Here is the comment that I left there:
Oh lord!
Two huge elephants in the room here.
FIRST ELEPHANT:
While Sodini was certainly a racist by his own words he did not go looking for a room full of African Americans to kill.
While Sodini certainly did not seem to have male friends and expressed jealousy of other males (though almost always in the context of their ability to get laid) he did not go looking for a room full of men -- or even a room full of men and women -- to kill.
In Sodini's head women were "hoes." Worse still: "hoes" who would not have sex with him. He went looking for a room full of women -- all women. He found one. And he tried to murder them all. He even wrote: "Why do this?? To young girls?"
That's reality.
EVEN BIGGER ELEPHANT:
I'm hearing so called experts on TV talking about the problem of "people" being isolated. I'm hearing discussions of "peoples" access to guns. I see here someone asking "what if it was a woman attacking men," etc.
Here's a reality check: if you could somehow stop men from murdering others you would stop 90% of all murders.
So talking about what the problem is with "people" killing is like me saying that I want to lose weight but let's not get into what I eat or how much I exercise -- you know, basically unproductive -- and ignoring a huge piece of the puzzle.
And before some heads explode here, I'm not saying all men are murders or violent or would-be murders or are one step away from being violent.
But, if we want to really cut down on murder than we need to figure out why men murder. And, guys, this would be to your benefit because while men overwhelmingly are the ones to commit violent crimes, they are also far more likely to be the victims of violent crimes.
P.S. Where exactly would women wearing gym clothes pack a gun? Do they maybe hold it in their hands while exercising? This is just silly.
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16 comments:
Well, your points are valid but if you look at the issue in terms of potential policy you run into some other realities. First, we could, but are not likely to, restrict the sales of more lethal weapons. I mean, you can’t buy a rocket launcher or a fully automatic rifle in a store. Yes, there are fully automatic rifles available illegally, or legally to certain kinds of companies, but the point is we do legally restrict some kinds of guns. Why not others? Currently largely because the Senate has not noticed that a majority of Americans (including a few men) have given the Democrats a majority and want sensible legislation.
Second, I don’t know that there is a viable policy option for dealing with either Sodini’s particular madness or the fact that overwhelmingly the finger on the trigger is male. When we were pre-verbal apes I guess the males did the hunting and fighting with other hunter groups, and then plopped down in front of the TV (which would have been particularly boring then). Society has evolved, what we do to survive (and entertain ourselves) has evolved, but men seem to still be drawn to violence. We’re (men) not likely to agree to be caponized (not me, anyway). I think the best we might do is to limit the ability to do violence and maybe also to teach kids from a young age to respect each other’s gender (although lots of religious groups might have a fit about that).
This, here, on your blog and mine, is sound and fury. Still, ideas percolate here and there, and maybe momentum for change is started or maintained or increased. So I choose to push policy proposals (even if Mike Madison suggests the debate in general has tired, generic lines). I think the inherent male violence in our society is interesting to talk about, should be talked about. But I don’t see a matriarchy or some other alternative on the horizon soon. Maybe we can get the AK-47’s and maybe even semi-automatic pistols off the street.
better mental heath policies might help too, tho not i think, in this one.
still, if there was less of a stigma on seeking help and esier acess to coverage maybe more people would realize they can get help.
this man, from what i've read and his videos was beyond any normal avenues of care.
his voice is toneless and he sees nothing wrong with himself. it's everyone else.
i can see why no one dated him. if i worked with him or lived near him, he would have creeped me out.
there was some pieces missing in him.
Maria is a indeed wise in the Sotomayer way
Here's a reality check: if you could somehow stop men from murdering others you would stop 90% of all murders.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_the_United_States#Characteristics%20of%20offenders
Imagine if someone did that quote focusing on the racial aspect of homicide
They would labeled racist.
How is Maria not being a sexist and a misandrist.
Well, HTTT, just the quote itself is not misandrist or sexist. When you state a fact, that is not by itself sexist or racist or whatever. There may be other facts that other people think are crucial to provide a more complete picture, and they should be free to add those facts. If after stating the fact about males committing 90% of homicides you then say that men are inferior and less able to learn because of their gender, then you stray into sexist territory. Maria takes pains to say that she thinks this fact is something we need to investigate. She may have her private theories but does not share them.
Unlike your snide Sotomayor comment.
Sherry - Yes, but presumably he wasn't always that far gone. I don't think we could have "prevented" it in the near-immediate sense, but what if we had a more productive attitude toward mental health his whole life?
I would wager that he, and you, and most everybody reading this has visited the dentist about twice a year for their whole lives. Because that's just what you do. How much could we be preventing if we all went for a mental health checkup twice a year?
bram, you are right but insurance doesn't want to pay for treatment now, let alone twice yearly preventative care.
just like anything else, preventative would be cheaper(and a whole lot safer in this instance) than not.
plus the whole stigma attached, socially and in employment situations.
until attitudes and healthcare are changed, i don't see any bright spots on the horizon and i'm a person with depression and a genetic disease that has some nasty little gifts attached to it in the form of specific learning disablities etc.
i know what would happen to me if i lost my health coverage or needed to find a job.
i also have been very surprised at the number of people that went to see their PCP about their mental health issues because i am open about my problems- tho- they asked me never to tell any other of out friends or aquaintances.
Question:
If Sodini had wrote "I plan to kill blacks/gays/immigrants/Jews and detailed his anger against blacks/gays/immigrants/Jews and then had gone to a room with only blacks/gays/immigrants/Jews in it and killed and wounded them, would we be limiting the discussion to mental illness without pretty much any discussion of racism, homophobia, etc?
I hope you don't think I'm trying to "limit the discussion", Maria -- I'm actually just trying to open it to an avenue that interests me and that I think (also) is often overlooked.
Plus as you said at your blog, you want to have a certain comfort level when telling dumb blond jokes.
oh i think this man was sick and he fixated on women. he could have as easily fizated on any group. for him it was women.
i know a family whose grown son has been in and out of intitutions and hospitals. he fixates on "pagans" and gays. people tell me that at one time he was a bright and happy young boy but at around the age of 15(he's in his 40's now)he just started a downhill slide. it was very slight at first but his family sought help.
there really is none tho he's tried every therapy and drug they can thing of.
our mental heath options in this country are not good and everytime the insurance ran out they released him.
i wonder if his family tried to get him help or if they didn't question why at his age he was so solitary or if he lied to them
actually, i wondered why the mental illness issue was brought up by so many newscasters right away. i wonder if it would have been if the
killer had been a minority instead of a middle class white collar/white man..
Sherry,
Doubtful.
... and this is why men tend to stay as far away from these conversations as they can possibly get. Why "gotcha" me like that? I went to great pains to clarify that I don't think you're wrong, but only that I have other points to make.
In that comment, I was only attempting to draw a distinction between day-to-day ungenerous appraisals of the opposite gender -- which we ALL engage in, Maria -- and the kind of psychotic hatred which drives a person to mass murder.
bram,
Well, here I was piling up paragraphs in response to you. Then I see that there's someone in your comment section -- I'm going to take a wild guess that it's a he -- who wants to argue that it's harder to be a man in this world than it is to be a woman who was murdered/fighting for her life in a critical care unit by a man who shot her soley because she is a woman.
I give up.
My head hurts.
OH! So you were arguing with something HE said!
I didn't notice that. Something about him made it hard to read his comment carefully.
So the somewhat smart-ass coda I left in my last comment over there didn't apply.
This would be easier if it was all happening in one place.
3 Political Junkies?
Enjoying the debate, anyway, even if it winds me up. :)
Or perhaps the confusion you both noted in your back-and-forth is exactly the point! We are a fractured society, in which people like Sodini can go entirely unnoticed for years...or forever if he hadn't finally cracked.
The lack of social cohesion (though I think Pittsburgh is stronger than most places...) is a key part of what goes on in our nation, and yet it rarely gets mentioned. Life in "the burbs," which accelerated after WWII has had a host of unintended consequences....
That's not to say that this guy would have been any less sick in another time and place, but, in a more cohesive community someone may have noticed...
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