From Gawker.com: The Unbearable Invisibility of White Masculinity: Innocence In the Age of White Male Mass Shootings

by Relando Thompkins-Jones · January 13, 2013

Photo From the Gawker: The Unbearable Invisibility of White Masculinity: Innocence In the Age of White Male Mass Shootings

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Written by David J. Leonard, Associate Professor in the Department of Critical Culture, Gender, and Race Studies at Washington State University, Pullman.

In his piece, The Unbearable Invisibility of White Masculinity: Innocence In the Age of White Male Mass Shootings, Professor Leonard describes manifestations of white male privilege in his own life, and explores the stark differences in the narratives in which violence and crime are interpreted through the lens of race and gender.

“I have been profiled my entire life as innocent. When disruptive in class, I was told that I was eccentric, that I needed to work on my focus…When I was pulled over in Emeryville, CA for speeding for several miles and asked multiple times by the police officer if there was a reason for my speeding, I told him the truth. “Officer, my ice cream is melting.”

“No stop and frisk. No pretext stop. No humiliating search. No fear of how to hold my hands. No ticket. I, like Adam Lanza and James Holmes, the two most notorious mass shooters of the past year, am white male privilege personified. We are humanized and given voice and innocence over and over again.”

“…the media response to mass shootings often reimagines white men as victims.”

“We have to accept that there is a “typical” face of mass murder in the United States – it is not the black kid killing people in gang shootings, the Mexican cartel member, or the “Muslim terrorist.” It can be, often is, will probably remain the innocent, white, suburban boy next door.”

“the danger to white America, to the nation, then and now, was not the black or Latino gangster, or the Muslim terrorist, but the white man who is capable of unimaginable death and destruction, the white man, who we will go to all lengths to embrace as our own, who we will continually aid and abet with innocence.”

I encourage you to read the entire story.

Grace & Peace,

From Aspiring Humanitarian, Relando Thompkins, MSW

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