WHITE HYPOCRISY ABOUT VIOLENCE IN THE US IS DISGUSTING

 

©Wendell Griffen, 2023

 

The United States leads the world in mass murders caused by firearms. It leads the world in deaths caused by firearms. It leads the world in the number of firearms manufactured, marketed, and purchased by civilians. Yet, white people in the US - the racial group responsible for manufacturing, marketing, selling, purchasing, and using firearms and objecting to laws regulating firearms – complain loudest and most about being concerned about public safety.

White people in the US who self-identify as “evangelical Christians” profess to be followers of Jesus, a Palestinian Jewish rabbi who was murdered by a Roman Empire occupation force. Yet, white “evangelical Christians” rarely can be seen, heard, or found supporting calls to rein in militarized policing of Black, Latino, and indigenous persons. Instead, they are the core constituency supporting strongarm policing of non-white persons.

A federal jury in New York City recently found Donald Trump, the twice-impeached former US President, liable for sexually assaulting E. Jean Carroll years ago. The world knew about the civil trial. People throughout the world knew about the Access Hollywood tape when Trump boasted that he could sexually assault women because of his professed wealth and celebrity.

Yet, CNN hosted an hourlong free prime time television “town hall interview” with Trump that amounted to a rally for his diehard followers days after the jury found Trump liable for sexually assaulting and defaming Carroll. During that broadcast, Trump showed neither remorse nor contrition, but repeated his lie about not knowing Carroll. 

Instead of being disgusted about Trump’s misogyny, history as a sexual predator, violence against women, and lies, CNN gave Trump a free media platform for repeating and excusing his violence under the pretense of journalism.

These situations expose white hypocrisy about violence in the United States, and, specifically, white hypocrisy about violence by white people, and white men especially.

Donald Trump, a white man, was elected President of the United States because white voters, including white men, preferred him despite his long record of commercial, personal, and conversational violence. After he was defeated in November 2020, a largely white-male mob of his followers attempted an armed insurrection by attacking the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.

The largest Protestant denomination in the US, the Southern Baptist Convention, has a history rooted in violence. It was founded by white enslavers. Its oldest educational institutions – Baylor University in Texas and Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Kentucky – were founded and funded by white enslavers, including white preachers who were enslavers. Southern Baptists are among Donald Trump’s core voting supporters.

That is why we should denounce white hypocrisy about violence in the United States. Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, Angela Davis, and others openly condemned US violence against Black, indigenous, other people of color, workers, and impoverished people. Their concerns are more justified now than ever.

That is why it is disgusting to hear white people profess concern about “Black on Black” crime and violence in Black neighborhoods.

White people start, fund, and expand the most violence in the nation.

White people are responsible for the violence of poisoned water in Flint, Michigan and Jackson, Mississippi.

White people decided to drop atomic bombs on civilian cities – twice within days – in Japan.

White violence is not merely ignored. White violence is excused.

White billionaires control pharmaceutical companies and get away with flooding the US population with addictive medications.

White gun manufacturers get away with flooding the nation with firearms and opposing common sense laws to regulate gun ownership.

White politicians in the US are why there is no federal health research about gun violence.

And white entertainment executives produce, select, and promote violent video games and other “entertainment” that glorifies violence.

White violence destroyed the Greenwood neighborhood in Tulsa, Oklahoma in 1920. No white people were prosecuted for it.

White violence caused the Elaine Race Massacre in Phillips County, Arkansas in 1919. No white people were prosecuted for it.

But white violence is not limited to killing people. The “root shock” displacement caused by the violence of urban “renewal” and “gentrification” uproots neighborhoods where people of color have lived, worked, and loved one another for generations.

That violence is seldom condemned by white journalists, politicians, and preachers.  The people who claim they have been “blessed” because white people invaded, stole, and expelled indigenous people where they had lived and loved for generations now call present-day examples of such conduct “economic development.”

The hypocrisy now endangers public education, as white politicians and profiteers have set up and preside over schemes to de-fund, privatize, re-segregate, dismantle, and outsource public education for all children. The so-called LEARN legislation signed into law recently by Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders shows how popular white hypocrisy is, and what it does.

That is how a white man who choked Jordan Neely - a 30 year old unarmed, impoverished, hungry, unhoused Black man – to death in front of other people on a New York subway train was not immediately arrested by police after he did so. That white man will be cast as “defending” himself and other subway riders from people such as Jordan Neely. Black, unarmed, and impoverished people have long been subjects of white violence.  

White hypocrisy about violence in the United States is deep seated, surging, widespread, and obvious. Be disgusted about it.