Attack

These past few posts have been responding to recent things. I worry about being reactive rather than proactive; will I really make any progress?

But how do I ignore a man with LDS roots shooting up a gay bar on the eve of the Transgender Day of Remembrance?

I can't even promise that this will be a coherent post, but there are some things that I want to say, and then I guess I hope that a week can go by without some new terrible thing happening.

First of all, though I am almost positive that the shooter's claim to be non-binary is a cynical ploy suggested by the lawyers, I am glad to read articles respecting that and using "they/them" for the shooter. Respecting pronouns is so easy that it is the least we can do. Let's make sure that we also do that for people who are not mass murderers.

It is possible that someone who was not cisgender or heterosexual would target people in what should be their community? Absolutely. It still seems suspect in this case.

I also understand that there were some people wanting to prepare some kind of petition or something directed at Elder Holland for his "muskets" speech, perhaps assigning some responsibility.

I can see that, but it is ignoring other issues that are important.

First of all, it is questionable how involved in the church the shooter was anyway. Without having looked into it that much, that is a troubled family (they seem to be pretty consistently politically conservative) and who had the most influence on the shooter is questionable.

In addition, while Elder Holland's talk was over a year ago, there has been increasing commentary from all over the right targeting transgender and homosexual people, equating them with groomers and sexual predators targeting children. These are blatant lies, but that doesn't stop the repetition. 

The church is not good enough on this issue, but we are not the ones driving it.

It does drive home the point that being accused of bigotry is such a minor complaint when you see the things that happen to marginalized people. That is a reason to be ashamed of that talk. It's embarrassing.

The other thing is that we really need to look at patriarchy.

It wasn't the only shooting recently. It never is anymore.

We should think about how a culture where being weak or having lower status is shameful, and yet if you don't have a way of earning more money or gaining more prestige, the go to solution seems to be violence. That violence is more likely to be targeted against those who are deemed of lower value by patriarchy: women, people of color, queer people... society lends a certain permission there.

It is worth noting that right-wing politicians are not even murmuring their "thoughts and prayers" platitudes so much this time, but leaning in to the abuse lies that justify it. The right's reaction to the Pulse shooting was bad, but this is worse.

Yes, groomers are real, but they are mostly white men. They are the teachers who run off with students, or the fathers and grandfathers who molest their children and grandchildren. We all know of these cases, but that doesn't fit the image of how things are supposed to be. 

Yes, the world is not what it should be. Targeting the people that you feel like you have permission to target is not the answer. 

Let's be honest about that.