NEWARK, NJ—We need to stop deluding ourselves into thinking that gun violence, mass shootings, and domestic terrorism are the result of a rise in mental disorders, depression, or distress among the perpetrators. We need to call out what we are seeing with unflinching clarity: The fundamental cause of the violence we see is White Supremacist-Patriarchal fear of losing the power and privilege ascribed to the psychology, system, and culture of “whiteness” itself. 

We know the perpetrators of this violence: Young, alienated, disaffected, angry — in a word, lost — white males who see no future for themselves. They see “their” America fading into the dustbin of history. They know that America is no longer a white-majority nation. They see the legal gains made through legitimate struggle (for legitimate historical reasons) by Peoples of Color, the LGBTQ+ community, and other oppressed groups. They abhor the social, cultural, and legal changes that have been achieved by those struggles, for they do not see themselves as benefactors or beneficiaries of those achievements — because it’s all about them.

They do not see freedom for others as freedom for them because the belief system of Whiteness demands the existence of “inferiors,” “others,” and “those people.” The belief system of whiteness demands the existence of inequality, subservience, and hierarchy. And I dare say, literally half the nation needs to feel superior to others in order to feel good about itself. At the risk of simplistic, reductionist thinking, I honestly believe it is as simple as that, for no other reasons make any logical, rational, or plausible goddamn sense.

Let us acknowledge this truth: Most white Americans need to believe they are superior.  And they will lie to themselves to hold onto that falsehood. They will deny their history of conquest, colonialism, chattel and sexual slavery, global imperialist exploitation, and war — and force schools to teach a revisionist history to their children and ours. They will bend the rules of justice and fair play. If they can’t bend the rules, they will change the rules without a hint of guilt or shame. Rules, laws, norms, tradition, facts, evidence, or simply what is true all do not matter if it means losing the power of Whiteness. In the words of our great Funk genius, Sly Stone, “It’s the truth that the Truth makes them so uptight.”

I have stated repeatedly that we are in the throes of civil war. Most Americans have yet to come to terms with this reality because the overwhelming majority of this war’s casualties are the oppressed and marginalized America, The Others.  But now, we bear witness as ever-increasing numbers of white Americans fall victim to this civil war.  White men, women, and children are now slaughtered in the streets by their own young white male “lone wolves,” diseased by the psychological and mental disorder of White Supremacy and White Patriarchy because a multiethnic, pluralistic, secular democratic America is so anathema to their very sense of self-worth, they are willing to “eat their own” to reverse the course of this nation’s experimental path toward “a more perfect union.” In their minds and through their actions, they are perfectly willing to destroy this nation to save it.

As for the rest of us, we can no longer be deluded with obfuscations about what is happening in and to America and the reasons why. Yes, there is a deeply demented, deeply endemic psychological pall — dare I say, specter — haunting our nation, which is compelling one half of it to destroy the other. It is the sick, evil, self-destructive belief system of Whiteness that is at the heart of our nation’s problem. Any other diagnosis is utter delusion.