‘On Killing’ by Lt. Col. Grossman Nails effectual racism in America
- Image by Rickydavid via Flickr
I’m reading ‘On Killing‘ by Lt. Col. Dave Grossman right now. It was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize and is in a second edition as of 2009. The book is required reading at the FBI Academy, the DEA Academy, the Commandant’s Required Reading List in the Marine Corps, West Point, the U.S. Air Force NCO Academy, and many other law enforcement agencies and military schools around the country. I find the following excerpt to be intriguing. It is from the ‘Introduction to the Revised Edition’.
“Just Turn It Off” or “Let Them Eat Cake”
One common response to any concern about media violence is, “We have adequate controls. They are called the ‘off’ switch. If you don’t like it, just turn it off.”
Unfortunately, this is a tragically inadequate response to the problem. In today’s society the family structure is breaking down and even in intact families there is enormous economic and social pressure for mothers to work. Single mothers, broken homes, latchkey kids, and parental neglect are increasingly the norm. Through herculean effort, parents might be able to protect their own kids in today’s world, but that doesn’t do much good if the kid next door is a killer.
The worst thing about the “off switch” solution is that it is so blatantly, profoundly racist in its effect, if not its intent, because the black community in America is the “culture” or “nation” that has borne the brunt of the electronic media’s violence-enabling. In this case, poverty, drugs, gangs, discrimination, and the availability of firearms all predispose more blacks than whites toward violence. These factors defeat the first filter; then the absence of the second, midbrain filter becomes noticeable.
Bronson James, a black -Texas-based radio commentator whose show I was on, observed that this is identical to the genocidal process in which for centuries the white man used alcohol in a systematic policy to destroy the culture of the American Indian. For a variety of cultural and genetic reasons, the Indians were predisposed toward alcoholism, and we dumped it into them as a crucial part of the process that ultimately destroyed their civilization.
The pumping of media violence into the ghettos today is equally genocidal. Media violence-enabling in the ghetto is the moral equivalent of shouting, “FIRE!” in a crowded theater. As a result, murder is the number-one cause of death among black male teens, and 25 percent of all black males in their twenties are in jail, on probation, or on parole.
If this isn’t genocide, then it is close.
What makes the “off switch” solution so racist is that, if these murders and incarceration rates were happening to the sons of white upper- and middle-class America, you can bet that we would have seen some drastic action by now. Viewed in this light, I think that most individuals would agree that the “just turn it off” solution probably rates right up there with “let them eat cake” and “I was just following orders” as all-time offensive statements.
In developmental psychology there is a general understanding that an individual must master the twin areas of sexuality and aggression (Freud’s Eros and Thanatos) in order to have truly achieved adulthood. In the same way, the maturation of the human race necessitates our collective mastery of these two areas. In recent years we have made significant progress in the field of sexology, and this book is dedicated to the creation and exploration of the equivalent field of “killology.”
After an attack with weapons of mass destruction by terrorist nation, the next major threat to our existence is the violent decay of our civilization due to violence-enabling in the electronic media. This book appears to be well on its way to making a difference in the desperate worldwide battle gainst the virus of violence.
May it be so, and may you, the reader, find what you seek in these pages.
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