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Category: mass shootings

Posted
July 12, 2024
Category
extremes, gun violence, interconnectedness, life philosophy, mass shootings, politics, raising children, the middle way / moderation
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2 Responses

American Exports

An American wearing a "Made in America" t-shirt and holding an American flag.

Iโ€™ve been playing a lot of guitar lately. One of the perks of federal prison. The lead guitarist of the band Iโ€™m in is named Vinny. At first, I wondered if he was Italian, but it turns out that Vinny is not short for Vincenzo. Itโ€™s a nickname. Short for Venezolano. Heโ€™s from Venezuela.

If right now youโ€™re thinking โ€œUh oh. Venezuelan immigrant. Bad hombre alert . . .โ€ thatโ€™s understandable, I guess. Between some of the recent tragic news stories and Trumpโ€™s alarmist, broad-brush declarations of murderers and rapists, itโ€™s easy to dismiss entire nationalities as horrible people. But for the record, dude is the exact opposite of all that. A gentle spirit who loves rock-n-roll, hates drugs, and teaches a GED class in the education building.

The other night after two hours of Skynyrdโ€™s โ€œSimple Man,โ€ Claptonโ€™s โ€œCocaine,โ€ Stone Temple Pilotsโ€™, โ€œPlushโ€ and Velvet Revolverโ€™s โ€œFall to Pieces,โ€ we were unplugging amps and wrapping mic cords when he started telling me about a Guns Nโ€™ Roses concert in Caracas in the early โ€™90s. The venue was one of those massive South American soccer stadiums. When Axl sat down at the grand piano and played the opening notes of โ€œNovember Rain,โ€ the sky opened up and a light drizzle began to fall over the 100,000 people in attendance.

As he was telling me this story, I tried to imagine all those G Nโ€™ R fans down near the equator. Which made me think of the time I heard Shakira, the pop star from across the Venezuelan border in Colombia, cover AC/DCโ€™s โ€œBack in Black.โ€  Then I remembered that Kim Jong Il was a huge Elvis fan and that his son, Kim Jong Un, loves the former Chicago Bull, Dennis Rodman. Muhammad Aliโ€™s Thriller in Manilla and Rumble in the Jungle, Michael Jacksonโ€™s Bad world tour, Leviโ€™s jeans, Coca-Cola, Motown, muscle cars, baseball, breakdancing, Mississippi Delta blues, Metallica, the Empire State Building, Microsoft, Google, Amazon . . .

Once upon a time, this nationโ€™s greatest export wasnโ€™t any single commodity. It was what rock-n-roll and Leviโ€™s and Coca-Cola represented: The American Spirit. We were the envy of the world. A shining example of everything a free country could be. And as a result, the Berlin wall came down, the cold war ended without a shot being fired, and McDonaldโ€™s started popping up all over what was once the U.S.S.R.

But think about it. What have we been exporting lately? School shootings, Capitol riots, border chaos, Fentanyl overdoses, MSNBC, Fox News, hate, division, a citizenry at each otherโ€™s throats…

I remember being shocked when the news broke about a horrific school shooting in Thailand last year. Thailand? This was followed by a similar incident in Prague, the first in that countryโ€™s history. How many capitol riotsโ€”or โ€œsightseeing tours,โ€ if you preferโ€”have there been since January 6, 2021? I know of at least two: one in Brazil not too long afterward, and there was another last week in Kenya. Coincidence? Probably.

But itโ€™s no coincidence that far right movements and authoritarian strongmen are popping up all over the globe. In the great geopolitical game of Follow the Leader, America sets the tone.  We are the worldโ€™s longest running democracy. And for decades our quality of life has been the most powerful argument against dictatorships, autocracies, and communist systems of government.

Liberty, Justice, Honor, Opportunityโ€”these are more than just flowery ideals. They are what make us uniquely US. And they are what inspires the rest of the world to want to be like us. The hope and promise of freedom is our greatest export. Letโ€™s not piss it away.

โ€”July 12, 2024

Posted
May 17, 2022
Category
gun violence, interconnectedness, kindness, mass shootings, racial prejudice, racism, raising children
Comments
0 Responses

Where Is The Love

“What’s wrong with the world, momma? People acting like they ain’t got no mommas.” Remember this lyric? Black Eyed Peas “Where Is The Love?” I’m not a big fan of the song or the group or the genre but it’s been on auto-loop in my head since last Sunday.

That morning, exactly one week after Motherโ€™s Day, I took up my customary seat in the day room, instant black coffee sloshing in my cup, ready for some George Stephanopoulos. Like many Americans turning on their TVs that day, I was expecting the latest on Ukraine, the obligatory Congressional interviews, Covid updates, inflation outlooks, primary election predictions, maybe a little partisan back and forth between Chris Christie and Donna Brazile…

What I got instead was Tops Supermarket. Buffalo, New York. Where the day before, an 18-year-old white kid strapped up with Teflon and tactical gear and drove 200 miles to live-stream his massacre of a black community.

When the final shell casing hit the pavement and he dropped his assault weapon in surrender to the police, the official body count was ten. Ten moms and dads, ten sons and daughters, brothers, sisters, grandparents… Ten Americans, grocery shopping on what they thought was just another day. One story in particular hit me hard. A father went in to pick up a birthday cake for his three-year-old son. He never made it out. His kid is probably still asking “what happened to daddy?”

Brutal.

Moments like thisโ€”where we can all agree on the atrocious nature of a thingโ€”are few and far between in these hyperpartisan times. But this is not a political issue. This is an American tragedy that is occurring with more and more frequency. Charlottesville, Charleston, the Pittsburgh Synagogue, the Walmart in El Paso…

One year ago, in his rebuttal to Biden’s address to Congress, Tim Scottโ€”the lone black republican senator from South Carolinaโ€”famously announced “America is not a racist nation.” If you’re like me (white and middle aged) this was music to your ears. Not rap music either. I’m talking Jackson Browne, Steely Dan, Michael Bublรฉ… Finally, a person of color gave America express consent to move on from its ugly past and validated our progress as a nation. Thank God. Unfortunately, my brothers and sisters on the left didn’t see it that way. ”Uncle Tim,” they called him, dismissing his speech as right-wing propaganda and dismissing him as someone handpicked by the GOP to make white folks feel comfortable. Damn. He did actually make me feel comfortable. Or at least hopeful.

All this emphasis on race. Democrats seem hellbent on wringing every drop of distrust from past and present injustices and converting this into political capitol. Critical Race Theory immediately comes to mind. Across the aisle, more and more Republicans are coming to embrace divisive philosophies as well. Case in point: Replacement theory, the ideology espoused by the Buffalo shooter in his manifesto. Anyone who watches Fox News has probably heard host, Tucker Carlson, promote this same doctrine. According to the Washington Post he’s mentioned it more than 400 times on his top-rated show.

Here’s an alternate theory: We’re not all that different. And this relentless focus on race and identity politics has much farther-reaching consequences than the next election cycle or the culture wars being fought on social media. America’s children are being indoctrinated. Loners and misfits are being lured into shadowy corners of the web, places where their confirmed kills on Call of Duty are lauded and the promise of brotherhood is offered. Places where grown men whisper dark ideologies into the hearts of teens. Although the rhetoric smacks of far-right nativism, there is nothing patriotic about these groups. I have my doubts that they’re even based in the U.S. Our elections aren’t the only things our enemies are meddling in these days.

A few years ago I heard an interesting story about Tommy Davidsonโ€”one of the original cast members of the hit 90s show In Living Color and a hilarious standup comic in his own right. Apparently, he was stuffed in a garbage can by his biological mother when he was a baby, and a white woman who happened to be passing by heard him crying. She ended up taking him home, adopting him, and raising him with her own children in Colorado. For much of his young life he was oblivious to fact that he was any different than his siblings. His dark skin was a non-issue. Like the horses on the ranch where they lived, he just assumed some people came out black, some came out white, some had spots. No big deal.

Kids aren’t born with hate in their hearts. Hatred is a learned behavior. Racial prejudice is a learned behavior. The question is, who are they learning it from?

There is no them. Only us.

Posted
October 6, 2017
Category
gun criminal, gun violence, juvenile life without parole, mass shootings, raising children
Comments
1 Response

A voice in the gun debate

I’m not positive when it happened, somewhere between Virginia Tech and Fort Hood. But by the time the little 9-year-old girl in Chicago was murdered in a drive-by while waiting on her school bus, the feeling was unavoidable. Irrepressible. Then came Gabby Giffords, then Sandy Hook Elementary, then Aurora, Colorado. I cringed with every tragic breaking news story, right along with the rest of America. But unlike the rest of America, my disgust was not reserved strictly for the shooters. Some of it I saved for myself.

Full disclosure: I’m a gun criminal. There’s no explaining this away with a bunch of pretty words. NFL Hall of Fame head coach Bill Parcells once said: “You are what your record says you are” and my record says I am an armed career criminal. That’s how the Federal government classified me over 11 years ago when I began this 30-year sentence. And these men, these murderers, these ruthless takers of innocent life are gun criminals, just like me. For the rest of my years on this planet, at least in the eyes of the system, I will be lumped into this category of cowards.

Now my mom will argue this to her grave, and I have nieces and nephews who have no idea about my armed career criminal title. The only title they know me by is Uncle Chris. Maybe at some point in the future, I’ll write an in-depth character defense for the unconscious, addicted young man who racked up all these ugly charges and explain in detail how I’ve never physically hurt anyone, never even fired a gun. But in the opinion of the U.S. government and for the purposes of this post, I am an armed career criminal. Considering this label, coupled with the fact that I have no problem sounding off about every other issue known to man, my silence in the wake of the Pulse nightclub massacre and the murders of police officers in Dallas and Baton Rouge feels craven. So for whatever it’s worth, here’s how one gun criminal feels about guns and gun crime.

We are living in an era of first-person-shooter video games and a rap culture whose biggest stars glorify murder and gun violence. America’s children are being brainwashed. Their senses are under siege, many of them without the benefit of vigilant and engaged parents to at least offset this deluge of violent information. The result is usually a footnote on the evening news: carjackings, home invasions, drug deals gone bad. For every Newtown, Charleston, and Dallas, there are thousands of less publicized shootings every day.

These are troubled times. People should be able to protect their home and family. That being said, a street sweeper is a little excessive. A handgun seems like ample protection until the police arrive. Automatic rifles — or “choppers” as they are lovingly referred to by rappers like Rick Ross — are nothing less than weapons of urban warfare. Have you ever heard of any hunter mowing down deer with an AK-47?

I don’t think this is what the Founding Fathers intended. The Second Amendment was written as a protection against tyranny. This is pretty clear. But when Jefferson wrote “The strongest reason for people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is a last resort to protect themselves against tyranny in government,” I doubt he envisioned that government having fighter jets, tomahawk missiles, and nuclear warheads. A well-regulated militia? Please. Not in 2016. You’ll be the new occupant of the empty bunk across the aisle from me, on charges of conspiracy to overthrow the government.

I know there are certain voices clamoring for all firearms to be banned and others who think the status quo is just fine. The logical course of action is probably the middle road, somewhere between these two extremes. It’s interesting that human evolution is being outpaced by technology, even lapped by it. For all our stem cell research, Mars probes, and advancements in artificial intelligence, we are still a small, covetous race that wars over religion, murders over tennis shoes, and uses skin color as a basis for hate.

Maybe the answer lies not so much in banning firearms, but in molding future generations too humane to use them.

[This post first appeared on malcolmivey.com in August 2016, then again in April, 2017.]

Posted
August 25, 2017
Category
gun violence, mass shootings, My Story, racism, writing
Comments
2 Responses

Dum spiro spero

dandelion-windIn my latest novel,ย On the Shoulders of Giants,ย one of the protagonists, Ezra James, oftenย references the universe when it comes to inspiration. Even the title of the book, which Ezra lifts from a President Obama speech, is more the result of serendipitous coincidence than meticulous plotting.

Like the storyโ€™s protagonist, I too am a big believer in the universe. This is the source from which creative magic flows. Thereโ€™s a reason why so many artists shrug off compliments regarding their work: It feels like a scam to accept credit for something that is clearly ether-born. Sure, the writer provides the discipline by sitting in front of a computer for hours, as does the painter at the easel and the musician strumming the guitar. Sentence by brush stroke by chord, we plod along. Progress is minimal. But if we sit there long enough, lightning cracks, the sky opens, our eyes glaze over and the Bradburian effect kicks in.ย โ€œโ€ฆand when their souls grew warm, they were poets.โ€ย We can take credit if we want, but the truth is, in that moment, we are plugged into something greater. Something mystical. We are conduits. The universe is moving through us.

I came across the Latin phraseย dum spiro speroย in a Merriam-Webster dictionary a few years ago while searching for a cool tattoo. The meaning,ย while I breathe I hope,ย resonated with me. So much so that I wove it into the novel as a plot point regarding lost love. At least I thought that was the purpose.

Hereโ€™s where the universe comes in. It wasnโ€™t until the book was finished and on the shelf that I learned thatย dum spiro speroย is also the state motto of South Carolina. Blew me away.

Iโ€™ve never been to South Carolina, donโ€™t know anyone in South Carolina, but like most Americans, I was heartbroken and outraged when Dylan Roof walked into the Emanuel A.M.E. Church and murdered those nine black parishioners. Pure evil. But what was also shocking was the reaction of the people of Charleston. There were no race riots, no rumors of retaliation, no violence. Just a candlelight vigil for the victims where people of all races mourned the loss of their neighbors. Even the survivors of this heartless, senseless, spineless execution said they were praying for the killer.

Iโ€™m honored thatย On the Shoulders of Giants,ย a novel that deals largely with the topic of race, contains the state motto of such beautiful people. Although it wasnโ€™t intentional, it wasnโ€™t coincidence either. As Ezra would say, it was pure universe.

Dum spiro spero.

[This post originally appeared onย http://www.malcolmivey.com in March 2017.]

Posted
April 17, 2017
Category
gun criminal, gun violence, mass shootings, raising children
Comments
0 Responses

A voice in the gun debate

I’m not positive when it happened, somewhere between Virginia Tech and Fort Hood. But by the time the little 9-year-old girl in Chicago was murdered in a drive-by while waiting on her school bus, the feeling was unavoidable. Irrepressible. Then came Gabby Giffords, then Sandy Hook Elementary, then Aurora, Colorado. I cringed with every tragic breaking news story, right along with the rest of America. But unlike the rest of America, my disgust was not reserved strictly for the shooters. Some of it I saved for myself.

Full disclosure: I’m a gun criminal. There’s no explaining this away with a bunch of pretty words. NFL Hall of Fame head coach Bill Parcells once said: “You are what your record says you are” and my record says I am an armed career criminal. That’s how the Federal government classified me over 11 years ago when I began this 30-year sentence. And these men, these murderers, these ruthless takers of innocent life are gun criminals, just like me. For the rest of my years on this planet, at least in the eyes of the system, I will be lumped into this category of cowards.

Now my mom will argue this to her grave, and I have nieces and nephews who have no idea about my armed career criminal title. The only title they know me by is Uncle Chris. Maybe at some point in the future, I’ll write an in-depth character defense for the unconscious, addicted young man who racked up all these ugly charges and explain in detail how I’ve never physically hurt anyone, never even fired a gun. But in the opinion of the U.S. government and for the purposes of this post, I am an armed career criminal. Considering this label, coupled with the fact that I have no problem sounding off about every other issue known to man, my silence in the wake of the Pulse nightclub massacre and the murders of police officers in Dallas and Baton Rouge feels craven. So for whatever it’s worth, here’s how one gun criminal feels about guns and gun crime.

We are living in an era of first-person-shooter video games and a rap culture whose biggest stars glorify murder and gun violence. America’s children are being brainwashed. Their senses are under siege, many of them without the benefit of vigilant and engaged parents to at least offset this deluge of violent information. The result is usually a footnote on the evening news: carjackings, home invasions, drug deals gone bad. For every Newtown, Charleston, and Dallas, there are thousands of less publicized shootings every day.

These are troubled times. People should be able to protect their home and family. That being said, a street sweeper is a little excessive. A handgun seems like ample protection until the police arrive. Automatic rifles — or “choppers” as they are lovingly referred to by rappers like Rick Ross — are nothing less than weapons of urban warfare. Have you ever heard of any hunter mowing down deer with an AK-47?

I don’t think this is what the Founding Fathers intended. The Second Amendment was written as a protection against tyranny. This is pretty clear. But when Jefferson wrote “The strongest reason for people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is a last resort to protect themselves against tyranny in government,” I doubt he envisioned that government having fighter jets, tomahawk missiles, and nuclear warheads. A well-regulated militia? Please. Not in 2016. You’ll be the new occupant of the empty bunk across the aisle from me, on charges of conspiracy to overthrow the government.

I know there are certain voices clamoring for all firearms to be banned and others who think the status quo is just fine. The logical course of action is probably the middle road, somewhere between these two extremes. It’s interesting that human evolution is being outpaced by technology, even lapped by it. For all our stem cell research, Mars probes, and advancements in artificial intelligence, we are still a small, covetous race that wars over religion, murders over tennis shoes, and uses skin color as a basis for hate.

Maybe the answer lies not so much in banning firearms, but in molding future generations too humane to use them.

[This post first appeared on malcolmivey.com in August 2016.]

Posted
March 15, 2017
Category
gun violence, interconnectedness, mass shootings, racism, writing
Comments
2 Responses

Dum Spiro Spero

In my latest novel, On the Shoulders of Giants, one of the protagonists, Ezra James, oftendandelion-wind references the universe when it comes to inspiration. Even the title of the book, which Ezra lifts from a President Obama speech, is more the result of serendipitous coincidence than meticulous plotting.

Like the story’s protagonist, I too am a big believer in the universe. This is the source from which creative magic flows. There’s a reason why so many artists shrug off compliments regarding their work: It feels like a scam to accept credit for something that is clearly ether-born. Sure, the writer provides the discipline by sitting in front of a computer for hours, as does the painter at the easel and the musician strumming the guitar. Sentence by brush stroke by chord, we plod along. Progress is minimal. But if we sit there long enough, lightning cracks, the sky opens, our eyes glaze over and the Bradburian effect kicks in. “…and when their souls grew warm, they were poets.” We can take credit if we want, but the truth is, in that moment, we are plugged into something greater. Something mystical. We are conduits. The universe is moving through us.

I came across the Latin phrase dum spiro spero in a Merriam-Webster dictionary a few years ago while searching for a cool tattoo. The meaning, while I breathe I hope, resonated with me. So much so that I wove it into the novel as a plot point regarding lost love. At least I thought that was the purpose.

Here’s where the universe comes in. It wasn’t until the book was finished and on the shelf that I learned that dum spiro spero is also the state motto of South Carolina. Blew me away.

I’ve never been to South Carolina, don’t know anyone in South Carolina, but like most Americans, I was heartbroken and outraged when Dylan Roof walked into the Emanuel A.M.E. Church and murdered those nine black parishioners. Pure evil. But what was also shocking was the reaction of the people of Charleston. There were no race riots, no rumors of retaliation, no violence. Just a candlelight vigil for the victims where people of all races mourned the loss of their neighbors. Even the survivors of this heartless, senseless, spineless execution said they were praying for the killer.

I’m honored that On the Shoulders of Giants, a novel that deals largely with the topic of race, contains the state motto of such beautiful people. Although it wasn’t intentional, it wasn’t coincidence either. As Ezra would say, it was pure universe.

Dum spiro spero.