The unbearable invisibility of white masculine innocence

the unbearable invisibility of white masculinity - innocence in the age of white male mass shootings

And of course, the white boys go crazy in the comments. Both racial and gender privilege on display.

David J. Leonard
I have been profiled my entire life as innocent. When disruptive in class, I was told that I was eccentric, that I needed to work on my focus. Growing up, I looked for fights and conflicts yet I never fit the profile of a juvenile delinquent. The chip on my shoulder never signified a thug; I was just a kid with a bad temper who needed to mature and grow out of it.

When I was pulled over in Emeryville, CA for speeding for several miles and asked multiple times by the police officer if there was a reason for my speeding, I told him the truth. "Officer, my ice cream is melting."

No stop and frisk. No pretext stop. No humiliating search. No fear of how to hold my hands. No ticket. I, like Adam Lanza and James Holmes, the two most notorious mass shooters of the past year, am white male privilege personified. We are humanized and given voice and innocence over and over again.
***
The most recent shooting in Newtown highlights whiteness and the ways it has been rendered invisible after every mass shooting. Described as a "nerd," who "still wears a pocket protector," Adam Lanza has been reimagined as a character straight out of The Revenge of the Nerds series and not a cold-blood killer. He carried a brief case, not a gun; he read The Catcher in the Rye and Of Mice and Men, not Guns and Ammo; he wore button down polos, not fatigues. His life was not extraordinary but was that of an average kid. From the reading list to the sartorial choices we have been sold a Normal Rockwell painting. The Associated Press painted a picture of Adam that imaged him as a character ripped out of a Brady Bunch script: "He was an honors student who lived in a prosperous neighborhood with his mother, a well-liked woman who enjoyed hosting dice games and decorating the house for the holidays."

While identified as "reclusive," and "shy," as "quiet and reserved," as "weird" and a "loner" outcast, Lanza has been consistently described as an average kid who had problems and difficulties. At worst, he was odd and painfully shy. "He didn't have any friends, but he was a nice kid if you got to know him," said Kyle Kromberg. "He didn't fit in with the other kids. He was very, very shy." Yet, the constant quest to figure out what caused him to snap, to speculate about the effects of his parents' divorce or medications, all refashions Lanza as a good kid, a victim of sorts. He just snapped so there must have been a reason. Yes, he was strange, but do good (white, suburban, upper-middle class) kids shoot up an elementary school? Thus, reports the New York Post: "Bloodthirsty child killer Adam Lanza might have snapped, and carried out his unspeakable atrocities after learning that his mom wanted him thrown in the loony bin, according to published reports today."

The narrative following Adam Lanza and Newtown might as well recycled the media coverage surrounding James Holmes and the Aurora, Colorado shooting. Described as "smart" and quiet, as "nice," and "easy-going," the narrative sought to not only humanize James Holmes, but also imagine him as good at his core. It worked to tell a story of a normal kid, whose life turned toward evil for some yet-to-be-explained reason.

Sympathetic and identifiable, Holmes was depicted as Beaver Cleaver for most of his life. Anthony Mai, a longtime family friend, told the Los Angeles Times: "I saw him as a normal guy, an everyday guy, doing everyday things." Like many others in the community, he is "very shy, well-mannered young man who was heavily involved in their local Presbyterian church." The AP similarly depicted Holmes as a cross between Norman Rockwell, Jason, and Opie. Mind you the extent of its evidence comes from someone who had a beer with him at a local bar. "We just talked about football. He had a backpack and geeky glasses and seemed like a real intelligent guy and I figured he was one of the college students." Can you imagine having your identity reduced to a single meeting at a bar? Sure, he was quirky, and a bit of a "loner" but he was a "reserved" and "respectful" "kid."

Because these are told as stories of individuals with specific reasons for killing others, there is no reason to talk about race, class, or gender; there is no reason to talk about society, nor is there any reason to think that Aurora, Newtown, or Columbine are becoming Chicago or Detroit.

"Stuff like this does not happen in Newtown," Renee Burn reminded America. Stephen Delgiadice shared a similar level of shock: "It's alarming, especially in Newtown, Connecticut, which we always thought was the safest place in America." Reflecting a level of acceptance of violence elsewhere, bloodshed in their own white and middle-class neighborhoods, call into question the utopic fantasy promulgated by many in white suburbia. "We thought it was safe here," reflected Mike Hajzer. "But it's not so true. It's as if nowhere is safe."

Adam Lanza killed 26 people; he destroyed the lives of many, but he also put in jeopardy the dreams and fallacies that led many to the suburbs.
Adam Lanza killed 26 people; he destroyed the lives of many, but he also put in jeopardy the dreams and fallacies that led many to the suburbs. He put the allure and meaning of whiteness in jeopardy. "Is there anything more innocent than a child eating popcorn and sipping Coke with the lights of a movie screen reflecting off his face?" wrote Bert Weiss after the shooting in Aurora. "Is there any place I can feel my children are totally safe? Rather than being excited to share this movie together, now I'll spend a considerable amount of time addressing what happened in that theater with my sons. Frankly, I wish someone could explain it to me. As a parent, I wish I could postpone the reality of conversations like this for just a little longer; keep my kids innocent for as long as possible."

Ian Landau further captures this sense of innocence lost that pervades the media coverage in the aftermath of shootings in Aurora. He laments the lost sense of security, community, and the reason to live in places like Aurora and Newton. "Traditionally in America movie theaters are a safe, family environment where everybody goes and settles down into the dark," notes New York Psychiatrist Alan Manevitz. "You can watch a scary movie because you know you're safe in the movie theater and can enjoy the experience. The Aurora shooting has suddenly turned that upside down. That presumption of safety gets shattered and you feel the vulnerability at that moment."

The "its suppose to happen" in inner-city communities reframe is not surprising. Places like Columbine, Aurora, and Newton exist because of the fear-industrial complex. The white middle-class flocked from cities into the suburbs and rural communities partially due to fear of black and Latino youth, integrated schools, and urban crime. The continuously deployed the narrative of "its not suppose to happen in Newton" and their neighborhoods mirroring "American family's dream" embodies this entrenched belief. The efforts to imagine Holmes and Lanza as good kids turned evil, to scour the earth for reasons and potential solutions, works to preserve the illusion of safety, the allure of white suburbia, and the power of whiteness.

In imagining the killers as good kids who did a bad thing, who snapped because of a divorce, because of too much medication, because of inadequate mental health treatment, because of too much mental health care, because of guns, and because of who knows what, white manhood — the visible link that binds together so many of these shootings –always gets erased.

"Do you also think it's odd that white men commit the overwhelming majority of mass murders," wondered Nancy Hogshead-Makar, Senior Director of Advocacy for the Women's Sports Foundation, "but that people don't identify that as a causal factor? Instead we talk about mental illness and gun control. If it were Asian women or Jewish men or elderly African-American, it would be topic number one. But not white men." In fact, the media response to mass shootings often reimagines white men as victims.

The national spectacle and the hyper focus on Newton and Aurora especially in comparison to the scant coverage afforded to murders in Chicago or drone deaths in South Waziristan points to the value of whiteness. School shootings and other mass killings matter when there are white victims. Whiteness is thus reimagined as under attack. White suburban kids, white suburban families, white suburban communities and even white shooters are the victims—victims of Hollywood, victims of gun laws that don't allow them to protect themselves in every context, victims of removal of prayer from public schools, and victims of soiling culture.

The consequences are clear in Newtown and Aurora, yet these are not the only victims. The killers themselves are reconstituted as victims. Arguing that, "maleness and whiteness are commodities in decline" and that "things are looking up" for women and people of color, Christy Wampole concludes that the Sandy Hook shooting was the consequences of the waning privileges afforded white males: (more at the link)

 

This is very similar to the "Female Teachers having sex with students vs. Male Teachers having sex with students". It's just another biased but instead of gender, race is the topic.

The world puts all it's focus into watching what it assumes to be bad people when in reality the truly bad people slip through right under our noses.

 

Indeed. All these mass shootings and we don't even mention the perpetrators are mostly white men. Because white men are invisible as the default human being in our society. You can bet your ass if the majority were black men, we would be hearing not only about race, but about the fact that there are a lot of black single parents - mothers. In fact the only time I can remember parenting coming up as an issue in the wake of a shooting is in Newtown, because his mother was a divorced single mom. If there's a white guy involved, society makes excuses - the 'lone, mentally ill gunman' - that wouldn't be made in any other case.

 

If any of these more recent shootings had been done by someone who was a Muslim, as was the case of the Fort Hood shooting, all the emphasis would be on possible terrorists activities. In fact that was the first response by someone here in regards to Sandy Hook before all the details came out.

 

I think there is something different when a White male feels hostility against society at large, compared to a young man from of different ethnic or racial group.

But in the case of these recent mass murderers I don't know if anger about a loss of some assumed privilege, in Lanza's case possibly being committed to a mental health facility against his will and for James Holmes his overwhelming rage about being rejected from a graduate mathematics program, was part of the impetus behind these two murder sprees.

Do White men feel their White privilege is threatened in today's society?? Of course some do. Not all.
I just don't think most White men lash out violently because of it.

Although I don't think it's a coincidence that many White men who identify as Conservative politically are also ideologically supporters of the politcal agenda of the NRA.

I would bet if you surveyed NRA membership, 85-90% of White men.

I think there are a group of White men who feel wholly insecure in 21st century America.

 

Of course they are insecure. Their lily white women are being ravaged by virile, hung, black men and its driving them nuts

 

Wow you are total broken record with this shit aren't you lol.:smt068:smt068:smt068

 

Some of the responses were interesting. You have white men on their who couldn't wait to pull up a lot of stats about black people regarding crime completely ignoring the purpose of the article.
I guess if you're privileged why would you want it to end?

 

Agreed. But that doesn't give them the right to take that out on everybody else. The playing field isn't level yet, minorities, LGTB people, women...we are all still behind the white man. Those guys are just going to have to adjust to a world in which they don't have automatic right to be the default invisible human.

 

No, it's that their boss is a black guy, or a woman.

Oh, and where do I find these virile, hung, black men? I could use a good ravishing. :smt047

 

Bingo. If it were black men, or women, race or gender would be the issue. If Muslims were going around doing mass shootings...well, look at what happened to the discussion of religion since 9/11.

 

But I am beginning to see the cultural shift. Even while I was in undergrad I never heard people bringing things up in this way. There is a new intelligence trying to bubble its way to the top.

 

That's the hope. Of course there are also the neo-Nazi nuts and the MRA gang, but that may be a small burp on the road to progress. Some of my earliest memories are seeing civil rights demonstrators hosed by the government, and when I was a kid no one even said homosexual out loud. Now we have a black president and gay marriage, so a lot of change has come in fifty years. The Internet has made progress unstoppable, if not as fast as we would like.

 

Oh yeah it has been amazing even within my lifetime. Shit just a short six or seven years ago the idea of a "black" president (until I see someone at least Morgan Freeman's hue I can't accept them as black jk lol) was a down right joke. It was simply unimaginable, something that wouldn't be seen in our life time. I won't say anything is possible but it seems more is possible than ever expected. I hope with the advancement of technology globally a lot of the past barriers and roadblocks will be forever destroyed.

 

Stop being naughty, its Sunday and you must have clean thoughts lol.

 

It isn't Sunday here!

 

These articles always miss the point. Yes the actions of these young White men, are a symptom of a bigger societal illness. However that bigger illness is effecting us all. But just like any illness, because off outside factors, some people get hit harder with the symptoms then others.

Our modern society changes so rapidly. We are obsessed with defining and then quickly redefining who we are, with no regards for how are inconsistent standards are warping the minds of our youth.

We used to make plans and changes with an eye for a better future. But now our society is content to just pull changes out of our ass as we go along, future consequences be damned.

 

You have brought up some good points, especially with Dark King regading the changes happening in society and how postive they have been, ie a black president, the rights of gay people, etc., but I believe that you may be trying to shoe horn race into the Newtown and Aurora tragedies a little.

I don't know anything beyond the news reports regarding Aurora so I won't go there but I live about ten miles outside of Newtown. I have clients and college friends that live and work in Sandy Hook and let me tell you that no one up there thought that Lanza was just a shy loner over the past couple of years. He had developed into a mentally unstable person and in fact what is widely thought to have driven him over the edge was that he had found out that his mother had decided to try and get him committed. As is often the case the news has put a wrong angle on what the people of this town actually thought about this sick person.

Related to that you are very much correct though when you mention what the media would have reported if the shooter had been of a different race or was a muslim. They would have fallen right into the stereotypes driven into the ground like well worn dirt roads.

As for Lanza I don't think there was much thought by him as to his plight as a young white man who was no longer in control as his father's generation may have been. He was just disturbed and out of control whether as a result of his biological make up or his upbringing we hope that the medical profession can tell us someday and hopefully soon.

 

Sorry TreePixie I thought that you had written the article. My thoughts go to the author and certainly not you.