When The Body Says No
The day after the Ulvade shootings, I walked into a coffee shop and read the headline on the newspaper on the table. I had heard already, but had some wires crossed: aren’t you talking about Buffalo? I scanned the newspaper. Another wave of grief hit me hard. I didn’t stop the tears. Must have been awkward for the barista. Twelve ounce oat milk latte, thanks.
«»
I was in seventh grade when two teenagers shot up Columbine High School in 1999. The media speculated for months: who were these boys, and why would they do such a thing? Bedrooms full of written plans and weapons and black clothes and devil music gave them something to blame.
Having been 12, I do not remember the gun lobby being a part of the media conversation. Perhaps their speechwriters were drafting the same deflective answers we’re still hearing 23 years later: that the answer to mass shootings is more guns in schools, on the hips of teachers, perhaps, or school police officers who may or may not be willing to interfere with an active shooter.
I don’t remember thinking or fearing that something like that would happen to me or my school. It was heartbreaking and unthinkable then.
It’s still heartbreaking, but not unthinkable now. Mass shootings in America are more common than days in the week. Most are not even reported nationally, unless the death toll is high enough, relative to other newsworthy items on a particular day. In his latest essay, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar outlines some Mass Shooting Numbers in 2022 that probably won’t shock you.
«»«»«»
Zoom out. Refocus.
A virus appears. People get sick. Many die. No one knows what’s going on. The virus spreads and more people get sick and more people die. They give it three names so the media folks don’t trip over themselves repeating the same word a thousand times a minute. The virus becomes the invisible enemy. Trauma responses clog the airways. Businesses everywhere shut down.
It becomes such an issue that nations become involved, enforcing curfews, restricting travel. Thinktanks and corporations put their best and brightest on the case. How do we keep it from spreading? How do we keep people from dying? They put the virus under microscopes. They watch it, harness it, figure out a vaccine. Major technological advances in health care, distribution networks, communication, all the things. People are still dying.
Planet Earth takes a deep breath of relief for a few months, a year maybe. Humans rally all over the world to distribute vaccines. Billions are administered. Pandemic slows. The virus is still around, of course. Fewer people die, though. Eager to finally scroll past the covid-19 posts, we pat ourselves on the backs and get back to life.
«»
Solving a pandemic was easy compared to what it may take for America to ‘solve’ the problem of mass shootings, which are symptoms of a much deeper, much scarier truth that has little to do with guns.
America has a connection problem. Many of us are raised from birth to be independent individuals who are to take care of ourselves and make our own way in the world. That’s great for capitalism, but most humans don’t work like that. Our species is largely a social one, and tends to thrive on things like love, intimacy, validation, empathy, and connection with others.
Since before our child was born, I have heard and witnessed dozens of rants and one-way conversations about how to raise and train a child to be in this world. I have often felt activated during these barrages of words, not because of the content, which is sometimes dubious, but because the human speaking wasn’t tracking me, asking whether I wanted to hear what they had to say. In these moments I felt no respect or honoring of me as a sovereign person. They were just doing their thing at me. To me.
Perhaps that was activating the part of me who experienced something similar as a child, and built up a defense mechanism to protect myself. To this day, when I get overwhelmed, I often withdraw (one reason why I haven’t written much on Engaging Fatherhood in the last month or so—more on that soon).
I imagine what it’s like for many children whose parents lack self-awareness and other important internal resources that can aid them in the child-rearing process. Parents who may or may not be aware of the ways they perpetuate their own traumas upon their kids, and who may or may not have the capacity to feel and work through the guilt or shame that may come with acknowledging that, in the moment or later.
I imagine a what it’s like for a nation which has built its foundation as the richest and most powerful country on earth on stolen land; whose history of violence, rape, slavery, and narcissism—and however it continues to justify them—keeps it from being able to see, acknowledge, or feel how its actions and experiences during its developmental stages have caused irreparable harm.
Dr. Gabor Maté, in his book, When the Body Says No, talks about how the early traumas humans experience in life can, if we do not acknowledge and work to heal them, lead to cancer and other life-threatening diseases.
Is a similar concept true for humans at scale? Is it possible that mass shootings, rather than a problem of policy, are a kind of cancer? Could there be a more blaring signal that might bring our awareness and attention to the actual problems here?
Maybe, like everything else, it’s just too much. Call in the covid excuse.
I have a lot of compassion for this nation. And I believe the change many of us want to see is not going to happen until more humans die: kids, by the hands of their peers, and the adults who care more about guns and money and controlling women’s bodies than about the children they birth.