her. They weren’t trying to drag her away from the “vital and final door.” They weren’t yelling at her to get down or put her hands behind her back. They stood calmly, talking with the insurrectionists who milled about around them. In the footage where the camera’s perspective is about six or eight feet behind Ms. Babbitt, it seems as if the officers have no real issue with the insurrectionists, making the sound of the gunshot that much more surprising.   

The footage seems to confirm that the life of Ms. Babbitt need not to have been snuffed out. The officer who felt threatened could have grabbed her by the wrist, pulled her through the door, and restrained her while calling for support from the four officers standing peacefully among the crowd.

She could have been arrested, charged, found guilty, fined, and imprisoned. She did not have to die. 

Throughout the Spring and Summer, we saw the nation’s police respond to BLM protestors with violent impunity. Those of us with any conscience condemned the police’s violence and cheered on those who pushed back against it. Many of us (myself included) defended the property damage that seemed to incense so many on the right (unlike the extrajudicial murders of black bodies, which the right didn’t seem to mind as much). 

I have a similar response to Ms. Babbitt’s death. She wasn’t armed. She wasn’t trying to wrestle a gun away from an officer. She wasn’t brandishing a knife or even a pellet gun. The officer could have tased her or sprayed her with pepper spray or, as I suggested above, pulled her to the ground and restrained her while calling for help from the four other officers standing six to eight feet behind her. 

Ms. Babbitt was a criminal, an insurrectionist, and a traitor to our democracy. But she didn’t have to die.

Categories
life politics

Black Panther, Liberals, Parkland Teens, and You

One of my students, a young African-American woman, is fired up about the new Black Panther movie, but not in the way you might think. Unlike Shaun King, a well-known activist and African-American writer who “sincerely place[s] it on the level of Michael Jackson’s Thriller, the birth of hip-hop, and the election of Barack Obama,” my young African-American student thinks Black Panther is trash.

I don’t want to white-mansplain her particular argument, so I’ll leave the details to her.

Instead, what I want to talk about is her existence and its relationship to Shaun King’s.

First, some context for this post.

I have another student, a young white male, who believes he is the only truly conservative person at our school. He calls us “a school full of liberals,” and he basically disdains everything we say, discounting our knowledge and our advice because we are, as he says, “liberals.”

His attitude is familiar, I’m sure. It’s the attitude that sneers the word “liberal.” It’s also (in a different way) the attitude that sneers the word “redneck.”

This attitude is born from a mindset that feels too comfortable with labels, so comfortable, in fact, that the person is not even aware they’re using them. Unfortunately, a label doesn’t do anything except provide us with permission to stop thinking.

By labeling all of his teachers as “liberals,” my “only truly conservative” student gives himself permission to not be challenged by the ideas he encounters in school. Instead of allowing new ideas to enter into his mind, he erects a barrier — a wall, if you will — to prevent all our “liberal” ideas from getting in. As you might imagine, such a strategy does not a great student make.

By any measure, my white male student would call both my African-American student and Shaun King, the African-American writer, liberals. Both argue that society has a role to play when it comes to fighting injustice, and they both prefer using progressive, radical, or even revolutionary means if necessary. In short, they are both activist soldiers in the war against oppression.

But by labeling them both as “liberals,” my white male student remains blind to the areas in which they differ, their feelings about Black Panther being just one of them.

When we paint over people with such a wide brush, we smear away everything that makes us individuals, and because of that, we lose the opportunity to engage with each other’s truly unique minds.

This is part of what the kids in Florida, and some of the kids in my own school, are trying to get across when they talk to us adults. The kids are dying, and they’re telling us, finally and firmly, to put down our labels, stop being so petty, and start actually listening to one another.

The Parkland shooting reminded us that we are living through another 9/11. And like 9/11, now is not the time to be divided.

—

But unlike 9/11, this wound is self-inflicted.

According to the CDC, the suicide rate among teenage girls doubled between 2005 and 2015, while the suicide rate for boys increased 30 percent over the same period (and is roughly three times higher than girls in the first place). Suicides across the whole population, meanwhile, increased 24-percent over a 15 year period (the rate of suicide is highest among middle-aged white men, by the way).

School shootings, we must remember, are often just another form of teen suicide.

In all the conversations about guns and security, we’re missing the bigger picture.

It’s not mental health. “Mental health” is just a red herring that will distract us from committing our resources in the right locations. Black women suffer from depression far greater than any other group in our population, and they are the least likely to seek professional help for it, yet black women are not committing these crimes against our schools, nor are they committing suicide at rates greater than the rest of the population. If “mental health” was the culprit, we’d see a lot less angry white boys on our screens and a lot more depressed black girls.

The culprit is whatever is causing the increase in suicides among teens. We could argue about its identity all day, but doing so would again stop us from seeing the bigger picture.

It’s time to talk to your kids, people. Time to look them in the eye, ask them how they are, and then listen.

And if you know a kid whose parents definitely won’t be doing that, then know that the rest of us are counting on you. You are the representative of the rest of us. Help us by helping that young, emotionally abandoned kid.

And then, after you’ve done it once, do it again, and again, and again, and don’t stop doing it until you know the kid is going to be okay. Because more than guns, more than “mental health,” it will be the helping, caring adult who will stop this.

If we can’t come together on gun control, can we at least come together on that?

And hey, if you don’t quite feel up to it, then at least take the kid to go see Black Panther. Because unlike my student, I thought it was a kick ass movie.

Categories
education politics

Teacher Advocates “Students, Go On Strike.”

PARKLAND, FL - FEBRUARY 14: People are brought out of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School after a shooting at the school that reportedly killed and injured multiple people on February 14, 2018 in Parkland, Florida. Numerous law enforcement officials continue to investigate the scene. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

Let’s not bullshit anyone. I’m the teacher in the headline and I’m advocating that every student in the United States go on strike until Congress takes decisive action on the issue of school shootings.

I am not advocating for one position or another. I do not have the solution.

But it’s not my job to come up with the solution. It’s the job of our Senators and Representatives in Congress. This is exactly what we sent them to Congress to do.

School shootings are a national problem. They are not a local problem or a state problem. They are a national problem, and there is only one place in America with the authority to address a national problem. It’s not Hollywood or New York City or even Fairfax, Virginia. It’s Washington D.C.

We send representatives to Washington D.C. to work together to address and solve the problems that beset us all. We understand that there will be disagreements as to a proper solution, and that the system will be corrupted by the current state of human nature, but we are also willing to accept the results of the American democratic process. We may not like the results, and we may continue to fight to improve them or change them, but we’ll also accept them.

But before we can get results, we need to have an open and honest debate, where all the cards are on the table and people of good will can persuade other people of good will to form a majority in favor of a specific solution or set of solutions and where the minority also accepts the solution (begrudgingly if need be) and neglects to force the majority to form a supermajority.

I say this knowing full well that the Republican National Party holds a majority of seats in Congress and that the platform of that party is antithetical to my values on virtually every issue, including this one, but I also say it knowing that this particular issue is one where every American truly wants their Congressperson to vote their conscience.

If every Congressperson is able to speak honestly and openly about their feelings and thoughts on this one issue, and every American, regardless of their party affiliation or their employer, is willing to accept that Congressperson’s position as, at the very least, open and honest, then I believe their vote on this particular issue would not dampen their ability to run for re-election. It would, regardless of which way they voted, do the opposite.

When people talk about being sick of the politicians, what we mean is that we’re sick of the liars. We don’t want our representatives to vote a certain way because it will help them keep their job. We want them to vote a certain way because they believe in it. It’s not their job to run for office. It’s our job to determine whether we want someone with their beliefs to represent us in Congress.

The politicians need to stop running for re-election and start doing the job we sent them there to do: use their conscience to do what they think is best.

—

More than any other public institution, schools should be a refuge from danger. They are where virtually every parent in the community sends their children for the majority of the work day. Yes, schools have other priorities, but they are also, and maybe primarily, our daycare.

Not one parent — whether they are an NRA member or a member of MoveOn.org — wants to go to work every day worried about receiving a phone call notifying them of the death of their child. As parents, we can deal with phone calls about suspensions and expulsions. We can deal with drug convictions, special education restrictions, sick days, a teacher’s concern about a lack of homework, the fact that our child has been bullying someone, whatever.

What we can’t handle is the phone call that tells us our child is dead.

If we trust schools with anything, we trust them with that.

But now we can’t, and we haven’t been able to for a long time. We now know, and we’ve known for a while, that our schools have become the most vulnerable institutions in our communities — the one public space where deranged individuals can do the most damage.

The politicians in Washington D.C. are afraid of this issue, and for good reason: there is no  answer that will satisfy everyone, and there’s a lot of money at stake when it comes to this particular issue. These politicians don’t want to touch it with a ten foot pole, not the ones who are there now.

More than anything, the lack of movement on this issue reveals our representatives’ inability to do the one job we sent them to Washington to do: participate in an open and honest debate and at the end of the day, vote their conscience.

If they are unable to do that, they should all, regardless of party, be replaced. Failure to move the ball on this one issue should cost them their seat, and they ought to stake their future on that.

Every student in every school in every Congressional district in the United States ought to stay home from school until their elected representative pledges to move the ball on this issue before the November election, and the students should continue to stay out of school until the majority and minority leaders agree that, on this one issue, any threat to filibuster or any act of filibustering be staged from the House or Senate floor. If they let the debate be open and honest, then Americans will respect the results.

Failing that, every student ought to refuse to attend school, and every parent in every district in every state in the United States will have to solve the problem of daycare. This will put such a screeching halt to the national economy that Congress will have no choice but to respond.

As a teacher, I hear every day from my students how children have no rights. I try to tell them that as human beings, they always have rights. But as human beings, they’re also vulnerable to having those rights taken away. Which means they have two choices: they can either stand up and fight for their rights, or they can give them away. But no one, no one, can just take their rights away from them.

As a human being on planet earth, you have the right to petition your government for a redress of grievances. The most polite way to do that is to write a letter. The most effective way to do that is to make a lot of noise until the entire head of the government is forced to turn your way and deal with you.

As individuals below the age of 18, you do not have the right to vote. But as human beings, you do have the right to make your voices heard.

As citizens, you also have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness — all of which add up to the right to be free from fear.

Every day, your guardians are required by law to send you to an adult-managed place where contemporary events demonstrate your safety cannot be guaranteed, and where your life seems to be increasingly at risk. This should not be acceptable to you.

And you ought to stand up and do something about it.

Right now, to these politicians who refuse do anything about it, your deaths — your lives — don’t matter.

You have to stand up and make them matter. You have to hit these fuckers where it counts: in their wallets.

And by fuckers, I mean every adult who continues to let this happen.

Stop going to school and they’ll have to stop going to work. When they stop going to work, the money dries up. When the money dries up, that’s when adults turn to Washington. Which will mean that those fuckers in D.C. will have to do their jobs while the whole world is watching.

If they’re not able to stand up and vote their conscience then, then they’ll never be able to do it and they won’t be worth the title on their door: Representative.

I hear the liberal/cynical response to this: rich people can pay for daycare, and it’s the rich who are preventing any movement on this issue; all this demonstration will do is hurt poor people. While this may or may not be true, most people’s daycare depends, somewhere, on a low-income parent showing up to do their job. When that low-income parent is unable to find or afford daycare of their own, the pain will trickle uphill.

Meanwhile, the children of rich people ought to use their funds to fight this fight. If they can afford to get themselves someplace where an entire congregation of students can demonstrate, in the most public way possible, that they are, in fact, not going to attend school until this issue is addressed by Congress, then all the better.

Yes, there will be pain felt during this demonstration. There always is. Think of the men and women in the Civil Rights movement: the police dogs, the firehoses, the batons, the nooses. Yes, there will be pain. Single mothers will lose their jobs when they have no options for daycare. Fathers and mothers will scream and fight over who will stay home with the children, and women will be abused over their answers. Children will be beat for disobeying their mothers and fathers, and some will feel the wrath of the belt or the burn of the cigarette, the sting of the hard slap or the collision of the closed fist.

But will it be worth it? Is the right to go to school free from fear worth it?

If you think so, stand up and make your lives matter.

Stand up and go on strike.

I teach in Vermont, where every student goes on a week vacation starting on Monday. Use that week to plan, organize, and publicize. Talk to your parents about it. Let them know it is happening, and be willing to defend your position. If they make you go to the physical school on the Monday after vacation is over, make a sign and picket outside the front door. Get your friends to join you. Have someone call the news. Attract a lot of attention. But be deep and thoughtful. Stay somber. Remember why you’re there. Remember the dead bodies, the dead children, feel the fear of all those children having to run for their lives, the sound of gunfire coming from right behind them, the sight of their friends and teachers bleeding on the ground beside them.

They didn’t deserve that. No one deserves that. Refuse to become a victim.

Stand up. Stand up and go on strike.