White Mass Shootings vs. Black-On-Black Crime: Racial Pathologies, Roots, and Representations

Recently in Michigan, a 15-year old White man opened fire in his high school, killing 4 people and injuring 7. White Supremacists were quick to point out how Black-on-Black crime shows just how violent young Black males are, and why they deserve to go to jail or be shot on sight. But when it’s a young White male who murders, they are called “disturbed” and “troubled”. They need mental health care, not the death penalty. This week, Dr. Venus opens up a conversation about the roots of the representation of white male mass shooters and Black on Black crime. First, we must contend with the structural oppression and positioning of Black Men in society as criminals, even when they are young. Then, we can see why the media positions them as inhuman, not worthy of empathy or the grace of humanity. Two different pathologies, both racially specific. Let’s talk.

Key Takeaways:

[4:45] Black Men are positioned with no empathy, compassion, or humanity, while White Men are given the benefit of the doubt, humanized, and it is argued that their actions took place because they were lonely or unstable. Why doesn’t society contend with the fact that Black Men can have mental illness and PTSD as well?

[5:50] Dr. Venus is not saying we have not been criminalized, but she wants you to also observe the difference in how we respond to White Men and Black Men after they commit a crime. When a White boy shoots someone, they say he was a good boy, that he had hopes and dreams, and he just did what he thought was right.

[7:10] As Black Women, if we are really committed to breaking generational curses and having generational wealth, we have to have compassion for each other’s wounds and help Black Men heal.

[9:05] Black Men are positioned to never make their own money and to be a criminal, even in the eyes of the media. White Men are positioned as innocent, while when a Black Male kills another Black Male, it becomes more proof that Black Men are animals, not that he may be mentally ill. Black Men are systemically positioned as the thug, the brute, the villain, and it justifies why they are put into jail and penalized. Despite 60% of gun-on-gun violence in America by White Men, they don’t seem to say the same about White crimes.

[15:25] How come women can give each other support and compassion, yet he gets nothing?

[17:17] Dr. Venus opens up and shares a story about when she was so righteous about punishing and proving her point to a Black Man that it caused him intense pain and almost irreparable self-harm.

[21:58] Dr. Venus discusses epigenetics, and how we can be predisposed to different behaviors. What we think of as character flaws can really be passed down behaviors from generation to generation, and also as a result of breeding farms, where men were forced to have sex to keep producing free labor.

[23:23] There’s no hierarchy to pain, and no hierarchy of grace. Some of us have had more grace from White people than we have from our own people.

[27:13] Dr. Venus discusses how when White Males get angry, they tend to harm others outside themselves (EVERY race), where young Black Men seem to take their violence on members of their community, killing mostly other Black people they know personally.

[35:26] Real healing will begin to happen when we make the case that people have wounds, they need care, and sometimes they even deserve the benefit of the doubt.

[36:34] We can actually relate to the Black Men that we love as someone’s baby boy, as someone’s son. A human who may need help, but who systematically is portrayed as the criminal and shown in the media as a monster we should be afraid of.

Quotes:

• “I’m not saying you have to be responsible for healing the Black Man. But what you can do is have some grace and mercy and give him the benefit of the doubt.”
• “If we’re really committed to having generational wealth, bei