Gun violence roundup

Semantics

The other day on Metro Morning, Andy Barrie said there are two Torontos: one populated by young black men, which has a high murder rate, and another populated by everyone else, which has a lower murder rate. I think saying young black men was a poor choice of words here, unless it was true. It seems to me that the higher murder rate occurs among people involved in gangs and/or drugs. While I realize there is significant overlap between the two groups, I think the fact of being young and black and male is only incidental, and the fact of being involved in gangs/drugs is the real key factor. If a young black man who is not involved in gangs or drugs is still at high risk of being involved in gun violence, and if someone who is not young or black or male but is involved in gangs or drugs is still at a low risk of being involved in gun violence, then it was correct to use the phrase "young black men." But if this is not the case, then it was incorrect, and an unfortunate case of linguistic laziness leading to stereotyping in the media.

Andy Barrie has also been asking people what they think of the phrase "black on black violence." I think it is not only unfortunate, but also incorrect, unless the root cause of the violence is, in fact race - in other words if there are black people walking around thinking "I will shoot that person because they are black, but I will not shoot that other person because they are not black."

There have been letters to the editor saying that the shooters should not be considered victims, because their victims are victims. The problem with this assertion is that it is semantically incorrect. The concept of "victim" is not zero-sum. Even if someone is a perp in one situation, that does not automatically negate the possibility that they might be a victim in another situation. While enough perp-like behaviour would make a person considered primarily a perp and not so much a victim, semantically one does not cease to be a victim, so it is still perfectly valid to call them that.

Fathers

There was an article in today's Star that went into some depth about how fatherlessness leads to violence. As someone who has a father (who I would describe as involved, perhaps even over-involved), none of this rings true for me. While I can see how not having a father might lead to anger (judging solely by discussions with my friends who are fatherless, or who feel that their fathers are underinvolved), I don't think that having a father is panacea.

The article cites research that shows that children with involved fathers are more compassionate. This runs directly counter to my experience. My own father is less compassionate than I think a person should be. When I was younger, I was more easily influenced by my parents - I assumed that my parents' attitudes were automatically correct and should be emulated - and my father's lack of compassion lead me to be a less compassionate person than I think I should be. It wasn't until I was able to distance myself from my father's influence that I reached an acceptable level of compassion. To this day, I am still embarrassed by and ashamed of my attitude under my father's influence, and I am still trying to make amends for it. Perhaps if the father himself is more compassionate the children might end up being more compassionate, but I don't think the mere presence of a father automatically leads to compassion in the child.

It also states that fatherless children see their mothers being abused by their boyfriends, and the anger and helplessness they feel causes them to act out violently. However, it neglects to mention that the fact of being a father does not negate the possibility that a man might also be an abuser. Abusers don't just stop being abusive because they have managed to produce a child. I'm sure the same anger and helplessness is present in children who see their mother being abused by their biological father, and perhaps the net effect is even worse, because the children might have a certain degree of loyalty to and respect for their biological father that they may not have with someone they perceive as an interloper. Also, a child may feel anger, resentment, and helplessness as a result of any real or perceived injustice in the parental relationship, even if this injustice is not considered abuse. I am personally familiar with several situations in which children of happy marriages felt resentment towards their biological father because they saw their mother doing more housework while the father engaged in recreational activities. (I am not postulating that this sense of injustice only follows one set of gender lines, but other gender role combinations are beyond the scope of both the article and my own pool of anecdotal evidence).

In addition to all this, there are a number of statements in the article that simply presented as givens, without being supported or fleshed out in a way that made me understand them. For example, it says that fatherless children seek out gangs so they can get respect. But how does not having a father lead to the child not feeling respected? Having a father did not make me feel respected - my father had absolutely zero net effect on how much respect I felt I was getting. And if the absence of a father is, in fact, making them feel less respected, how would thuggish behaviour fill that gap? I can see how one might feel like they're getting respect after becoming a bully, but how would the respect that comes from being feared by one's peers make up for whatever respect one gets by the presence of a father? It seems to me that they'd be completely different kinds of respect. It also says that fatherless young men act out to make them feel manly. How does not having a father make one feel less manly? As a woman with a father I simply have no concept of this, and if the authors of the article wanted me to understand it, they should have explained it explicitly, step by step.

I think this article oversimplifies things. While those without fathers are quite likely to glamourize the benefits that the a father could bring to their life, I'd say over half the people I've discussed this with who have involved fathers feel their lives would have been better with less paternal involvement. The presence of a father is not necessarily panacea, and the absence of a father isn't necessarily a recipe for disaster. It is more important to have positive adult role models, and I think this article went too far in assuming that a biological father is automatically a positive adult role model.

Safety in randomness

I still feel perfectly safe in Toronto. This is not because of race or money as some assert, but rather because the vast majority of murders in Toronto are related to gangs or drugs. Neither I nor anyone I know is involved in gangs or drugs, and while it would be foolish to assert that these problems do not exist in my neighbourhood, they do not occur openly in the areas I frequent. Therefore, the only way I'm likely to get murdered is by accident, and I can live with those odds. I realize that random accidents are the very thing that many people find scary, but I would be much more frightened if there was a serial killer out there whose target demographic I fit perfectly. The people doing the killing don't actively want to kill me, and that's enough to make me not worry.