-Angela Valenzuela
Enough already. That is what we should be saying to the media
and to white America about the pathological need to humanize white men
who commit mass shootings. It is a pattern that people of color are all
too familiar with. It is a pattern that some women can see clearly.
But at this point, it should also be really familiar to anyone who is
paying attention. And just like Parkland, Florida, school shooting
survivor Emma Gonzalez implored us to do when it comes to our excuses
about why we can’t have sensible gun control in this country, we need to
unequivocally and loudly “call B.S.” each time this happens.
Over the past three weeks, Austin, Texas, has been rocked by a
series of mysterious package bombs that killed two people and injured
five more. We know now that the police suspect that the bomber was Mark
Anthony Conditt, a 23-year-old Austin Community College dropout. Conditt
blew himself up on Wednesday as police were closing in on him. And with
predictable certainty, the media launched into a series of
mind-numbing, willfully ignorant reports in which they obsessively
search for answers—imploring us to understand what would make such a
nice, normal white boy do such a terrible thing.
Quiet. Normal. Nerdy. From a tight-knit, godly family. Polite. Unremarkable. No criminal record. Challenged.
These are some of the adjectives used to describe Conditt by major
newspapers across the United States. All of these articles paint him in
the same way: a quiet kid that no one could imagine would commit such an
atrocity. Relatives say he had conservative views but wasn’t
particularly passionate about them. In the endless reporting attempting
to explain away his madness, we’ve learned that Conditt was raised in a
sleepy, suburban community of less than 60,000 people. His neighbors
have good things to say about him and his family. So far, it seems that
only one person, as reported in
The Houston Chronicle, has suggested that things may not have been as tranquil on the inside of the Conditt home as they appeared.
The Conditts lived in an old part of the town 20 miles north of
Austin. They kept their children out of public schools so they wouldn't
see "the bad stuff in society," said the man, who worked with Conditt's
father and spent time at their home.
"It was a very 'us versus them' type of household," he said.
"I'm guessing that was a catalyst that led Mark to believe what he
thought."
The family held regular get-togethers at their East Pfluger
Street home. It was "not a cult," but may have been mistaken for one,
the former co-worker said.
The person who said this knew the family well but wished not to
be identified. This follows a larger pattern seen again and again when
it comes to white male domestic terrorists (and though the media and the
current president refuse to say it, let’s plainly call them what they
are). Nearly all of them come from suburbia. And if you’ve ever lived in
suburbia in America you know that there are some really ugly truths
that must be confronted about these supposedly great places to raise
kids. The suburbs boomed in America post-World War II. The first scores
of suburban residents were people who were eager to leave overcrowded
cities and found that, with the expansion of highways and commuter
rails, they could afford homes away from the hustle and bustle of the
city. This also coincided with the availability of FHA loans, which made
home ownership a possibility for returning veterans.
In many places, it also coincided with the Great Migration of
blacks from the American South into northern cities and out west. And
since blacks were subject to all kinds of zoning laws and redlining, and
routinely (and still are) denied home loans, it was a win for many.
White families could leave the city while getting more land and their
own homes and also leave black people, recent immigrants, and anyone
else undesirable behind. Today, America’s suburbs are still mainly
white—and that’s no accident.
And, no, that’s not an assertion that anyone white living in
the suburbs is racist and doesn’t want to be around people of color.
Very few people would willingly admit to that, even though it is another
ugly truth that white people are socialized and conditioned into white
supremacy and that supremacy is perpetuated when they live, work, and
attend schools with people who look just like they do. But this point
is instead made to demonstrate that racial segregation was a factor in
the creation of suburbs, who moved there, and why—and it continues to
be. We cannot forget this aspect of racial history as we consider life
in the suburbs and what might drive a supposedly nice suburban kid to
kill.
The other thing we must remember is that the suburban life is
all about aesthetics: sprawling, perfectly manicured and green lawns,
picturesque homes, and plenty of outdoor spaces for dogs and kids. There
is a pleasantness about the suburbs that is supposed to reflect a
certain quality of life. So naturally, things that are displeasing and
ugly are rarely put on display. Domestic violence, alcohol and drug
abuse, financial problems, troubled kids—these are all problems that
plague suburban communities, just as they do urban ones. But no one ever
talks about it. You don’t air your dirty laundry in suburbia. You
instead ignore problems and suffer in silence on the inside while
everything looks pretty on the outside.
Whether it’s because of aesthetics, their own selfishness, or
this tendency not to rock the boat in signs of trouble, a lot of
suburban parents don’t know what the hell is happening with their
children. And in a big enough house, you don’t need to be bothered. This
is how a boy can live under his parents’ roof and quietly be collecting
an arsenal of weapons (as did the Columbine High School shooters) or
become an expert bomb maker (as did Mark Anthony Conditt). So it’s high
time we start asking important questions about why suburban communities
continue to turn a blind eye to the signs of danger and then
seem shocked by white males who display patterns of toxic behavior and
go on a killing spree. It's also time we ask what is to be gained by
continuing to see these incidents as isolated and outliers instead of a
deeply entrenched culture of violence perpetrated by angry, white men.
And, lastly, it's time we wrestled with the desire to infantilize these
killers by framing them as normal, happy-go-lucky young men who suddenly
took a wrong turn somewhere and were inexplicably driven to murder.
You know who doesn’t get this same respect, tender
consideration, and humanization? Their victims. Particularly when
they are victims of color and women.
Two of the victims that Conditt killed and one he severely injured
were people of color. For the most part, the media has stopped talking
about them to hyper-focus on what went wrong with Conditt. The very
first victim, a black man named Stephan House,was killed when a
suspicious package exploded on his doorstep. He was at home with his
8-year-old daughter helping her to get ready for school. Though there
was no evidence to suggest it, House was practically accused of setting
the bomb himself.
As Olivia Messer reports in
The Daily Beast :
Then, police treated House like a suspect in his own death.
“We can’t rule out that Mr. House didn’t construct this himself and
accidentally detonate it,” [Austin Police Department] Assistant Chief
Joseph Chacon told reporters at the time, noting that there was no continuing threat to the public.
“I do not believe that we have someone going around leaving packages like this,” he said.
In jumping to conclusions and doing what they could to assure the
public that there was no threat of harm, the Austin police successfully
tarnished the image of a black man who was loved by his family,
respected in the community, and known for being a hard worker. They also
did nothing to protect House’s family—who worried that they might also
be targeted for harm. As Messer writes, House’s brother says that the
family still doesn’t feel safe.
“My mom does not feel safe,” said [Norrell] Waynewood. “His wife and his daughter do not feel safe. They’ve left their homes.”
“I’d be totally happy if this is the end, I just don’t feel like it
is,” he added, noting that his mother is worried Conditt may have had
potential accomplices and doesn’t believe police have kept them in the
loop on the investigation. [...]
“Once he was painted as doing it to himself, people lost respect for
him,” he continued. “People stopped offering to help out at the funeral,
stopped giving money, stopped helping.”
“Even close friends backed up,” he said.
Even in death, House was not afforded the same respect and
consideration that his white killer is being given. Where are the
plethora of articles detailing House’s lack of criminal record, devotion
to his family, or the fact that he played football for Pflugerville
High School and was a graduate of Texas State University? The media
wants us to know how normal Conditt was. What about his normal victims?
Conditt then went on to kill Draylen Mason, a 17-year-old black male,
and injure his mother. He also sent another package bomb that injured
Esperanza Herrera, a 75-year-old Latina woman. And while police don’t
know for sure if his motivations were racial, it can’t be overlooked
that three of the packages he sent were to communities of color.
Eric Tang writes in
The New York Times:
Whatever the investigation yields, the bombings will forever
feel like terror to the city’s longstanding African-American and Latino
residents. [...]
All three bombings took place east of Interstate-35, Austin’s
main artery. East Austin is home to the majority of the city’s
African-American and Mexican-American residents, and it is synonymous
with minorities and the city’s history of segregation. Indeed, central
East Austin, the Masons’ home, was once the heart of the city’s “Negro
district,” an area planned by the City Council in 1928 with the express
purpose of segregating Austin’s black population during the Jim Crow
era. Most of the city’s Mexican-Americans were relegated to an area just
to the south. By the end of the 20th century, gentrification pushed
many of those Mexican-American families from this area to points further
east, including the Montopolis neighborhood, where Ms. Herrera lives.
Our society is so quick to demand that people of color wait for
answers in an investigation to determine whether a crime by a white male
is racially motivated, and slow to come up with answers. It’s as if we
haven’t figured out that racialized violence is a longstanding pattern,
just like mass shootings by white men are. But we are really quick to
explain away the behaviors of killers and protect white manhood—always
at the expense of victims and the rest of our society.
This past week also saw another school shooting committed by a white
male, this time at Great Mills High School in southern Maryland. How is
that shooter being described? Well, apparently he was just lovesick and
that’s what drove him to shoot the object of his affection.
As per
The Washington Post:
Tuesday’s school shooting in southern
Maryland that left the shooter dead and two students wounded
increasingly appears to be the action of a lovesick teenager. [...]
The St. Mary’s County Sheriff’s Office said
Wednesday that [Austin Rollins, the shooter] and [Jaelynn Willey] had
been in a relationship that recently ended. Authorities had previously
only said that the two had had a relationship of some sorts.
“All indications suggest the shooting was not a random act of violence,” police said in a statement.
Lovesick teenagers don’t kill people. Back in my day, when you were
lovesick, you stayed in your room and made mix (cassette) tapes with sad
songs that reminded you of the person you were pining away for. Plenty
of people can describe the agony of heartbreak at age 17. It’s awful,
for sure. But trying to justify this as a young white boy who just
snapped out of the blue because of a breakup ignores this dangerous
pattern we see again and again. It also sugarcoats the gender-based
violence in this attack—an all-too-real phenomenon experienced regularly
by women-identified people around the world.
Again, with frightening regularity, we see the same attempt to
humanize Rollins, the Maryland shooter. Of course, no one in his
community seemed to sense anything or have an idea that this might be
coming. He is being described as a
good kid,
quiet, and
from a good family. According to Evan Lambert from
Fox 5 DC:
Many residents said 17-year-old Austin Wyatt Rollins came from a good
family and all of their interactions with him were positive. [...]
“He was a good kid,” said Toni Foreman. “He played with my son
and his cousins when they were out there playing football during the
summertime. He would help shovel snow whenever we were all out here
shoveling snow. For Halloween and stuff, they would always have candy
out for the kids. I never ever had any issues with him at all
whatsoever.”
What is happening is incredibly dangerous. We have a serious problem
with gun violence in this country. But we also have a major problem with
toxic white male masculinity that repeatedly results in atrocities and
mass casualties. And the media does everything it can to gloss over it
while white America acts as if these incidents are exceptions to the
rule instead of the norm. This is no doubt a reflection of the fact that
those who decide and report the news are mostly white and male
themselves. But this cannot continue to stand.
The obsession with regularizing white, male, mass shooters is
ignoring a wider social, cultural, racial, and gender issue that we
cannot afford to ignore. It is downright negligent. But it also really
highlights a terrible reality: you can be a mediocre, angry, violent,
white man and kill because the desire strikes you. And still, every
attempt will be made to justify and recognize your humanity. No one will
ask questions about or reflect on a culture that allows you to be that
way. No one will give national attention to your victims because they
will be too busy searching for answers that will never come. No one will
make the link to a wider culture of white supremacy and patriarchy that
breeds violence and murder. No one will call it terrorism—even though
that’s exactly what it is. And if you know that, there is nothing to
stop you from doing it.
The protection of the status quo, and above all, white manhood in
America comes at a terrible price. Let’s call it out and put it plainly
there for all of us to see. Now that we have looked it in the face and
can see it on a regular basis, what are we going to do about it?
Monica Muñoz Martinez, Public Historian, 2021 MacArthur Fellow, Austin, TX. Photo by John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.
