Something is going real wrong in our country. My partner Marty’s feelings are a small example. He says “but what about us guys?” I say “what do you mean ‘us guys'”. He says “No one is paying any attention to us guys. We have misery, too.”
He doesn’t understand why blacks are all upset. He doesn’t understand why women are all upset. This is because he’s a fair-minded individual who’s never been prejudiced against any person or group. He looks on misbehavior the same way for everybody. If you do wrong you should face the consequences. He also believes that if a person has a problem they should work at it until they fix it.
I say “I’m not pointing a finger at you but there has been a historical effort from the white male supremacy to keep certain groups under the thumb. Now there’s back lash against that supremacy. For every action there’s an equal an opposite reaction. It’s ordinary physics. It’s to be expected.”
Which brings me to a theory I have about all these shootings and bombings. The ones who are doing this are the extreme radicals of Marty’s group who feel the pressure of losing power that they have been used to and like. Some guy friends of mine say “how come we never worried about guns when we were young?” I say “You guys were in power then. (50s and 60s). Women and blacks, etc. did not have power. You did. You would not need to resort to gun violence to get noticed. Back then everybody from cartoons across the gamut represented you.”
I think some of the fringe white men from Timothy McVeigh on up are doing whatever they can to feel like they still have power.
Until we address this it’s my opinion we’re going to keep having this sort of gun, bomb, fill-in-the-blank violence. How to fix it? It’s my personal opinion that the men who are starting to feel disenfranchised need to have a come-to-Jesus meeting (not literally) and realize that there are ways to share power. The men who “get this” need to help their brothers.
(photo by Mark Jackson copyright 2018)
R L Benoit - Writer/Artist 
Hi, Renee. I think you are very right about a lot of this. It seems chaotic to us, but there’s always an underlying reason for everything. There are a lot of straight white guys who are feeling disenfranchised, and it’s because not only are they seeing more acceptance of people who were not previously considered mainstream (blacks, women, gays, etc.), but it’s also because the acceptance of the “other” coincides with 40 years of frozen wages. Quite rightly, a lot of people see the American dream and the traditional upward mobility shrinking. People are afraid that their kids won’t have it as good as they did, and they have less spending power, so they are right in feeling more powerless.
I think there are elements trying to equate lack of prosperity with the acceptance of the “other,” and it’s working. Traditionally, the rich texture of first-generation immigrants, multiple philosophies, religions, etc., has contributed to our strength as a nation. Nowadays, there are a lot of narratives trying to equate these things with weakness. When you add in the funneling of America’s wealth to the richest 1-10%, it makes the horror stories seem all too real.
Beautifully said, Andrea. I wish people could feel more confidence in themselves so as not to feel they needed a reason outside themselves to explain the cause of their difficulties. We really have more power than we might think. Yes, it’s not an easy situation and sometimes because of a number of things we don’t feel up to the task. Sometimes we don’t understand how make things change for us. And there are reasons outside ourselves for difficulty. But the why of why we don’t try to overcome difficulty is inside of us.