Friday, February 06, 2009

You know why nothing gets any better? Comments like this. The assumption is that normal people can do nothing but quarantine the 'thugs'[which I disagree with the whole idea of a 'thug' as it perpetuates the idea that there are 'criminals' and 'the rest of us' and if only we killed all the 'criminals' everything would be fine]

Note that this report says that both males were in their 50s. and the shooting was over a parking dispute. We could prevent shootings like this by educating ourselves on anger management, deescalation skills, not carrying guns around in our cars. The emphasis on thugs obscures these simple things we can do to prevent violence. Because violence doesn't come from outside of the community, it comes from all of us. When you don't invest in the fabric of your community, saying oh, those folks are too dark, those folks are too poor, you get crime.

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BTW: elle b has an important post on rape, virginity, and the connection between that and sexual choice making. We need to change the attitude that once you've lost it, either by saying yes or by coercion, your bodily integrity doesn't matter.

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