Blog Post 4

The article that I am making a blog post about is titled, "It's not about mental illness: The big lie that always follows mass shootings by white males." This article made some very interesting points. Every time a white male commits a mass murder people tend to lean in for the "mentally ill" excuse. It goes to show the way our society views mentally ill people. Although I never believed the excuses because I thought it was a cover up, I never actually realized how it must feel for people who are mentally ill to be associated with that kind of behavior. Exactly as the author put it, we are "throwing them under the bus". Because they are one of the most underrepresented people in society and they have no advocate that will come out and speak on their behalf and explain why giving these completely sane murderers the title of mentally ill is offensive. It was so true when the author talked about how there has been so many people who have done far worse things in history so how could they all have been mentally ill? I think it stems from the refusal to admit that the most evil actions that have ever taken place in history has been from completely sane people, so we want to blame those who cannot defend themselves. If we admit that hitler was sane, stalin was sane, then it just does not look good for the majority of us. It means that we can be potentially more dangerous than the "crazy" guy down the block. Another thing that stood out to me was the medias pickiness when it comes to vocabulary describing such atrocities. They are quick to call a person a terrorist if he is from middle eastern decent but a person of European decent is just mentally ill. If the definition of terrorism remains the same, why does the title depend on the person's ethnicity? This demonstrates the medias bias and desire to brainwash people, which in itself is a form of instilling fear and dividing people by creating a scapegoat. It reminds me people rarely call the KKK a terrorist organization and how every time it is a white male we always refrain from using that specific language even if their actions represent the exact definition. In some ways, this is white privilege manifesting itself even in the worst of atrocities. The privilege to commit mass murder and still be judged as an individual, and not your entire race or religion. The privilege of another white person walking down the street the next day and not having to worry about an ignorant person thinking that somehow because they share the same race or religion they have anything to do with that ideology. This article made some very interesting points and it was a good read.