Commentary: White People in Denial over School Shootings

4/4/01

In a March 6 commentary in AlterNet, Tim Wise, a Nashville, Tenn.-based

writer and activist, wrote that white people "live in an utter state of

self-delusion" when it comes to school shootings.

Wise made his comments after the latest school shooting where two white

children were killed and 13 injured by a student gunman at Santana High

School in Santee, Calif.

"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," wrote Wise. "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.'"

Wise noted in his commentary that while there is a significant amount of

violence in urban communities and schools, "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."

He continued, "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."

Wise stated that if a black child talked about murdering someone or was

involved in the recent school shootings, "you can bet that somebody would

have turned them in, and the cops would have beat a path to their doorstep."

Yet, he added, "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?"

Wise said he believes what went wrong in the recent school shootings is not

related to 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," he

stated.

He added, "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."

As a result of the Santana High School shooting, Wise said he hopes "people

would wake up. Take note. Rethink their stereotypes of who the dangerous ones

are."

He concluded, "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."