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Poet Diane di Prima wrote, “This death culture cannot imagine solutions that do not bleed.”
The discussion about what to do in response to violence in our schools, focusing locally on Montgomery High School and Slater Middle School, has been heated and falls mainly on the side of sending in the police. Much of the blame has concentrated on personal responsibility, with virtually no discussion of systemic problems in our culture. The record, nationally, of using school resource officers (SROs) is an ugly one, with punishment meted out to students of color in numbers far greater than their representation in schools. There is also the added perception of being seen as a population to be controlled whether one is targeted or not. Both the local school board and the police department say that their methods and officers are different from those in other areas. Could be, but no data has ever been kept, so how do we know? How are we to expect our young people to solve their problems nonviolently when almost all the models around them are violent? At the very top, we have a president has never seen a war he didn’t like and rejects all negotiations. And our former president incites violence every time he opens his mouth. These kids live in country which spends more on arming itself and the world than any other country by far and a country which rejects as much social welfare spending (healthcare, schools, safety net) as it can get away with, all while shoveling money to private corporations. The message that “you are not important” is clear. Former Lt. Col. Dave Grossman wrote “On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society,” about the US Defense Department’s decision to change the way in which soldiers are trained, to overcome their natural reluctance to kill, beginning with Vietnam-bound soldiers. The defense department predicted, and accepted, greater violence on U. streets as a result. These more violence-prone men came home to be husbands and fathers. Some of them came home with PTSD. A large number committed suicide and others came home with a more violent approach to their fellow humans, particularly to those who are “different.” Grossman didn’t write the book to warn us, but because he agrees. He now trains police to overcome that natural reluctance to kill, and much has been done in the legal arena to ensure an officer’s right to “defend” themselves violently. There is a sequence in the movie Do Not Resist that features Grossman, and he is one very scary man. On an everyday and more personal level, in Sonoma County much of the population runs stop signs and weaves recklessly in and out of traffic, well above the speed limit, with wanton disregard for the lives of others, while their children watch from the back seat. The message? “Only I count and I’m willing to endanger myself, you and others in order to get what I want.” I live one house away from a stop sign and almost no one stops at it, people who undoubtedly consider themselves “good” people. What passes for entertainment is increasingly violent and increasingly realistic – movies, video games, music, toys. Children are marinated in violence. And there isn’t the space here for an explanation of the way global vulture capitalism is destroying the future for young people through dead-end work and climate related destruction of life on earth. The despair this creates is horrific, whether conscious or not. Yet, many wonder why our students resort to violence. School resource officers can’t solve this problem. Only a complete change in the culture can do that. And, sadly, very few are interested in that work. Susan Lamont is a former president of the Board of the Peace & Justice Center and a longtime peace and social justice activist. Only when the most powerful lay down their weapons and raise up justice can the world begin to find its way to peace.
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