School shootings and white delusion

White Americans "live in an utter state of self-delusion," Nashville-based writer Tim Wise wrote in a commentary on recent school shootings that appeared on the internet. "We think danger is black, brown and poor, and if we can just move far enough away from 'those people' in the cities we'll be safe. If we can just find an 'all-American town, life will be better, because 'things like this just don't happen here.' ... In case you hadn't noticed, 'here' is about the only place these kinds of things do happen. Oh sure, there is plenty of violence in urban communities and schools. But mass murder; wholesale slaughter; take-a-gun-and-see-how-many-you-can-kill kinda craziness seems made for those safe places: the white suburbs or rural communities.

"And yet once again, we hear the FBI insist there is no 'profile' of a school shooter. Come again? White boy after white boy after white boy, with very few exceptions to that rule (and none in the mass shooting category), decides to use their classmates for target practice, and yet there is no profile? Imagine if all these killers had been black: Would we still hesitate to put a racial face on the perpetrators? Doubtful.

"Indeed, if any black child in America -- especially in the mostly white suburbs of Littleton, or Santee -- were to openly discuss their plans to murder fellow students, as happened both at Columbine and now Santana High, you can bet your ass that somebody would have turned them in, and the cops would have beat a path to their doorstep. But when whites discuss their murderous intentions, our stereotypes of what danger looks like cause us to ignore it -- they're just 'talking' and won't really do anything. How many kids have to die before we rethink that nonsense? How many dazed and confused parents, mayors and sheriffs do we have to listen to, describing how 'normal' and safe their community is, and how they just can't understand what went wrong?

"I'll tell you what went wrong and it's not TV, rap music, video games or lack of prayer in school. What went wrong is that white Americans decided to ignore dysfunction and violence when it only affected other communities, and thereby blinded themselves to the inevitable creeping of chaos which never remains isolated too long. What affects the urban 'ghetto' today will be coming to a Wal-Mart near you tomorrow, and unless you address the emptiness, pain, isolation and lack of hope felt by children of color and the poor, then don't be shocked when the support systems aren't there for your kids either."

Treaty conflict gives way to partnership

Conflict between Ojibwe Indians and white sportfishing groups in northern Wisconsin has given way to an environmental protection partnership that has chased several mining companies from the state, according to a recent story in ColorLines (Spring '01).

"Under the treaties of 1837 and 1842, the Ojibwe had reserved rights to use natural resources -- such as fish, game, wild rice and medicinal plants -- in the 'ceded territories' they sold to the U.S.," write activists Zoltan Grossman and Debra McNutt. "The tribe's historic practice of spearfishing was outlawed in 1908, driving the tradition underground, until a 1983 court decision recognized that Wisconsin Ojibwe had retained treaty rights in the ceded territories.

"In response, a backlash gained steam among white sportsmen who feared that spearfishing would deplete the lakes of fish. Although the Ojibwe never speared more than 3 percent of northern Wisconsin fish, they were repeatedly scapegoated by the media and sportfishers for the region's environmental and economic problems.

"Indian spearfishers were confronted by mobs of white anti-treaty protesters who held signs reading 'Save a Walleye -- Spear an Indian.' They shouted racist epithets such as 'timber n------,' 'welfare warriors,' and 'spearchuckers,' and threw rocks, bottles and full beer cans at Natives. Ojibwe saw their elders assaulted and nearly run over, their drum groups harassed with whistles and mock chants. White sportfishers blockaded, swamped and attacked Ojibwe boats with metal ball bearings, pipe bombs and sniper fire. ...

"In response, the Midwest Treaty Network (MTN), founded in 1989 as an alliance of Native and non-Native groups supporting tribal sovereignty, initiated the Witness for Nonviolence, modeled after similar monitoring programs in Central America. During the treaty conflicts, about 2,000 trained witnesses stood with Ojibwe fishing families as a supportive presence, documenting anti-Indian violence and harrasment and trying to deter or lessen the violence and promote reconciliation.

"Witnesses noticed that many followers of the anti-treaty groups were confused by anti-Indian propaganda, and genuinely concerned about the environmental effects of spearing. Even at the height of the spearing clashes, the late Red Cliff Ojibwe activist Walter Bresette had predicted that white northerners would realize that environmental and economic problems are 'more of a threat to their lifestyle than Indians who go out and spear fish. ... We have more in common with the anti-Indian people than we do with the state of Wisconsin.' How to turn this potential into a reality was the question.

"The opportunity came with the 1990s invasion of mining companies into the area. The environmental threat they posed provided a crucial common enemy around which to build an alliance. A number of multinational mining companies, such as Exxon and Kennecott, had long eyed the metallic sulfide deposits in northern Wisconsin. They saw the administration of pro-mining Republican Governor Tommy Thompson as the ideal opportunity to propose new mines, particularly since Native and non-Native communities were split over treaty rights. Ironically, it was native sovereign rights guaranteed by treaties that became a key factor in building a multiracial alliance against the mining companies in Ojibwe-ceded territory. The treaties gave the tribes legal standing in federal court to challenge environmental degradation. This political clout forced whites who were seriously interested in environmental protection to sit down at the table with the Native nations as potential allies."

Grossman and McNutt report that "international mining industry journals now express worry about the contagious spread of Wisconsin anti-mining strategies, and identify Wisconsin as one of four global battlegrounds for the industry's future."

"The earth is capable of forgiveness"

We need to begin a "truth and reconciliation" process with the natural world, says writer-philosopher Kathleen Dean Moore in an interview with The Sun (3/01). "After a war is over, the healing process almost always begins with amnesties and pardons, the formal trappings of forgiveness. Right now, experiments in truth and reconciliation are going on all over the world, such as in South Africa, where those who admit their crimes under apartheid are allowed to go unpunished.

"This relates to the natural world because, here in the U.S., we are involved in a centuries-long war against the land. There are natural consequences to ecological warfare: devasting floods and hurricanes, increased cancer rates, crop failures. We might think of these disasters as a kind of cosmic justice -- tit for tat, no mercy. But the earth is also capable of forgiveness, because it has the ability to heal itself. When the earth covers burned-over land, first with wildflowers, then alder thickets, then pine forests; when a marsh filters water; when plants create oxygen; when a river washes silt from the gravel beds where salmon spawn -- these great natural cycles of renewal are a kind of forgiveness, again and again transforming death into life. They are a kind of grace.

"The breaching of hydroelectric dams, for example, offers the chance for grace and the possibility of redemption. I want to be there when the sluice gates are opened and the Columbia River rises, fed by the reservoir behind the John Day Dam. True, in so many place, we have done irreparable, unforgivable harm. Extinct species will not be born again. And when corporations cut an ancient forest and poison the bulldozed ground, we will not see that forest again for 14 generations. But a river can heal itself, and so has the power, essentially, to forgive."

Hugh White

The former associate director of the Episcopal Church Publishing Company from 1973 to 1981, Hugh Carleton White, Jr., 80, died April 14 in Pontiac, Mich. A lifelong Detroiter, White helped found the Detroit Industrial Mission, which he directed from 1955 to 1967. DIM grew to include an ecumenical staff of clergy and lay persons who participated in mediation and dialogue between unions and management regarding working conditions, wages and racial and gender discrimination. Between 1966 and 1968 White assisted in the founding of 11 Industrial Missions in North America.

From 1981 to 1989 White served as consultant to Michigan's Episcopal bishop, H. Coleman McGehee, with a special emphasis on economic justice and corporate responsibility.