George Floyd, Scioto County, and What Teachers Should Learn

 

“According to Data USA, approximately 2,000 Black or African-Americans live in Scioto County, and 1, 275 of them live in Portsmouth. They means only 725 of these people live outside the city limits in a county where 35.1 times more White (Non-Hispanic) residents than any other race or ethnicity reside.”

– “Scioto County,” Data USA

I am a lifelong resident of Scioto County, Ohio, which has a population of 75,314 according to U.S. Census “Quick Facts estimates (July 1, 2019). Of those county residents, 2.7% are Black or African-American alone, and 1.9% are two or more races. The vast majority of those Blacks live within the city limits of Portsmouth.

The estimated population of the United States is 328,239,523 of which the census reports 13.4% are Black or African-American. As you can see, the minority population in Scioto, a rural Appalachian area, is 5 times below the national average. Simply put, this means that interactions with large groups of minorities – including day-to-day contact and cultural exposure – are limited where I live.

In the light of the continuing movement for racial equality and justice, I fear that in areas where people of color are few, Black residents feel physically and psychologically isolated. In Appalachia, the Black population is small, and therefore easily overlooked by White people and mainstream media. In truth, Black people in Appalachia are a neglected minority within a neglected minority.

It's unclear whether the recent organizing for racial justice will result in political change or in a greater awareness of the needs of people of color locally. I sincerely hope it does. Yet, here, where many White people have never discussed such topics and where de facto racism has a long history, threats to understanding how race plays a role in our lives are real. I pray residents will be able to see the invisible … to recognize the need to emphasize with the minorities in their midst.

Joshua Outsey, who's from Knoxville, Tennessee, and lives in Big Stone Gap, Kentucky (Harlan County), says …

"Around here, folks tend to believe that if you're not with the same political affiliation, it doesn't matter how else you identify – if you're gay, if you're straight, if you're Black, if you're from an indigenous community or community of color. If you're not Republican, if you don't have the same political views, you are bad. Period."

(April Simpson. “Few in Number, Black Residents in Appalachia Push for Justice.” Pew. October 05, 2020.)

The need for transparency and the lack of racial diversity go hand-in-hand. Needed change will not occur in areas where minority voices are seldom, or never, acknowledged or valued unless we broaden our views. White, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant populations must not be indifferent to obvious racial problems. Neither White fragility nor the false belief that civil rights have already been achieved should prevent the continued march toward equality.

As an ex-teacher, I am very interested in how students are dealing with the tragedy of the death of George Floyd. You may believe such controversial topics should not be entertained in the public school curriculum; however, current events are impossible to ignore, and, in this case, pertinent to vital racial education. Students want to find answers, and educators need to understand that they have an obligation to lead a very important dialogue on race and police brutality.

As the trial of Officer Derek Chauvin continues, I wonder what questions students have about the testimony. Just as important as the students' concerns, I wonder what teachers are saying in their classrooms. The nation's junior highs and high schools must be abuzz with interest.

I ran across this article from June of last year and found it very helpful in dealing with this question: “What should teachers learn from the death of George Floyd?”

Access the entire Education Week article here:  https://www.edweek.org/teaching-learning/opinion-what-teachers-should-learn-from-the-death-of-george-floyd/2020/06

I am not advocating editorial opinions or encouraging social division on campuses, but I strongly believe teachers can frame concerns and allow student to pursue their own answers based on facts and research. The time to face the issue is now – this is the proverbial “teaching moment.”

Larry Ferlazzo, English and social studies teacher at Luther Burbank High School in Sacramento, California, believes the following teaching points are essential.

* We need to understand the importance of being anti-racist.

People must recognize there is an ongoing saga of the killing of black men by the people sworn to protect them. Nationwide protests after the death of George Floyd are “a testament to how individuals in minority communities have been abused, distrusted, marginalized, and dehumanized for many years.” Society has seen these injuries to black and brown bodies far too often. The issues involved are many; however, teachers, administrators, and policymakers have to confront many hard truths to remedy issues that contributed to George Floyd’s death.

“I define an antiracist as someone who is expressing an antiracist idea or supporting an antiracist policy with their actions, and I define an antiracist idea as any idea that says the racial groups are equal.”

– Dr. Ibram X. Kendi, author of How to Be an Antiracist

Many individuals, whether they are teachers, administrators, or teacher aides point to their own efforts working with minority communities. But, the greatest catalyst for change is to realize that we as individuals make up the system.

Ferlazzo concludes …

“Teachers, coaches, support staff are the educational system. Each individual might not have personal animus toward any race, but that’s not enough. Neutrality is what gives us the system we have today. Silence in the face of systemic racism and oppression is no different from the police officers who stood idly by while Mr. Floyd pleaded for his life.

“We must be anti-racist, we must confront, name, and actively dismantle a system that benefits some but marginalizes others. That means we don’t teach history as a dry collection of facts but as a living, moving, drama that affects our students today. That means we select a curriculum that is not only from diverse editors but also raises issues of oppression. It means schools try to intervene when a student is chronically absent or in the behavior office regularly. It means we actively talk about race and racism in faculty meetings and department meetings instead of assuming 'colorblindness.'”

(Larry Ferlazzo. “What Teachers Should Learn From the Death of George Floyd.” Education Week. June 01, 2020.)

* We need to understand systemic racism is not unique to the criminal-justice system

It is far too easy to point out the martyrs of police killings: Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, Walter Scott, Alton Sterling, and Freddie Gray just to name a few. It is also easy to point out the racial disparities in incarceration rates, bail determinations by judges, and felony disenfranchisement to see that the criminal-justice system works differently for different races.

But what about education? Is it dysfunctional or does it succeed in accomplishing what it was designed to do? The data are clear that black and brown students are suspended more regularly, test more poorly, and drop out more regularly than their white counterparts. These inequities compound over the years when Black children and adults are in school, including some that are insidious, such as false but pervasive cultural messaging that Black students are less capable learners than their peers.

Ferlazzo says, “The famed 'school to prison pipeline' offers a window into the American psyche as well. Public schools in America began as a segregated enterprise, funding for schools was never designed to be equal, and expectations or outcomes were never the same for black students historically.”

Opposition, silence, or lack of engagement in combating structural racism in education, housing, and other social policies can contribute to the perpetuation of inequities and further limit access to opportunities for communities that are Black, Indigenous, and people of color.

* Most important of all, we need to LISTEN to the Black community.

We need to pull back the curtain on micro (and not-so-micro) aggressions toward students of color. There are infinite resources that will allow people to listen to the Black community and begin to understand why “reverse racism” and “all lives matter” are not things. Black lives matter.

Students are not always directly affected by the killing of unarmed black people or any of the other injustices that plague our nation. But teachers – who function as caretakers, truth-seekers and advocates of justice – can acknowledge how the threat of justice in one community is, to borrow from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., “a threat to justice in every community.” Teachers have a civic responsibility to be educated about Black Lives Matter and, as they learn, they must teach.

Perhaps the gravest criticism and misunderstanding of the BLM movement – and every movement for freedom, from slave rebellions, abolitionist movements and the Underground Railroad to Black Liberation Movements of the 1960s and ’70s – stems from a failure to acknowledge the conditions that created the resistance.

Jamilah Pitts, educational consultant and equity and justice strategist, says, “Without an understanding of the ever-present effects of slavery and the systems that have been built to protect and preserve the devaluing and oppression of black bodies, BLM – and any other movement for rights concerning people of color in this country – will never be understood.”

Pitts explains …

“However, a host of resources exists that explain systems such as mass incarceration, police brutality and economic and educational inequality. These resources all point to a larger system that is not necessarily broken, but functions the way it was designed to: to oppress the very people who were originally brought to the United States as chattel.

“The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander, Are Prisons Obsolete? by Angela Davis, Assata by Assata Shakur, Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates, and Ava DuVernay’s documentary 13^th are a few of the many resources that provide context for the types of resistance that exist today.

“This context is necessary to understand why, in 2017, the movement is called Black Lives Matter – because, historically, black lives have not mattered.”

(Jamilah Pitts. “Why Teaching Black Lives Matter Matters Part I.” Learning For Justice. Issue 56, Summer 2017.)

The movement for rights and humanity is growing by the day and is bolstered by the very technology young people are using. Students need to know the facts about BLM’s role in this historical moment and how it connects with a history of social change. 

The Black community of Scioto County is speaking. Though they are a minority of around 2,000 people, we all should listen very, very carefully. We must confront our long history of racial injustice ...  we must understand ... Now!

It's Almost Opening Day and I'm Back In the Yard

 

Clothespins

By Stuart Dybek

I once hit clothespins
for the Chicago Cubs.
I'd go out after supper
when the wash was in
and collect clothespins
from under four stories
of clothesline.
A swing-and-a-miss
was a strike-out;
the garage roof, Willie Mays,
pounding his mitt
under a pop fly.
Bushes, a double,
off the fence, triple,
and over, home run.
The bleachers roared.
I was all they ever needed for the flag.
New records every game—
once, 10 homers in a row!
But sometimes I'd tag them
so hard they'd explode,
legs flying apart in midair,
pieces spinning crazily
in all directions.
Foul Ball! What else
could I call it?
The bat was real.

I grew up in a red block house on Rt. 23 – a busy four-lane highway that I was warned never to cross or even go near. My only sibling was a brother twelve years older who joined the Navy in '57, the year I started grade school, so he was away from home nearly all of my early school years. Do I have to tell you that one of my prized possessions was a black baseball glove Brother Phil brought back from Okinawa?

We had no close neighbors as houses were few and far between, so I really didn't have a “neighborhood” as such or any playmates available outside the door. But, we had a very modest back yard. It was there and the hilly range behind the flat space that I, accompanied by my trusty Spitz dog Dixie, shot bad guys with cap pistols and fended off wild Indians.

And it was there – in the little backyard – that I played baseball … all by myself. I loved the game and worshiped the Cincinnati Reds … Johnny Temple, Wally Post, Ted Kluszewski, Vada Pinson, Frank Robinson, and all the rest. All of the stars came to life right there, smack dab behind the house on the little space Dad had leveled on the big hillside.

I didn't hit clothespins like Dybek's character, but I would toss up balls – any kind I had, be they actual baseballs, rubber balls, or plastic balls – and hit them back and forth across Crosley Field, the “stadium” in my back yard. No matter the lack of playmates: I played my own baseball games that lasted for hours. All it took to play was a ball and a bat … and a vivid imagination.

My games featured the Reds – my team and, naturally, the team that always won – against a host of foes from other National League teams. Every player in the game was announced, by me of course, and each one took his order in the lineup during these nine inning games. I swung for each batter's turn at the plate, and the game progressed according to my rules.

Making the rules required special attention. A swing-and-a-miss was a strikeout. Ground balls were outs, and stuck balls had to reach a predetermined mark in the yard on the fly to be a single, double, triple, or home run. To simply hit the ball over the fence and out of the yard was also an out because doing so meant a long pause in the game to search for the ball in some pretty bushy terrain. I had to hit line drives to score. The best batted ball – a home run – was a line drive that hit the short chicken-wire fence on the fly.

As a kid, my games were challenging and oh so faithful to my love for baseball. I think about those backyard games every now and then, and I picture the old home place and growing up on Scioto Trail. I really didn't miss a neighborhood gang since I had never had one – necessity creates fantastic games and adventures for any willing young heart.

Don't get me wrong. I had grade school and Cub Scouts and other social outlets, but “home” itself was a place void of playmates … until I was old enough to be trusted to peddle my bike along Rt. 23 to friends' homes like John Herms' down Lowry Hollow.

Later on, I would get to cross 23 and go down by the Scioto River. There, I loved to hit rocks with my wooden bat and test the full limits of my swing. It was fun, but not as entertaining as playing my own games in the backyard. Pretty hard on the bat, too. The river held its own mystique during those years.

I didn't know a baseball diamond until playing Clay Little League for Barrett's Insurance. Fielding at home? We had a very small front yard – located a good twenty-five feet above the highway that provided me with a place to throw and catch rubber balls. The block side of the house was my rebounder. And, I had to learn to keep within the limitations of the yard. Then, later I got one of those “pitchback” ball returns with adjustable angles. Those are such “sweet” solo devices for ballplayers.

As a youngster, I remember visiting my Great-Uncle John in Brooklyn, New York. He lived in a cooperative across from Sunset Park, where I first saw people playing handball. I was fascinated watching people play and brought back a couple of those rubber balls to use for my games.

After our family moved to a subdivision in Lucasville with sizeable yards and playmates galore, I became a Wiffle ball fanatic. Our baseball coaches used to tell us not to play the game, as their old school beliefs claimed it interfered with hitting a baseball – a claim I totally rejected. Without Wiffle ball, I would not have quickly adjusted to the breaking balls thrown by senior league and high school pitchers.

Now, I'm 70-years-old, and it's almost Opening Day. I still love baseball, and I still love the Cincinnati Reds. Each year about this time I remember going to my first baseball game at Crosley Field in Cincy. The park was a green oasis amidst the smokestacks and warehouses of Cincinnati’s west end. When we entered the stadium and I got my first glimpse of the field, I nearly passed out. The greenest greens in the outfield grass, the perfectly manicured infield, the dazzling red uniforms of the Reds, and the huge scoreboard that featured signs for numerous sponsors like Hudepohl beer and Longine watches took me to place of my dreams.

I hope youngsters still feel the magic of baseball. Nothing could replace the love in my heart for the game. Nothing could replace the thrill of playing the game – the contact of a ball on the “sweet spot” of the bat, running down a fly ball, playing a close game and employing the little strategies that give you an edge. Now, on every Opening Day I'm transported to  the backyard on Scioto Trail reliving my youth with a bat and a ball. I know of no other activity that conjures such emotions and vivid memories.

Baseball is a game, but so much more. Just ask poet Gail Mazur, author of Figures in a Landscape and Zeppo's First Wife: New & Selected Poems, which won the 2006 Massachusetts Book Award.

Mazur says she’s been obsessed with baseball her whole life. “I grew up in Boston. My dad knew Ted Williams. Being a Red Sox fan is a lifetime mania and an important part of my lore.”

In spite of that mania, Mazur says she resisted the temptation to write any poems about baseball because she worried about the seeming cliche that the game is a metaphor for life.

When she finally did write “Baseball,” Mazur said the poem came to her almost fully formed and it became the final poem of her first collection. Instead of worrying about the cliche, she poked fun at it.

Mazur concludes …

“Saying that baseball 'is not a metaphor' was actually a strategy to get around the fact that baseball in fact is such a perfect metaphor for life, or for creative work. To have said it is a metaphor would have left me embarrassed by the cliché. The strategy, I'm sure, came out of my feeling of being stuck with the truism.

“When I uncovered the missing 'not' in the declaration, I could go on to deny everything in the poem, an ironic denial, a trick to say what I wholeheartedly felt in the writing – that the world of baseball, the players, the park, the fans, is a world and a microcosm of the greater world. Sometimes I think that the longer a thing that is 'not a metaphor' lives in a poem, the more of a metaphor it becomes.”

(Tess Taylor. “You Bet Your Life.” The Atlantic. March 2006.)

Baseball

By Gail Mazur

for John Limon

The game of baseball is not a metaphor

and I know it’s not really life.

The chalky green diamond, the lovely

dusty brown lanes I see from airplanes

multiplying around the cities

are only neat playing fields.

Their structure is not the frame

of history carved out of forest,

that is not what I see on my ascent.

And down in the stadium,

the veteran catcher guiding the young

pitcher through the innings, the line

of concentration between them,

that delicate filament is not

like the way you are helping me,

only it reminds me when I strain

for analogies, the way a rookie strains

for perfection, and the veteran,

in his wisdom, seems to promise it,

it glows from his upheld glove,

and the man in front of me

in the grandstand, drinking banana

daiquiris from a thermos,

continuing through a whole dinner

to the aromatic cigar even as our team

is shut out, nearly hitless, he is

not like the farmer that Auden speaks

of in Breughel’s Icarus,

or the four inevitable woman-hating

drunkards, yelling, hugging

each other and moving up and down

continuously for more beer

and the young wife trying to understand

what a full count could be

to please her husband happy in

his old dreams, or the little boy

in the Yankees cap already nodding

off to sleep against his father,

program and popcorn memories

sliding into the future,

and the old woman from Lincoln, Maine,

screaming at the Yankee slugger

with wounded knees to break his leg

this is not a microcosm,

not even a slice of life

and the terrible slumps,

when the greatest hitter mysteriously

goes hitless for weeks, or

the pitcher’s stuff is all junk

who threw like a magician all last month,

or the days when our guys look

like *Sennett cops, slipping, bumping

each other, then suddenly, the play

that wasn’t humanly possible, the Kid

we know isn’t ready for the big leagues,

leaps into the air to catch a ball

that should have gone downtown,

and coming off the field is hugged

and bottom-slapped by the sudden

sorcerers, the winning team

the question of what makes a man

slump when his form, his eye,

his power aren’t to blame, this isn’t

like the bad luck that hounds us,

and his frustration in the games

not like our deep rage

for disappointing ourselves

the ball park is an artifact,

manicured, safe, “scene in an Easter egg,”

and the order of the ball game,

the firm structure with the mystery

of accidents always contained,

not the wild field we wander in,

where I’m trying to recite the rules,

to repeat the statistics of the game,

and the wind keeps carrying my words away

(Gail Mazur, “Baseball” from Zeppo's First Wife: New & Selected Poems. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. 2005. Copyright © 1978 by Gail Mazur.)

* Mack Sennett, who became famous as the originator of slapstick routines such as pie-throwing and car-chases, as seen in the Keystone Cops films.

Toxic Males Commit Mass Shootings -- Why Don't Females?

 

A formula for an unspeakable mass shooting massacre = 

a society drenched in patriarchy that teaches boys that their “rightful place” is above women 

+ 

a toxic man in that society with guns who chooses to activate his white man’s aggrieved entitlement toward people of color, immigrants, and other marginalized groups ... including women.

There is no definitive meaning for toxic masculinity, but it generally refers to harmful and destructive behaviors associated with certain aspects of traditional masculinity.

Masculinity, in of itself, is not toxic. Toxic masculinity refers to a cultural phenomenon in which masculinity is taken to the extreme and becomes a weapon wielded against those who are unwilling to subscribe to behavioral control via gender roles.

Being biologically male is not the key cause of male violence, and that violence is not inherent in males. It is socialized violence. 

That said, mass shootings happen when toxic masculinity reaches its most extreme form.

Brandi Miller of Sojourners says …

“The United States has a trend of writing off mass shootings as random incidents perpetrated by a few outliers who suffer from mental illness or a traumatizing family background. And, while it is necessary to have conversations about mental health and trauma in our culture, neither present as high of a statistical risk factor for violence as gender. To make sense of violence, specifically domestic and gun violence, we need not only look for the what to blame but to who and why.

“With men accounting for all but two of mass shootings in recent history and specifically white men making up over 50 percent of the shooters, we are faced not with a simply a psychological problem, but a social one. What is it that causes this culture of violence?

“It is much easier to treat violence as a series of one offs rather than to hold all men responsible for the culture of masculinity that both nurtures and normalizes domestic and mass violence. We have a cultural epidemic that has not randomly emerged, but has been developed over time through embedding patriarchy and misogyny into the foundation of U.S. culture.”

(Brandi Miller. “Want To End Mass Shootings? Start With Toxic Masculinity.” Sojourners. February 07, 2019.)

Miller explains how the cultural epidemic is a part of U.S. history – history with which we are all very familiar. Men used violence to drive Indigenous people off their land, thus breeding entitlement through force. They used the system of chattel slavery as an economic means to abuse and sexually assault enslaved women to multiply their property, creating a cultural incentive to abuse women. Men elevated bastardized patriarchal Christian values of submission and the inferiority of women, normalizing entitlement to power and control over others bodies.

Legacies of violence and oppression are just that, legacies. This violence not only formed the foundation of how the U.S. created patriarchy, but how it upholds it.

Miller concludes:

“Toxic masculinity and gun violence are fruits of the same legacy. While it is much easier now to say that slavery and genocide were evils, we have failed to cut them off at their roots, the roots that reek of manipulated biblical texts, hyper masculine domination, and antiquated assumptions about gender. We cannot expect that simply acknowledging the events that resulted from toxic masculinity in the past will deconstruct the assumptions and values that created it to begin with.”

(Brandi Miller. “Want To End Mass Shootings? Start With Toxic Masculinity.” Sojourners. February 07, 2019.)

Miller believes toxic masculinity is primarily violence and entitlement. Men are taught through media, church, business, military that “to be a man” is to use stereotypical iterations of masculinity to achieve success. Men are taught that they are to be strong, never the victim (specifically of trauma), and exist without showing or feeling emotions. Sadness, sentimentality, and silliness are perceived as weak rather than natural parts of the human experiences.

Thus, toxic masculinity robs women of their safety as it robs men of their full humanity. Toxic masculinity teaches men to become machines, unmoved by their feelings and experiences. This encourages problematic expressions of repression, typically violence and domination.

The result? The men who carry out shootings are not stronger, better, or manly men, but rather the product of a culture that breeds violence and entitlement.

Not all men, you say? Miller believes it will take men collectively rejecting entitlement, learning non-violent ways to manage stress, and to protect us as a culture, not just from mass shootings and domestic violence as we have experienced for centuries, but from “the everyday violence – physical, psychological, and ideological – in between the extremes that threatens to strip as all of our safety and humanity.”

Based on the present investigation of masculine norms, it appears traditional masculinity is often toxic and harmful, and rarely beneficial. The main positive association found is between masculinity’s norm of winning and well-being. However, studies confirm that rigid gender norms regarding roles, family, and marriage, contribute to men’s use of violence against female partners, and that when men believe or perceive themselves to not be “masculine enough,” intimate partner violence or emotional abuse may be used to conform to gendered expectations.

(Arash Emamzadeh. “New Findings on Toxic Masculinity.” Psychology Today. March 19, 2019.)

In their book Gun Violence and Public Life, Michael Kimmel and Cliff Leek suggest that given the data, the NRA slogan — "guns don't kill people, people kill people" is not as close to the truth as "guns don't kill people; men and boys kill people."

And you may say, “That's obvious. Men associate with guns.” Precisely.

Men also are less likely than women to seek mental health care for depression, substance abuse and stress, according to the American Psychological Association. Because men are forced to be tough and unemotional. Violence is also inculcated as a more masculine alternative than help seeking," Kimmel and Leek wrote.

"Masculinity runs through all of this," Carlson said.

(Alia E. Dastagir. “'Guns don't kill people; men and boys kill people,' experts say

USA TODAY. February 15, 2018.)

Data shows gun violence is disproportionately a male problem. Men commit the vast majority of gun violence in the U.S. According to FBI data from 2017, men were responsible for 88.1 percent of all homicides, and firearms were used in 72.6 percent of homicides. Women in the US have the same ability as men to acquire, use, and kill with guns – but they do not.

(Crime in the United States.” FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program. 2017.)

Psychologists Joseph Vandello and Jennifer Bosson have coined the term “precarious manhood” to describe a dilemma that only men seem to face. In a nutshell, they argue that “manhood” – however an individual male’s culture might define it – is a status that must be continually earned. And one’s self-worth is tied to being perceived as a “real man.”

It’s precarious because it can be easily lost – especially if the man fails to measure up to the relentless challenges that life throws at him, be they tests of physical bravery, or competition with other men for respect and status.

Young male violence is most likely to be initiated by young men who don’t command respect from others. They’ll often feel like slighted outcasts, deprived of what they want or feel they deserve.

It’s no mystery why the media will often describe mass shooters and terrorists as misfits or loners. In many cases, they are.

Frank T. McAndrew, Cornelia H Dudley Professor of Psychology at Knox College identified as one of the "key individuals" in the history of environmental psychology by a survey of researchers in that field reported …

“Nicolas Henin was a Frenchman who was held hostage by ISIS for ten months. Here’s how he described his young, murderous, Jihadi captors:

“They present themselves to the public as superheroes, but away from the camera are a bit pathetic in many ways: street kids drunk on ideology and power. In France we have a saying – stupid and evil. I found them more stupid than evil. That is not to understate the murderous potential of stupidity.

“Apparently, a lack of attention from others results in a lack of status, resulting in a lack of access to women. Combined with a young man’s testosterone, it creates a toxic, combustible mix.

“There may not be much we can do to change the structure of the young male mind that evolved over the course of millions of years. However, ignoring or denying its existence doesn’t do us any favors.”

(Frank T. McAndrew. “If you give a man a gun: the evolutionary psychology of mass shootings.” The Conversation. December 4, 2015.)

How do we raise our boys to be men? The answer to that question goes deep into the values that we tend to hold dear: power, dominance and aggression over empathy, care and collaboration. For some males, alongside their development of traditional masculinity, a toxicity takes control, and they begin to use their gender roles as weapons.

They tend to blame others for their problems and refuse to find peaceful solutions. As toxic men, they turn their rage outward, preferring not to seek constructive solutions to their shortcomings.

Men are much more likely to externalize blame in general; they’re much more likely to see other people as causing them problems and to act. Some of those men who have turned toxic even seek a way to perform their masculinity by engaging in massive acts of violence.

“In the many hours devoted to analyzing the recent school shootings, once again we see that as a society we seem constitutionally unable, or unwilling, to acknowledge a simple but disturbing fact: these shootings are an extreme manifestation of one of contemporary American society’s biggest problems – the ongoing crisis of men’s violence against women [or any group that activates aggrieved entitlement for men].”

– Dr. Jackson Katz, Tough Guise: Violence, Media and the Crisis in Masculinity, 2006

As prominent feminist Jessica Valenti puts it, “The longer we ignore the toxic masculinity that underlies so many of these crimes, the more violence we’re enabling.” The evidence is in plain sight. The need for a sea-change in how we raise our boys begs America to confront the issue.

“Virtually all mass shooters suffer some form of aggrieved entitlement – 'an existential state of fear about having my rightful place as a male questioned … challenged …deconstructed.' According to the Good Men Project, 'Aggrieved entitlement is being told “no” when the prevailing mythos of the culture has taught that I have a 'right to something because of my birth (as male, as white, straight, educated, able-bodied … the list goes on).'”

(“Masculinity and Mass Shootings. The Representation Project. August 05, 2019.)

Ravens Raid Alaska Costco -- Resourceful Winged Robbers

 

                                            Norbert Kurzka - Photography / Getty Images

(Dateline: Anchorage, Alaska)

“Some Alaska Costco shoppers said they’ve had their groceries stolen by ravens in the store parking lot.

“Matt Lewallen said he was packing his groceries into his car in the parking lot of an Anchorage Costco when ravens swooped in to steal a short rib from his cart, the Anchorage Daily News reported Friday.

“'I literally took 10 steps away and turned around, two ravens came down and instantly grabbed one out of the package, ripped it off and flew off with it,' Lewallen said.

Lewallen said the piece of meat was about 4-by-7 inches (10-by-18 centimeters) large – a sizable meal for a sizable bird.

“'They know what they’re doing; it’s not their first time,' Lewallen said. 'They’re very fat so I think they’ve got a whole system there.'”

(“Some Alaska Costco shoppers say ravens steal their groceries.” Anchorage Daily News. AP. March 27, 2021.)

Additional raven thief sightings have emerged on social media, For example, Anchorage resident Tamara Josey referred to the ravens as “calculating.” She said ravens hovered her in an attempt to steal her groceries. Josey said …

“I had two ravens, one that was on the car next to me and he kept squawking really loud. He would sit on the car and stare at me, then hop next to the bed of the truck on the other side, and he kept going back and forth. The other raven was on the ground. He kept trying to pull – I had those little mini-melons you have in the mesh baggies – he kept trying to grab the netting and pull my melons off the cart.”

(“Some Alaska Costco shoppers say ravens steal their groceries.” Anchorage Daily News. AP. March 27, 2021.)

Raven robbers stealing groceries – these birds often work together to accomplish difficult tasks. Did you know the truth? Ravens are highly social birds and their interactions can be quite complex, according to Thomas Bugnyar, a cognitive biologist at the University of Vienna. And, these dark-wing high flyers are much more clever than most people think.

The intriguing common raven has accompanied people around the Northern Hemisphere for thousands of years, following their wagons, sleds, sleighs, and hunting parties in hopes of a quick meal. Ravens are among the smartest of all birds, gaining a reputation for solving ever more complicated problems invented by ever more creative scientists. Their problem-solving, decision-making, and remembering past experiences are traits that scientists recognize as highly developed.

Not Just a Bird-Brain

The brain of the common raven is among the largest of any bird species. Specifically, their hyperpallium is large for a bird. Ravens are even believed to have insight. Researchers at the University of Vienna, in Austria, led by Thomas Bugnyar reported in the journal Nature Communication (2016) that, in other words, a raven can infer what another animal might be thinking. Bugnyar says …

“This shows that traits that we consider ‘uniquely human’ may be found in animals too.”

(Thomas Bugnyar, Stephan A. Reber & Cameron Buckner. “Ravens attribute visual access to unseen competitors.” Nature Communication. February 2016.)

Scientists at Lund University in Sweden (2017) found ravens will often choose to forgo a tasty morsel now in favor of getting access to a better treat later. Faced with a food tidbit and a tool that they know can open a box containing more tempting food, they will generally choose the tool – even if they don’t have the box yet.

They’ve learned that when researchers present them with the box in 15 minute’s time, they can use that tool to unlock their prize. That’s forethought right there. Even small children often choose to eat one marshmallow immediately rather than wait a few minutes for more marshmallows, and all that experiment makes the participants do is sit there being cute.

(Can Kabadayi and Mathias Osvath. “Ravens parallel great apes in flexible planning for tool-use and bartering.” Science, July 14, 2017.)

A new study (2020) provides some of the best proof yet that ravens, including young birds of just four months of age, have certain types of intelligence that are on par with those of adult great apes. The brainy birds performed just as well as chimpanzees and orangutans across a broad array of tasks designed to measure intelligence.

Simone Pika, cognitive scientist at Osnabrück University in Germany and author of the study reports …

“We now have very strong evidence to say that, at least in the tasks we used, ravens are very similar to great apes. Across a whole spectrum of cognitive skills, their intelligence is really quite amazing.”

The findings, published in Scientific Reports, add to a growing body of evidence indicating that impressive cognitive skills are not solely the domain of primates but occur in certain species across the animal kingdom.

(Simone Pika et al. Ravens parallel great apes in physical and social cognitive skills.” Scientific Reports. December 2020.)

“Crows, ravens, magpies, and jays are not just feathered machines, rigidly programmed by their genetics. Instead, they are beings that, within the constraints of their molecular inheritance, make complex decisions and show every sign of enjoying a rich awareness.”

– Candace Savage, PBS “Nature”

A Mythic Species

In Greek mythology, ravens are associated with Apollo, the god of prophecy. They are said to be a symbol of bad luck, and were the god's messengers in the mortal world. According to the mythological narration, Apollo sent a white raven, or crow in some versions to spy on his lover, Coronis. When the raven brought back the news that Coronis had been unfaithful to him, Apollo scorched the raven in his fury, turning the animal's feathers black. That's why all ravens are black today.

The raven (Hebrew:עורב ‎; Koine Greek: κόραξ) is the first species of bird to be mentioned in the Hebrew Bible, and ravens are mentioned on numerous occasions thereafter. In the Book of Genesis, Noah releases a raven from the ark after the great flood to test whether the waters have receded (Gen. 8:6-7). According to the Law of Moses, ravens are forbidden for food (Leviticus 11:15; Deuteronomy 14:14), a fact that may have colored the perception of ravens in later sources.

In Norse mythology, two ravens named Huginn and Munnin – "Thought" and "Memory" – employ their intelligent faculties as Odin's emissaries, acting as the god's eyes and ears on Earth and reporting back to him about whatever they observe. Even in common ravens,

Additionally among the Norse, raven banner standards were carried by such figures as the Jarls of Orkney; King Cnut the Great of England, Norway and Denmark; and Harald Hardrada.

In the British Isles, ravens also were symbolic to the Celts. Ravens figured heavily in Celtic mythology and legend and are linked to darkness and death – especially the death of warriors in battle. In Irish mythology, the goddess Morrígan alighted on the hero Cú Chulainn's shoulder in the form of a raven after his death.

In Welsh mythology they were associated with the Welsh god Bran the Blessed, whose name translates to "raven." According to the Mabinogion, Bran's head was buried in the White Hill of London as a talisman against invasion. However, King Arthur dug up the head, declaring the country would be protected only by his great strength.

There have been attempts in modern times to link the still-current practice of keeping ravens at the Tower of London under the care of Yeomen Warder Ravenmaster with this story of Brân, whose name means crow (cigfran means Raven).

(“The Death of Cu Chulainn.” Celtic Literature Collective. http://www.ancienttexts.org/library/celtic/ctexts/cuchulain3.html.)

According to legend, the Kingdom of England will fall if the ravens of the Tower of London are removed. It had been thought that there have been at least six ravens in residence at the tower for centuries. It was said that Charles II ordered their removal following complaints from John Flamsteed, the Royal Astronomer. However, they were not removed because Charles was then told of the legend. Charles, following the time of the English Civil War, superstition or not, was not prepared to take the chance, and instead had the observatory moved to Greenwich.

(“The Tower of London.” aboutbritain.com. 1999-2021.)

"The Three Ravens" (Child 26, Roud 5) is an English folk ballad, printed in the song book Melismata compiled by Thomas Ravenscroft and published in 1611. The ballad takes the form of three scavenger birds conversing about where and what they should eat.

One bird tells of a newly slain knight, but they find he is guarded by his loyal hawks and hounds. Furthermore, a "fallow doe,” an obvious metaphor for the knight's pregnant ("as great with young as she might go") lover or mistress (see "leman") comes to his body, kisses his wounds, bears him away, and buries him, leaving the ravens without a meal. The narrative ends with "God send euery gentleman / Such haukes, such hounds, and such a Leman.”

The Three Ravens

There were three rauens sat on a tree,

downe a downe, hay downe, hay downe,

There were three rauens sat on a tree,

with a downe,

There were three rauens sat on a tree,

They were as blacke as they might be.

With a downe, derrie, derrie, derrie, downe, downe.

The one of them said to his mate,

Where shall we our breakfast take?

Downe in yonder greene field,

There lies a Knight slain under his shield,

His hounds they lie downe at his feete,

So well they can their Master keepe,

His Hawkes they flie so eagerly,

There's no fowle dare him come nie

Downe there comes a fallow Doe,

As great with yong as she might goe,

She lift up his bloudy head,

And kist his wounds that were so red,

She got him up upon her backe,

And carried him to earthen lake,

She buried him before the prime,

She was dead her self ere euen-song time.

God send euery gentleman,

Such haukes, such hounds, and such a Leman.

            

Very Intelligent Behaviors

Common ravens have been observed calling wolves to the site of dead animals. The wolves open the carcass, leaving the scraps more accessible to the birds.

They also watch where other common ravens bury their food and remember the locations of each other's food caches, so they can steal from them. This type of theft occurs so regularly that common ravens will fly extra distances from a food source to find better hiding places for food. They have also been observed pretending to make a cache without actually depositing the food, presumably to confuse onlookers.

(John M. Marzluff and Tony Angell. In the Company of Crows and Ravens. 2005).)

Common ravens are known to steal and cache shiny objects such as pebbles, pieces of metal, and golf balls. One theory is that they hoard shiny objects to impress other ravens. Other research indicates that juveniles are deeply curious about all new things, and that common ravens retain an attraction to bright, round objects based on their similarity to bird eggs. Mature birds lose their intense interest in the unusual, and become highly neophobic (fearing anything new).

Wrapping It Up

It's disconcerting and even a little frightening that large, extremely intelligent birds are showing up in the parking lots of supermarkets intent on our stealing groceries. Yet, maybe we should have known the far-reaching abilities of such creatures in the first place and act to take necessary precautions to guard our foodstuffs. After all, ravens have a long history with humans and the reputation for trouble to boot.

Animals continue to amaze us with their diverse and powerful intelligence although we largely ignore the limits of their “smarts.” Who is in need of a lesson, us or them? Those folks up in Anchorage can surely tip their hats to some sly, bird-brain robbers in their successful assaults from the air.

"The Twa Corbies", Illustration by Arthur Rackham to Some British Ballads

Gun Purchasing and Firearm Fetishes Relating to Mass Shootings

 

“The gunman purchased two guns used in the attack seven and eight days prior to the June 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando, Florida.

“The shooter purchased 33 guns in the 12 months leading up to the October 2017 attack that killed 61 the Las Vegas music festival

“The El Paso, Texas, Walmart shooter purchased an AK-style rifle several weeks before killing 23 people in August 2019.

“And, in the two mass shootings that unfolded over the past two weeks, both suspected shooters purchased weapons shortly before their attacks.

“The suspect in the Atlanta-area spa shootings purchased a 9mm semi-automatic pistol hours before he used it to kill eight people on March 16.

“The suspect in the King Soopers attack in Boulder, Colorado, bought a Ruger AR-556 pistol six days before he killed 10 people on March 23, according to the arrest warrant affidavit. Police recovered a rifle and handgun at the scene but didn't indicate if either was the Ruger.”

(Marlene Lenthang. “Gun waiting period laws in spotlight after Atlanta, Boulder shootings.” https://abcnews.go.com/US/gun-waiting-period-laws-spotlight-atlanta-boulder-shootings/story?id=76651676&cid=clicksource_4380645_5_three_posts_card_hed. ABC News. March 26, 2021.)

Note:

In the Boulder case, days earlier, a judge struck down an ordinance that banned assault rifles and high-capacity magazines in Boulder, citing a state law prohibiting local gun bans. A lawsuit challenging Boulder’s ordinances had the backing of the NRA, which said the ruling gave “law-abiding gun owners something to celebrate.”

Shooter Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa was prone to sudden rage and was convicted of misdemeanor assault and sentenced to probation for attacking a high school classmate, law enforcement officials and former associates said. Colorado has a universal background check law covering almost all gun sales, but that misdemeanor would not have prevented him from purchasing a weapon, experts said. Had he been convicted of a felony, his purchase would’ve been barred under federal law. Alissa is charged with 10 counts of murder.

In Atlanta, Robert Aaron Long purchased a 9 mm handgun just hours before going on a shooting rampage at three massage businesses in the Atlanta area, police said. A lawyer for the gun shop said it complies with federal background check laws. Georgia, like the majority of states, has no waiting period to obtain a gun. Long claimed to have a “sex addiction,” police said, and he spent time at an addiction recovery facility last year. Federal law bans guns for people who are “unlawful users of or addicted to a controlled substance” or who’ve been court ordered to a mental health or substance abuse treatment facility, but doesn’t mention treatment for other compulsions as a barrier to ownership. Long is charged with eight counts of murder.

(Michael R. Sisak. “Mass shooters exploited gun laws, loopholes before carnage.” Associated Press. March 26, 2021.)

Heavy-Duty Firearm Fetish

Seamus McGraw, a journalist and the author of From a Taller Tower: The Rise of the American Mass Shooter, says, “Shooters 'fetishize' heavy duty firearms and give off warning signs of violence, He continued …

"There are specific types of weapons that these guys are drawn to, and they're marketed with the idea that these will turn you into Rambo. Guns have become a cultural touchstone for these killers."

(Marlene Lenthang. “Gun waiting period laws in spotlight after Atlanta, Boulder shootings.” ABC News. March 26, 2021.)

McGraw claims last-minute gun purchase is absolutely a pattern of American mass shooters. He claims …

“You go from fixation to ideation to the last phase of planning. And in the planning, you will see that the weapons were acquired, almost always legally, within a fairly close time frame to the incident itself."

Need of a “Trigger”

Elizabeth Neumann, a former Department of Homeland Security assistant secretary, told ABC News shooters tend to be “vulnerable individuals that can become radicalized and mobilize to violence" when triggered by a stressful event. She explained …

“It's not predictive. It's possible individuals who decide to commit these attacks thought about it for quite some time, but didn't have the triggering moment. When they get to that point, then they're out looking for the guns, and that could explain why we're seeing people buy it at the last minute."

(Marlene Lenthang. “Gun waiting period laws in spotlight after Atlanta, Boulder shootings.” ABC News. March 26, 2021.)

Statista Research Department (March 23, 2021) reported 82 of the mass shootings in the United States between 1982 and March 2021 involved weapons which were obtained legally; a clear majority. Only 16 incidents involved guns that were obtained illegally.

However, and It's a Big However …

What should be legal? A database (February 2020) from The Violence Project provides some insight into the history of mass shooting and what measures, if any, could affect them. Researchers there conducted a detailed study of 167 mass shootings resulting in 1,202 deaths that have occurred in the U.S. since 1966.

The Los Angeles Times cross-referenced their data with five types of gun control proposals. The analysis revealed that if all of these policies had been in effect at the federal level, they would have had the potential to prevent 146 out of 167 shootings, including all but one shooting in the past five years.

Here are five types of gun laws and which shootings they could have addressed.

1. Ban on straw purchases

This measure seeks to stop someone from buying a gun for someone else.

2. Safe storage requirement

Firearms would have to be kept in a locked box when not in use. This law aims to prevent unauthorized people, like children, from accessing firearms.

3. Assault weapons ban

This would prohibit the sale of many high-powered rifles.An assault weapons ban expired in 2004. The new ban would have included semiautomatic weapons that weren’t in the 1994 law, including the rifle used at Sandy Hook, but the effort failed.

4. Mandatory background checks

Unlicensed dealers would be required to vet prospective buyers with the FBI. Private sellers, such as those at gun shows, are not required to run a background check on purchasers.

5. Red flag law

A red flag law is a gun control law that permits police or family members to petition a state court to order the temporary removal of firearms from a person who may present a danger to others or themselves.

(Rahul Mukherkee. “How many mass shootings might have been prevented by stronger gun laws?” The Los Angeles Times. February 28, 2020.)

A 2016 study conducted by The American Journal of Medicine showed that the United States has more firearm-related homicides and suicides than any other high-income country, with Americans ten times more likely to die by a firearm-related death than people in 22 other developed countries.

Overall, results showed that the U.S., which has the most firearms per capita in the world, suffers disproportionately from firearms compared with other high-income countries. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that our firearms are killing us rather than protecting us.

(Jane Grochowski, Publisher. “Gun Deaths in U.S. Remain Highest Among High-Income Nations Americans are Ten Times More Likely to Die from Firearms Than Citizens of Other Developed Countries.” The American Journal of Medicine. Elsevier. February 01, 2016.)

Although legislative regulations have had some measurable effect on reducing gun violence in the United States, critics have identified certain loopholes and inadequacies within these laws that jeopardize public health and enable many people to obtain guns who may not otherwise meet the legal requirements to do so.

For example, private collectors can elude a requirement of the Brady Law by purchasing firearms from an unlicensed seller who does not perform background checks. This provision is often referred to as the “gun show loophole,” although these sales can take place elsewhere, including over the Internet.

A study of gun owners conducted by researchers from Northeastern University and Harvard University in 2015 found that such purchases accounted for about one-fifth of total gun sales among those surveyed. Federal law and more than twenty states allow juveniles to purchase long guns, which include rifles and shotguns, from an unlicensed firearms dealer. Child safety advocates further note that a federal law to prevent children from accessing guns in the home, such as legislation requiring gun owners to store guns unloaded in a locked location, does not exist.

Additionally, inconsistent reporting and underfunding for NICS has resulted in an insufficient database that lacks substantial data in many categories, especially in non-felony areas such as mental health and domestic violence.

("Gun Control." Opposing Viewpoints Online Collection. Gale. 2018.)

The Future Without Immediate Action

Time reports that police and gun violence experts agree, warning that large-scale mass shootings – apart from the gun violence that has plagued U.S. cities through the pandemic – are inevitable as the weather warms and more people get vaccinated, enabling large gatherings in public spaces. Some worry the attacks could return at a higher frequency, citing record gun sales in 2020.

“My fear was that we would start to see these mass shootings again when we started to go out in public, and that is exactly what is happening,” says Shannon Watts, who founded the gun-control advocacy group Moms Demand Action.

“We’re the only high-income country where recovering from a pandemic means shooting tragedies resume in public.”

– Shannon Watts

“We can expect that these kinds of shootings will unfortunately become more prevalent,” says Chuck Wexler, executive director of the Police Executive Research Forum, a Washington-based think tank. “This is what normal has come to be like in America.”

“According to Daniel Webster, director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research, hard times could cause more people to feel angry or to blame others for their misfortune, which could lead to violence.” 

And, unfortunately, those shooters will probably be rushing to gun stores to purchase their prized, sexy, “killer” weapons. With reopening society as their trigger and the obvious Freudian connection of sexuality – the imagery of shooting bullets through a cylindrical barrel is hard to ignore – stirring their impressionable (and often impaired) minds, we should enact proactive measures to save innocent lives now.

Joseph M. Pierre, M.D. – Health Sciences Clinical Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and the Acting Chief of Mental Health Community Care Systems at the VA Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System – explains …

“This is especially true when we acknowledge that the most gun violence and nearly every case of mass shooting is perpetrated by men. Thinking along those lines seems to be consistent with the observation that gun violence among men — especially in the context of mass shootings where perpetrators are haven mostly been white — is sometimes about compensating for feelings of impotence with fantasies of revenge that, more often than not, end in suicide or the perpetrator being killed by law enforcement. Going out with a bang, if you will.”

(Joe Pierre. “Guns in America: What's Freud and Sex Got to Do With It?” Psychology Today. May 19, 2028.)

The ubiquity of guns in popular culture normalizes the use of firearms and gun violence in our lives. Isn't it about time to address this problem? We must consider that when killers, psychopaths, and the mentally ill rush to buy guns to commit unspeakable crimes, settle scores, and mindlessly attack innocent people that something is terribly wrong. To live through mass shooting after mass shooting, see the purchase of guns skyrocket, and to declare, “The only thing that stops a bed guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun A Bad Guy With A Gun Is A Good Guy With A Gun.”

This good guy-bad guy oversimplification – of causes and solutions – is a major reason we have been in a standoff over how to effectively address these mass casualty shootings. That claim is clearly and demonstrably false. It can be refuted by a counterexample in which a bad guy with a gun was stopped by a good woman with a Bible, a Christian book, and the virtues of faith, hope, and love.

Such a simplistic view of human nature is also actually too optimistic. Even the best of us are flawed. At times, the presence of a gun can exacerbate our flaws. Just consider the highly-publicized case of George Zimmerman, who was put on trial for shooting and killing teenager Trayvon Martin.

John Donohue, law professor at Stanford University and co-author of a National Bureau of Economic Research study that examined how gun violence coincides with the ability for individuals to carry concealed weapons, known as Right To Carry (RTC) laws, says, “Possessing a gun likely encouraged Zimmerman to confront Martin. In many cases, the “good guys” are encouraged to be more aggressive because they are armed.

The mass shooting in Parkland, Florida, did not affirm that view. There was a good guy with a gun just outside the school when the bad guy with a gun started murdering people. The good guy with the gun wasn’t the solution. He didn’t stop it. What the Parkland school shooting exposes is the fallacy in LaPierre’s argument: This is not a simple problem. And it does not have a simple solution like arming more people.

We need to enact strong laws and policies to help keep guns out of the wrong hands and limit access to highly dangerous weapons of war.

Consider the following:

• An FBI study of 160 active-shooting incidents from 2000 to 2013 found that only one was stopped by an individual with a valid firearms permit. In contrast, 21 incidents were stopped by unarmed citizens.

• Armed citizens can worsen the outcome of a mass shooting. During the 2011 shooting in Tucson, Arizona, an armed bystander misidentified the perpetrator and almost shot the wrong person.

• Expansive concealed carry permitting laws are linked to an increase in violent crime. A 2017 study by researchers at Stanford University found that, 10 years after enacting these laws, states experienced a 13 percent to 15 percent rise in violent crimes.

• Using a gun for defense during a robbery has no significant benefits. A 2015 analysis by researchers at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health of the National Crime Victimization Survey found that the likelihood of sustaining an injury during a robbery was nearly identical between people who attempted to defend themselves with a gun and those who took no defensive action.

• A gun is more likely to be stolen than used to stop a crime. According to a CAP analysis of the National Crime Victimization Survey, guns are nearly twice as likely to be stolen than to be used for self-defense.

(David Goldman. “Myth vs. Fact: Debunking the Gun Lobby’s Favorite Talking Points.” American Progress. AP. October 5, 2017.)