North America – Page 16 – UAB Institute for Human Rights Blog

Representation and Respect: Addressing Transgender Rights at UAB and Beyond

On Thursday, September 13, the Institute for Human Rights had the opportunity to host Joan Rater and Tony Phelan, parents to actor and student Tom Phelan; and Brianna Patterson, a transgender activist, veteran, former firefighter and UAB health educator. Joan covered her journey as a parent supporting her transgender son and advocating for trans representation on television, while Brianna shared her story of being a transwoman from the South, moving from social isolation to embracing her womanhood.

**Brianna, Joan and Tony Engaging with the Audience. Source: UAB Institute for Human Rights**

Joan opened with a presentation titled “Transforming My Family”, where she spoke about Tom’s transition that began at 17 but addressed his once reserved feelings about his gender. Tom was very confident as child, but this withered with his teens, becoming suicidal and even briefly moving from Malibu to Boston with his family so he could receive outpatient treatment. One day, after his mental health improved, while being dropped off at school, Joan and Tony received an email from Tom as he walked to class. The email was Tom’s proclamation of being transgender, at the time using they/them/their pronouns, while including resources for his parents to better understand. Usage of the internet and technology has proven to be a positive resource, not only for people in the transgender community to communicate, but to inform allies about the transgender experience, allowing to amplify these traditionally marginalized voices.

A year into his transition, with support of his parents, Tom pursued “top surgery” which is the process of removing one’s breasts through medical procedure. As soon as he had his doctor’s approval to workout, he began jogging without a shirt, feeling a sense of liberation. Soon after, Tom debated the idea of hormone therapy that would ultimately change his voice, becoming a compromise between his options as an actor and happiness. Tom chose the latter, eventually leading to a role as a trans teen, Cole, on ABC Family’s The Fosters. Once Joan saw her son’s role validating the experience of transgender fans, she saw it was her and Tony’s obligation, as television producers/screenwriters, to amplify such voices through media representation. This led to emergence CBS’s Doubt, including Laverne Cox as Cam, a transgender law graduate from Yale University who often litigated for underrepresented clients, contributing to the mainstreaming of complex, genuine transgender identities.

She then demonstrated the importance of voting in support of transgender rights and, if possible, donating to people and organizations who fight injustice professionally. Joan closed by insisting that when facing transphobia, we must be brave and cannot allow intolerance to go unchecked.

Brianna Patterson, an Alabama native and current health educator at UAB’s 1917 Clinic, shared the challenges and accomplishments throughout her journey, including her transition that began in 2012. Brianna expressed the first time she “felt different” was in 1^st grade, not knowing how to identify these feelings and consistently using the girls’ restroom. Also, with being raised by strict grandparents, Brianna claimed to have been disciplined violently when caught experimenting with her grandmother’s clothes. At the age of 14, Brianna experienced her first suicide attempt, followed by self-isolation in high school, poor grades and an immediate retreat to the United State Marine Corps (USMC) at 17.

Brianna felt her new home in the USMC gave her the unconditional love she didn’t receive back home. Although, she described having internalized transphobia because she didn’t feel masculine enough. However, after serving her term in USMC, which included tours during the Somalian civil war, Brianna, still, didn’t feel masculine enough. This led to her joining the fire service at a local department in Alabama, which she served for 23 years. Toward the end of this career, Brianna pursued hormone therapy, but was first refused care by nine different physicians throughout the state, demonstrating the discrimination transgender patients experience in the health care field. One day, after producing her driver license with her new name, following a traffic accident, the local officer spread the word about Brianna’s identity. As a result, two years before being eligible for retirement, the city council voted to demote Brianna’s Captain status, highlighting how Alabama doesn’t provide protections for the transgender community.

Soon after, Brianna finished her Master’s in Public Health, first working for Planned Parenthood and now representing UAB’s 1917 Clinic, a job she loves because she gets to address vaccine education, recruit research participants and address health issues salient to the transgender community. Although there was a silver lining in Brianna’s story, many don’t include such an ending, demonstrating the need for local, national and international protections for the transgender community.

Following Joan and Brianna’s presentations, the guests, alongside Tony, fielded questions from the audience, including insurance coverage for gender confirmation surgery, internet support networks, advice for coming out and how to be a genuine ally to the transgender community. Brianna responded to the latter by confidently saying, “The best way to be an ally: Treat everyone like a human being. Educate yourself. And if you wouldn’t ask a cis woman that question, you shouldn’t ask a trans woman that question.”

The Voting Rights Act Today

by Pamela Zuber

What Is the Voting Rights Act and Its Legacy?

August 6, 2018 marked the fifty-third anniversary of the signing of the Voting Rights Act. U.S. president Lyndon B. Johnson signed this legislation in the hopes that it would end discriminatory practices that made it difficult for African Americans and other people to vote.

As idealistic as it was, the legislation did not stop such difficulties. Like other laws, the Voting Rights Act has produced mixed results.

But, given recent developments, it appears that the legislation has done more good than harm. Enforcing its measures has supported the voting efforts of many people, while suppressing its measures has had the opposite effect.

America-themed converse sneakers depict the word "VOTE" — Source: Theresa Thompson, Creative Commons

What Is the History Behind the Voting Rights Act?

Ratified in 1870, the Fifteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution stated that the “right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.”

But, for decades, authorities still found ways to disenfranchise African Americans, immigrants, and the poor. They issued literacy tests under the pretense that only the educated should allowed to vote. They levied poll taxes that charged people fees to vote. U.S. women, of course, faced blatant discrimination, too, since they did not have the right to vote until 1920.

Protests against disenfranchisement and other violations of human and civil rights, especially in the 1960s, shone spotlights on these injustices. This publicity sometimes came at great costs to the participants.

Protesters sometimes needed medical care due to the brutal treatment they received at the hands of police or civilian vigilantes. Vicious beatings, attacks from police dogs, blasts from fire hoses, and death threats were common tactics used against the protesters.

Some attacks were even worse. Some people lynched or shot protesters who questioned the status quo.

James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael “Mickey” Schwerner traveled to Mississippi in June, 1964 to advocate for educational and voting opportunities for African Americans. The Ku Klux Klan (KKK) murdered them. The KKK members did not face criminal prosecution for the crime at the time.

Decades later, in 2005, a local newspaper investigation produced evidence that helped lead to the conviction of a local Klansman. But, even then, justice was muted, since the Klansman’s conviction was on charges of manslaughter, not murder.

People thus used both discriminatory legislation and outright illegal intimidation to prevent African Americans from voting. The Voting Rights Act aimed to end these tactics.

What Did the Voting Rights Act Do?

Partly, at least for a time. The Voting Rights Act significantly increased the number of African American voters in some areas. In Mississippi, six percent of African Americans voted in 1964. Just five years later, sixty-nine percent of African Americans voted in Mississippi.

Because of the Voting Rights Act, states and local governments are no longer able to issue tests that restrict some people from voting. It is no longer legal for authorities to intimidate people physically, mentally, or financially in order to prevent them from participating in government affairs.

To enforce the act, Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act created a coverage formula to determine if jurisdictions complied with the act. As part of this formula, the federal government monitored jurisdictions that had discriminated against voters in the past.

The formula required that jurisdictions

Suspend literary tests or other tests used to determine whether people were eligible to vote.
Submit themselves to review by the U.S. attorney general or Washington DC’s district court if the jurisdictions made voting-related changes.
Agree to be under the review of federal examiners who would prepare lists of eligible voters.
Work with federal observers in jurisdictions with federal examiners.
Allow people who have attended foreign-language elementary schools to vote.
Provide information and voting opportunities for non-English speakers.

Many of the stipulations in the coverage formula required federal oversight if jurisdictions wanted to change election procedures or laws, a process known as preclearance. Preclearance was the law of the land for decades, but it was not without its criticism.

The criticism prompted many challenges and lawsuits, which culminated in the 2013 U.S. Supreme Court decision Shelby County v. Holder. This decision invalidated the coverage formula and said that the U.S. Congress could create new coverage formulas, but Congress has not done so.

What Do Voting Rights Look Like Today?

Less oversight has eroded the Voting Rights Act and voters’ rights in general. Despite this legislation and the gains it brought, people are finding an increasing number of barriers to voting.

A growing number of jurisdictions have added requirements for voting or are asking voters to consider such requirements:

Many states require people to possess specific forms of identification, such as driver’s licenses, in order to vote. Many older or disabled adults do not have such identification, so it can make it difficult for them to register to vote.
Alabama closed thirty-one offices that issued driver’s licenses in 2015 even though the state had strict laws that required voters to show identification, such as driver’s licenses, in order to vote. Many of the offices were located in areas with high African American populations and were reopened due to criticism.
North Carolina residents will vote in November 2018 to determine if the state should add an amendment to the state constitution stating that voters will need photo identification to vote in future elections. A federal court struck down a similar North Carolina law in 2016.
New Hampshire passed a 2018 law that required people to be permanent full-time residents if they wanted to vote in the state.
Wisconsin residents at a 2018 hearing testified that changes in their voting districts had spread Democratic Party voters across such a large geographic area that their votes were rendered less powerful. Critics also claim that the state has excessively strict voter ID laws that disproportionately affect Democratic Party and African American voters.

Wisconsin residents voted for Republican Party candidate Donald Trump over Democratic Party candidate Hillary Clinton in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Trump’s narrow victory in Wisconsin helped him win the Electoral College and the presidency.

If Wisconsin’s Democratic Party voters were in fact suppressed, voter suppression could have decided the outcome of the 2016 presidential election. Voter suppression thus could have wide-ranging consequences.

After being shot, a black American man sprawls on the ground — Source: Cliff, Creative Commons

Why Are Voting Rights Important?

As the case of Wisconsin indicates, changing the voting districts can muffle citizens’ voices – and those are people who are allowed to register and cast votes. Voter suppression laws also make it difficult for people to even register to vote in the first place.

But, voting is a fundamental tool of citizenship. It enables people to express their opinions through their ballots. In the words of Ajanet Rountree, voting invites people to join the “political and social narrative.”

If people cannot vote, they cannot join this discussion. If disabled people lack certain types of photo IDs in states that require such IDs, or if they are not able to arrange transportation to the polling places, they will be unable vote or even to register to vote.

The disabled people might miss opportunities to vote for candidates or issues that have direct bearing on their lives. For example, they might miss the opportunity to vote for a candidate who consistently votes in favor of expanded Medicaid coverage.

The suppressed voters might rely on Medicaid to pay for their considerable medical expenses. But, if they do not have adequate Medicaid coverage, they could experience problems with their physical and mental health. This lack of Medicaid coverage could even affect the people’s finances and living situations if their rent/mortgage money has to be reallocated to pay for their rising medical costs. Not being able to vote could thus directly impact people in several ways.

Proponents of strict ID laws say that the requirements can help prevent voter fraud. But, observers note that voter fraud appears to be more common among people who use absentee ballots, people who are predominantly white. ID requirements do not typically address absentee ballots.

Voter identification laws disproportionately affect nonwhite voters. Writing in Newsweek, Mirren Gidda noted that “the turnout gaps between white and ethnic minority voters are far higher in states where people must show ID during or after voting.”

Others commentators echo these findings. “[R]esearchers found that strict ID laws doubled the turnout gap between whites and Latinos in the general elections, and almost doubled the white-black turnout gap in primary elections,” wrote Vann R. Newkirk II in The Atlantic.

Because of this disparity, organizations such as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) have worked to challenge discriminatory laws and enforce the provisions of the Voting Rights Act. The NAACP sued Alabama after the closure of many driver’s license offices and was active in the Shelby County v. Holder case.

Organizations such as Let America Vote are hoping to invite more people to join the civic discussion. The organization includes information about registering to vote and voter guides to different elections. It supports candidates in different states who have worked to uphold voter rights.

The NAACP and Let America Vote join other organizations that promote enfranchisement. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) website includes a wealth of information about its advocacy and other efforts to promote voting rights.

Voter suppression currently exists. But, if we utilize the provisions of the Voting Rights Act and other efforts that support voting, we can work to restore and enforce this fundamental right of democracy.

About the author: Pamela Zuber is a writer and editor interested in current events, history, health, business, and a wide variety of other topics.

The United Nations and Psychosocial Disabilities

Recently, members from UAB’s Institute for Human Rights (IHR), including myself, had the opportunity to visit the United Nations (UN) in New York City for the 11th Conference of States Parties (COSP) on the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). The CRPD is an agreement that details the rights of persons with disabilities (PWD) with a list of codes for implementation, where both states and disabled people’s organizations (DPOs) are suggested to coordinate to fulfill such rights. Currently, the CRPD has 177 ratifying parties, with the United States being one of the last to have not ratified it, although it was modeled after the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), the cornerstone for disability rights in the U.S.

I had the opportunity the serve as rapporteur for Round 3 of the General Debate, witnessing representatives address issues such as education and employment barriers for PWD in rural Afghanistan, India’s concern about the treatment of women and girls with disabilities, Malta’s 20 million Euro dedication to programs and organizations for PWD and Peace 3 Foundation describing how climate change disproportionately endangers PWD. Additionally, I attended many side events that covered topics such as the Voice of Specially Abled People (VOSAP) phone app, barriers to political participation in the Middle East and North Africa, and the first Regional Report of the Americas. The side events were less formal and engaging because the audience was welcomed to participate by sharing their thoughts and expertise, allowing coalition building to take place.

**IHR at the 11th COSP to the CRPD. Source: UAB Institute for Human Rights**

Amid this experience, there were a few important lessons learned. First, there is an enormous push for inclusive education, as opposed to special education, which values PWD’s contributions, equips them with essential skills and validates their societal presence. This approach would allow PWD, namely children, to learn and grow with their peers. Secondly, many nations are not responsibly addressing psychosocial disabilities which are clinical conditions/illnesses that affect one’s thoughts, judgments or emotions. Many countries have legislation that prevent people with an “unsound mind” from full participation in society, which doesn’t relate to one’s acts, but only their character. This stigmatizing approach effectively criminalizes their disability status, possibly resulting in forced institutionalization that separates them from loved ones and their community. Finally, there are countless people worldwide addressing disability rights. In the U.S., it seems disability rights are in the background, while other justice causes get most of the attention; however, I am confident that persistent coalition-building between justice organizations, especially in our impassioned political climate, will change this narrative, much like the collaborations built through the CRPD.

I want to use this blog as an opportunity to address an issue that has personal sentiments and speaks to my second point, stigma toward people with psychosocial disabilities (PWPD). Given my experience working in homeless shelters and having someone close to me who was institutionalized for their schizophrenia diagnosis, I believe there is a cultural disparity in how we talk about psychosocial disabilities because, on many occasions, they are addressed from a criminal and/or deviant lens, often devaluing the person(s) being addressed. According to the Mental Health and Human Rights Resolution of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, PWPD are defined as those, “…regardless of self-identification or diagnosis of a mental health condition, face restrictions in the exercise of their rights and barriers to participation on the basis of an actual or perceived impairment.” Psychosocial disabilities differ, meaning they are capable of being episodic, invisible and/or not clearly defined (e.g. depression, post-traumatic stress disorder and schizophrenia). Also, psychosocial disabilities are subjected to a medical narrative that arguably benefits mental health industries more than consumers.

Two years ago, during the 9^th COSOP to the CRPD, Paul Deany (Disability Rights Fund Program Officer) claimed psychosocial disabilities are addressed in many countries through Western-influenced legislation that is separate from other disabilities, streamlining the establishment of psychiatric institutions that undermine fundamental issues for PWPD such as workforce participation, health care and political/rights. Therefore, we cannot view this concern as being exclusive to poor, underdeveloped nations because psychosocial disability stigma in rich, developed nations have fed this narrative and still have a prominent effect on PWPD. Although, to achieve collaborative global efforts that empower PWPD, supportive mental health policy must, first, be endorsed on the homefront. For example, political turmoil in the U.S. has contributed to recent events geared to strip health coverage from millions of vulnerable Americans. These efforts clearly demonstrate political incompetence of the mental health discussion at-large and confess to a larger narrative that admits power doesn’t always equate to knowledge and global leadership must be justified, not assumed.

Although many countries have enacted and enforced rights for PWPD, other countries are falling behind. For example, in Indonesia, roughly 18,000 people are forced into pasung, the practice of shackling or locking one in a confined space. Although pasung was banned by Indonesian authorities in 1977, families and healers continue to exercise this inhumane practice because they believe evil spirits or immoral behavior induce such disabilities. A similar practice in Ghana, at Nyakumasi Prayer Camp, was scrutinized last year, followed by the release of 16 people and the country’s Mental Health Authority claiming they would begin properly enforcing the shackling ban put into law in 2012. Such treatment of PWPD clearly impinges the Universal Declaration for Human Rights (UDHR), a watershed document for global peace, by violating commitments to end “cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment” (Article 5) and equal protection before the law without discrimination (Article 7).

To someone living in the modern U.S., such treatment seems unimaginable. However, past images of PWPD experiencing isolation and inhumane treatment inside the asylum walls are now echoed from a different, yet similar, perspective. During the mid-20th century, the U.S. underwent a period of deinstitutionalization which saw the closing of large state institutions that harbored PWPD. Largely due to the advent of the antipsychotic drug Thorazine, thousands of people were discharged from state mental hospitals and the shutting of such doors soon followed. However, the following decades have seen an influx of criminalizing PWPD, leading to their incarceration, where jails and prisons now serve as some of the nation’s largest de facto mental hospitals. This series of events, which moves PWPD from one total institution to another, undermines the liberation narrative of deinstitutionalization by continuing to segregate PWPD from their families and communities. As a result, this misfortune contributes to the current crisis that has seen the U.S. prison population increase by 408% between 1978 and 2014.

These appalling scenarios underscore a comment made by the representative of Kenya, during my visit to the UN, who insisted that policy cannot solely enforce human rights because programming must also be present to guide that path. Since 2007, Users and Survivors of Psychiatry in Kenya, a DPO, has not only influenced legislation that expands the rights of PWPD, but also organizes participatory public education programs through various media outlets, challenging stigma and misconceptions. On the other side of the Atlantic, in Connecticut, the Center for Prisoner Health and Human Rights works with local governments, universities and health systems to ensure recently incarcerated people access health care and insurance. Many of the individuals receiving such care access health-related goods and services to treat psychosocial disabilities that could’ve influenced or been a byproduct of their incarceration. Looking forward, this is the type of advocacy and programming that needs to be highlighted so it can be shown that good governance, particularly through the CRPD and ADA, is possible.

America’s Youngest Prisoners: Inhumanity of Family Detention

**As the US government flip-flops on its “zero-tolerance” Biblical mandated immigration policy that isn’t a policy but enforcement of the law, this repost, from this February, describes some of state-sanctioned child abuse and human rights violations experienced those seeking safety in “the land of the free and home of the brave.” You can read more information and some of the latest reports: here, here, here, including former first lady Laura Bush, and this video of UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.

The United States has long been lauded as the land of the free. As Americans, we have a tendency to consider our country to be an almost utopian land, far removed from the bleak landscapes and brutal violence of foreign countries that appear on the news. However, this ethnocentric attitude blinds us to the human rights abuses that happen frequently within our borders. Family detention centers are one such environment where human rights are regularly violated. The United States has three remaining family detention centers, referred to as “baby jails” by dissidents. Family detention has dwindled over the years due to protest, but our government currently detains close to 3,000 non-criminal immigrant mothers and children in horrifying conditions.

A couple sits next to a large wall with graffiti saying "Freedom," and "Take down this wall!" — Yarl’s Wood Protest. Source: iDJ Photography, Creative Commons.

“We are not delinquents who should be imprisoned.” – Eleven-year-old girl on her detention at Berks County Residential Center

Of the three family detention centers that remain open, the South Texas Family Residential Center (Dilley, Texas) is by far the largest. The other two centers, Karnes County Detention Center (Karnes City, Texas) and Berks County Detention Center (Leesport, Pennsylvania), hold less than 700 detainees combined. Dilley, as it is known, has a capacity for 2,400 inmates and, as of 2015, holds over 1,000 children and around 750 mothers. The fifty acres of land that comprise the Dilley center are dotted with small, two-bedroom, one-bathroom cottages with no kitchen, no telephones, and hold up to eight people per house. Nights in all centers are punctuated with officials checking in by shining flashlights on the sleeping families every fifteen minutes, reportedly causing insomnia and anxiety for the children. Medical care is essentially non-existent, as individuals report that the available doctors often only advise mothers to give their children water for any sickness they might have instead of prescribing medicine. On-site doctors have prescribed water instead of medical care for broken fingers, conjunctivitis, and even for a child who vomited blood, according to detainee’s reports.

A young child in a pink dress has her fingers held by a white-sleeved hand for an examination. — The Touch of Hands. Source: Alex Priomos, Creative Commons.

“Simply, they don’t care. What is more important for them is control. These are delicate situations when someone is sick and vulnerable. They just care about control. I thought I came to this country to escape abuse, mistreatment and disrespect. But it’s the same here.” – a detainee at the South Texas Family Residential Center

The conditions at these centers are incredibly dangerous for children and mothers. Many mothers at the center have already faced sexual assault, brutal violence, or threats of murder against them and their family. This would normally grant these families asylum status, which is a status granted to people who are unable to return to their home country for fear of persecution. Asylum status is granted partially on the basis of past abuse or violence enacted on a person by a foreign government, but trauma survivors often struggle sharing details that would ensure asylum. Most asylum hearings do not have childcare available, so mothers must choose between either sharing explicit traumas in front of their children in order to be granted asylum or minimizing their struggle to protect their children but be denied asylum. The conditions of the centers themselves also are fraught with abuse. An increase in violence in Central America has led to an influx of migrants from unstable countries; most of the detainees at detention centers are of Central or South American origin and predominantly speak Spanish. However, few staff members are fluent in Spanish and the subsequent miscommunication lead to abuse. The women are rarely allowed to speak on the phone, and it is next to impossible to obtain legal advice privately within the centers. This denies women the ability to detail abuses of the center without fear of retribution by the staff. Detainees have been raped and assaulted by guards without adequate punishment; in 2016, a guard was sentenced to less than two years in prison after being found guilty of institutionally raping a nineteen-year-old Honduran woman.

Additionally, the children are deeply at risk for developmental regression and major psychological trauma. According to a report by the child advocacy group First Focus, over half of all children in family detention centers are under the age of six. Children under six are undergoing crucial stages in their development, and can easily be traumatized for the rest of their lives if exposed to the stress of detention centers. Children who have been detained are shown to have increased psychological issues such as anxiety, depression, PTSD, self-harming, and suicidal thoughts or actions. Even short durations of being detained can have the same impact of week-long detention on children. Mothers have frequently reported their children losing unhealthy amounts of weight quickly, but doctors reportedly overlook the weight loss by claiming that the children are simply not used to the food or even claiming that they are bulimic. Children have been forced to sleep in rooms with non-related adults, creating a vulnerable situation that puts children at risk for sexual assault. At a now-closed center, kids as young as eighteen months were made to wear prison jumpsuits and expected to sleep in locked rooms with open-air toilets. Though the detention center where this occurred was shut down several years ago, similar abuses that display a blatant disregard for immigrant’s human rights have occurred in all family detention centers.

A crowd of people appear to be yelling as they hold signs that say "Close Karnes." — “Karnes Petition Delivery.” Source: WeAreUltraViolet, Creative Commons.

The overwhelming issue is that there is no legislation that ensures appropriate standards for immigrant detention. Management is left to the private companies who own the centers, and the desire for profit often overwhelms the adherence to ethical treatment. GEO Group, the company who runs Karnes, received $161 million in taxpayer dollars in 2015 from their contract with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Dilley, run by CoreCivic, generates 14% of the company’s income each year, despite owning seventy-four other prison centers– CoreCivic took away $71.6 million dollars from Dilley alone. These detention centers generate huge profits, which encourages the prison owners to fill beds with more detained immigrants. Last year, legislation was introduced in Texas to allow family detention centers to obtain child care facility licensing without meeting the minimum standards that other child care facilities must meet. Eventually, the bill was not passed and licensing was revoked from the Karnes center. However, the center continues to detain children. This is in direct violation of the Flores Agreement, which states that detained children must be kept in the least restrictive environment possible, requires child care licensing, and states that detainment for over three weeks is unlawful. Inaction from the government enables these centers to continue substandard practices that have harmed and will continue to harm children.

"Kids Out of Detention Centers" is stamped onto concrete in black ink with barbed wires surrounding the text. — Keep Kids Out of Detention Centers. Source: Stephen Mitchell, Creative Commons.

The government justifies the practice of detainment through “aggressive deterrence strategy,” which is meant to dissuade more migrants from attempting to gain entry to the United States. This strategy is not effective; the mass violence that many immigrants flee from is far deadlier than the misery of detainment, though both are damaging to families. Women with children are the least mobile group among communities in conflict, and often only flee in the face of real danger. Essentially, families who have fled violence must go somewhere, and the United States is both geographically convenient and generally safe. To deny families refuge is cruel enough, but to create more misery, vulnerability and trauma through inhumane detainment should be an unacceptable practice. We cannot deny that the United States is violating the human rights of thousands of children and mothers. Children in detention centers have a right to education, a right to an adequate standard of health, and the right to freedom from torture, along with all other human rights as defined by the UDHR. Educational needs have not been met by any standard, available healthcare is abominable, and much of the circumstances for detained children could be defined as torture or degrading treatment. Beyond this, the practice of family detention alone is a violation of the human rights of many detained children, as the Convention on the Rights of the Child states:

“No child shall be deprived of his or her liberty unlawfully or arbitrarily. The arrest, detention or imprisonment of a child shall be in conformity with the law and shall be used only as a measure of last resort and for the shortest appropriate period of time.”

The conditions in which these vulnerable groups have been forced into are inhumane and dangerous. The detainment of children at U.S. centers rarely conform to the law adequately and detainment periods are often months long. Family detention is punitive by nature, yet none of the detained mothers or children in family detention centers are detained on the basis of crime. Data collected by the Detention Watch Network shows that the majority of families in the centers qualify for asylum status and therefore deserve to be freed, but institutional obstacles prevented the obtainment of that status. Families in detainment simply seek safety and protection from violent conflict in their home country. The mother who make the decision to uproot their homes in search of a better life have not committed a crime, and neither have the children who accompany them. The United States is actively harming a blameless population who has already been subject to trauma and abuse. This problem is not confined to the United States; family detainment occurs around the world in varying degrees of injustice from Australia to Israel. It is essential to call attention to this issue in order to preserve the human rights of children internationally. The global community must condemn the actions of any government that engages in the inhumane practice family detention.

A LGBTQ+ Perspective on Today’s World

picture of a gay pride rally in Leeds, England — Leeds Pride. Source: Bryan Ledgard, Creative Commons,

A LGBTQ+ youth today may look at the world around them and think all hope is lost. It is understandable because the possibility of an entire community losing their civil rights at any moment is creating a looming fear. As human beings, we all come to terms with ourselves in our own ways; whether it is simply growing into yourself in order to find out who you are, or growing into someone you never imagined. The process of coming to terms with identity is completely different when your sexuality is not the “social norm.” Growing up, I felt scared of myself, and fearful of what the future might hold for people like me. However in 2015, when marriage equality became law, I thought to myself, “We are finally getting to a place where children will not have to grow up like I did.”

My story is not the same as every LGBTQ+ individual around the country, and certainly not across the globe. Every day, I wake up hoping that I do not hear of another story about a Matthew Shepard or Pulse Nightclub tragedy. To live as an open member of the LGBTQ+ community is to live in a constant state of worry. You may not always feel it, but the hum of it, however quiet it may be, still echoes through the back of your mind. It is a worry for your brothers, sisters, others of your community, and for yourself. This infringes upon our right to security, as we are afraid to be ourselves in public spaces. This fear even extends to private places because for many, our families are the main aggressors. For youths who suffer through the pain of oppression at the hands their family, there is never a true sense of peace.

I have faced discrimination throughout the course of my life. Based on my rumored sexuality, I experienced exclusion from many of things. It is a pivotal moment in one’s life when they choose to come out. It is a time that you accept all the ridicule, the torment, and the imminent threat of attack. I have emotional scars from peers and family that still haunt me to this day. Yet, what hurts me most is the look in another person’s eyes when they become aware of my sexuality; it is that look—from people whom I have never met—which is devastating. How can someone who knows nothing about me, judge me?

While the future for American LGBTQ+ youth seems frightening and uncertain, it is nothing compared to those of the LGBTQ+ community across the globe. A LGBTQ+ youth in the Middle East and Northern Africa has a different perspective based upon cultural experience and a belief that there is no hope and fear that there never will be–an upbringing filled with trials comparatively different to those I suffered as a youth. Living as an open member of the LGBTQ+ community in a Muslim country can potentially turn into a life threatening choice. Imagine that: telling your friends and family who you are, and then fearing that your life could end at that exact moment. That fear, no matter how far from home, affects us all.

Turkey is one of the few Middle Eastern countries where homosexuality is legal. Unfortunately, homophobia is still very prevalent so when a group of members from the community tried to initiate their own Pride festival, local authorities shot them with water cannons, rubber bullets, and sprayed them with tear gas. Across the Middle East, there are standing laws to persecute those of the LGBTQ+ community, including imprisonment for up to 10 years. In Ancient Egypt, being gay or lesbian was a godlike quality; however, in modern times, homosexuality is viewed as sin and punishable by death. When the White House went up in rainbow colored lights in 2015, the authorities in Saudi Arabia went on the hunt. Children face death around the country for “deviant” behavior by their own governments. A privately run school in Riyadh was fined $26,500 (in U.S. dollars) for painting the rooftop in rainbow stripes, and one of the administrators for the school was jailed for allowing such a “monstrosity”. Afghanistan banned the decorating of cars with rainbow stickers because it “may be misinterpreted.” In Iran, Yemen, and other Middle Eastern countries, many face execution for engaging in sodomy.

a picture of a city hall building, lighted with rainbow colored lights in honor of gay pride — City Hall. Source: Tom Hilton, Creative Commons.

An assembly was called on in 2015 by the United States and Chile to bring light to the attacks on the LGBTQ+ community that are prominent in the Middle East, specifically by the Islamic State. Syrian refugees who fled their war-torn homeland spoke to the United Nations about what their life and the suffering they endured. One man admitted to hiding his sexuality his entire life, saying, “In my society, being gay means death.” Another man told of his witnessing of an al-Qaeda affiliated group taking control of his hometown and began torturing and murdering men that others thought to be gay. Cheering audiences attended the executions of gay men. Some men, tossed from building ledges, meet their death; however, for those who do not die upon impact, the hateful crowd stoned them to death.

Institutionalized discrimination is a prominent threat no matter where one may look across the globe.

In the south and in the US, we feel criminalized; in the Middle East, we are criminalized.

Being a part of a marginalized community has affected me in many negative ways, but also in positive ways. I feel a commonality with people I have never met and will likely never have the luxury of doing. As a part of the community, I am “branded in rainbow”, which is the most fulfilling feeling that I had experienced. I chose to take all of the negativity that surrounded me and channel it into positivity. This community and a shared experience has made me stronger, more confident, and allowed me to channel my anger by turning it into passion. As a member of this community, I implore you to become more accepting of the people around you, no matter where you may be from or what you may practice. It is powerful to feel human, and it is a feeling we all deserve.

Science of Heaven and Hell

**As the world pieces together the details from the Singapore Summit, Trump’s praise of Kim Jong-un solidifies his disregard for human rights violations and violators. In this blog, reposted from last summer, Verbeek identifies subordination as an obstacle to peace. He also says dialogue, if successful, may be a viable option. Only time will tell…

Nagasaki Journey. Picture taken by Yosuke Yamahata on August 10, 1945, the day after the bombing of Nagasaki. Source: Creative Commons

On August 8, 2017, following a news report that North Korea had succeeded in miniaturizing a nuclear warhead to fit its class of intercontinental ballistic missiles, President Trump, on a working vacation at his Trump golf resort in Bridgewater, New Jersey, proclaimed “North Korea best not make any more threats to the United States . . . they will be met by fire and fury like the world has never seen”. I have been trying to imagine what this unprecedented fire and fury would look, smell, and feel like. In his peace declaration commemorating the 72^nd A-bomb anniversary the mayor of Hiroshima, Kazumi Matsui, provides some hints as he invites us to imagine what happened in Hiroshima that fatal day of August 6, 1945 at 8:15 am:

“Let’s imagine for a moment what happened under that roiling mushroom cloud. Pika — the penetrating flash, extreme radiation and heat. Don — the earth-shattering roar and blast. As the blackness lifts, the scenes emerging into view reveal countless scattered corpses charred beyond recognition even as man or woman. Stepping between the corpses, badly burned, nearly naked figures with blackened faces, singed hair, and tattered, dangling skin wander through spreading flames, looking for water. The rivers in front of you are filled with bodies; the riverbanks so crowded with burnt, half-naked victims you have no place to step. This is truly hell”.

The mayor of Nagasaki, Tomihisa Taue, in his 72^nd A-bomb anniversary peace declaration, mirrors this horrific image,

“On that day, the furious blast and heat rays reduced the city of Nagasaki to a charred expanse of land. People whose skin hung down in strips staggered around the ruined city looking for their families. A dumbfounded mother stood beside her child who had been burnt black. Every corner of the city was like a landscape from hell. Unable to obtain adequate medical treatment many of these people fell dead, one by one”.

Source: Creative Commons

Science has made great advances in the development of nuclear arms, and the power of the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki pales in comparison to the power of today’s nuclear arsenals. Hiroshima and Nagasaki’s bombings created hell on Earth, and it seems almost impossible to imagine what the fire and fury that Mr. Trump talks about would amount to. I wonder whether Mr. Trump has an idea of the degree of hell that he can unleash if he sees it fit to do so. Like I am doing here, he may have looked back at the pictures of the charred remains of the victims of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings and of the wounds on the bodies of those who were not instantly incinerated. In fact, I do not think that it is a coincidence that Mr. Trump’s threat to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) resembles President Truman’s threat to Japan made in early August, 72 years ago. Calling for Japan’s surrender, Mr. Truman warned Japan to “expect a rain of ruin from the air, the like of which has never been seen on this earth“.

Mr. Trump’s threats to the DPRK follow a series of threats directed at the USA and its Southeast Asian allies by the DPRK’s Supreme Leader, Kim Jong Un and his military leaders. It is likely that a threat delivered on August 7, 2017, by North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho to a gathering of foreign ministers from the US, China, South Korea, Japan, and other Southeast Asian countries, was instrumental in Mr. Trump’s “fire and fury” threat of August 8, 2017. As Mr. Ri Yong Ho told this gathering, “Should the US pounce upon the DPRK with military force at last, the DPRK is ready to teach the US a severe lesson with its strategic nuclear force”.

Behavioral science tells us that there are a limited number of possible responses to a threat. One is a counter threat, another is attack, and yet another subordination. Each of these responses represents an obstacle to peace. A fourth approach is an offer of dialogue, which, if taken upon, can be a catalyst of peace. If Mr. Trump launches a preemptive strike in response to the threats of Mr. Kim Jong Un, it is likely that China will come to the aid of the DPRK, irrespective of whether the preemptive strike is nuclear or conventional. An English language editorial in China’s unofficial state newspaper, Global Times, targeted at an international audience, suggests as much: “If the US and South Korea carry out strikes and try to overthrow the North Korean regime and change the political pattern of the Korean Peninsula, China will prevent them from doing so.” If Mr. Kim Jong Un launches an attack on the USA in response to Mr. Trump’s threats China will likely remain neutral at first: “China should also make clear that if North Korea launches missiles that threaten US soil first and the US retaliates, China will stay neutral”.

Judging by what has transpired thus far, neither Mr. Trump nor Mr. Kim Jong Un can be expected to respond submissively to the threats of the other, and so additional counter-threats, attacks, or offers of dialogue are options remaining to them. I expect that threats and counter-threats will prevail for a while and then taper off unless and until the DPRK launches more missiles or conducts another nuclear test. For Mr. Trump issuing threats scores points with his supporters and bumps up his approval ratings. For Mr. Kim Jong Un issuing threats signals to his military command that he is in charge and may help keep challenges to his regime from within the military at bay. The danger to the world is the possibility that someone misreads a radar image or misinterprets a military training exercise as ‘the real thing’ and sets in motion the chain of events that leads to either Mr. Trump or Mr. Kim Jong Un, or both, pushing buttons to launch nuclear warheads. The reality is that both in the democratic USA and in the DPKR dictatorship the decision to rain fire and fury on the citizens of another country rests with the one man at the top.

As a scientist, I share the view of other concerned scientists that there are no military options to the North Korea issue and that dialogue is the only viable option. Both as a scientist and as a private citizen, I believe that a nuclear strike of any kind, irrespective of who is carrying it out, is morally unacceptable and a crime against not just human life but against all of life.

I am familiar with the arguments for nuclear deterrence and for so-called justified nuclear strikes. As a young man I had heated debates with my step-mother about whether or not the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings were justified. My step-mother spent part of her early youth in a Japanese internment camp in Indonesia. Her Dutch family was rounded up by the Japanese army when it invaded Indonesia in 1942 and she and her mother were interned in one of these infamous camps where an estimated 3,000 Dutch women and children perished. She stated that the nuclear bombings saved her life because they led to her liberation from the camp. The policy of the Japanese military regarding foreign women and children in internment camps and male prisoners of war toward the end of WWII was “kill all leave no traces” (1). General McArthur wanted to liberate Java but was ordered not do to so by the joint chiefs and President Roosevelt. It was indeed Japan’s 1945 surrender to the Allied Forces brought on by the Hiroshima and Nagasaki’s bombings that led to the liberation of the survivors of the internment camps and the surviving prisoners of war. While I feel great joy that the lives of my step-mother and other surviving victims of Japan’s wartime aggression were saved, I continue to believe that nothing justifies unleashing hell on earth through a nuclear attack. The fact that my step-mother and I had this debate illustrates the insanity of war.

If dialogue is the only option for the North Korean crisis, what is the outlook for a successful dialogue between the USA and the DPRK? It is actually quite good. While Kim Jong Il, Kim Jong Un’s father, engaged in military first politics, Kim Jong Un has launched a new doctrine calling for simultaneous progress on nuclear deterrence and economic development. Work in political science suggests that the DPRK will start focusing on its prosperity instead of its self-preservation once it no longer has to worry about its own destruction (13). Political scientist John Delury, a member of the nonpartisan and nongovernmental National Committee on North Korea, sees the prospects for peace this way:

“Trump can now help him pivot to the economy, as Kim appears to have wanted to do all along. However unlikely a pair the two might seem, Kim and Trump are well positioned to strike the kind of deal that could lower the grave risks both their countries (and the region) now face. Such a move would also allow Trump to reaffirm U.S. leadership in a region critical to U.S. interests, and to finally start resolving a problem that has bedeviled every U.S. President since Harry Truman.”

I believe that the prospects for peace as outlined by John Delury are real, but it will take statesmanship and savvy, not brinkmanship and bluster to realize them.

Nobel Prize Laureate Niko Tinbergen writes that scientific research is one of the finest occupations of our mind, and ads that, with art and religion, science is one of the uniquely human ways of meeting nature, in fact the most active way. By developing ways to harness some of the fundamental powers of nature, science has brought us hell on earth in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Science also brings us new insights into the natural bases of peace. Rather than the traditional perception of nature as an arena of unmitigated violent competition, new fields like peace ethology show us that life sustains itself primarily through networking, rather than through combat (2). Applying what science teaches us about our evolved abilities for peace and how to harness them will not bring us heaven on earth, but it will surely move us away from human-made gates of hell.

Dr. Peter Verbeek is an Associate Professor in the Anthropology Department at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. He teaches in the Anthropology of Peace and Human Rights program and does research on how humans and other animals make and sustain peace.

Footnotes: 1) Stichting Japanse Ereschulden – English; 2) Verbeek, P. & Peters, B.A. (Forthcoming). Peace ethology: Behavioral processes and systems of peace. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Publishers.

The History of Pride

Pride Flag flying — Rainbow Pride Flag. Source: Benson Kua, Creative Commons.

The month of June is known as Pride Month for the LGBTQ community. Pride means more than its dictionary definition to the LGBTQ community and has a long history.

The fight for marriage equality began in 2010 with United States v. Windsor. This case challenged the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). This Act stated that only marriages between a man and a woman were recognized by the federal government, but allowed for state governments to recognize them. Edith Windsor was widowed after her spouse, Thea Clara Spyer, who passed away in 2009. She was the sole survivor of their estate. Windsor and Spyer were legally married in Canada in 2007, and their marriage was recognized by their home state of New York. Spyer left in her will that the estate would be left to Windsor, but because their marriage was not recognized by federal law, over $350,000 in estate taxes was issued to Windsor. If their marriage would have been recognized by the federal government, no taxes would have been issued.

Windsor filed a lawsuit against DOMA and its constitutionality in 2010. At that time, DOMA was upheld by the government; however, in 2011 President Obama and Attorney General Holder announced that they would no longer defend DOMA. The House of Representatives then created a provisionary group to defend DOMA but the district court found the group to be unconstitutional. Windsor was given a refund for the estate taxes she was forced to pay and DOMA was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS). States were then allowed to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples if their governments chose to allow such.

Efforts for marriage equality continued with James Obergefell and John Arthur James, who were residents of Ohio. They decided to go to Maryland to get legally married after years of being together when James was diagnosed as terminally ill. The couple wanted to designate Obergefell as the surviving spouse on the death certificate, but Ohio’s laws allowed for refusal of same-sex marriages and their recognition even if the couple was legally married in another state. Obergefell v. Hodges was brought to the South District Court of Ohio to challenge the state’s discrimination against same-sex couples. The Ohio Registrar agreed that the law was unconstitutional but the Ohio Attorney General decided to uphold the state’s same-sex marriage and recognition ban. The case continued through the fourth, sixth, seventh, ninth, and tenth circuit courts of Ohio. All but the sixth circuit court agreed that the state-level ban on same-sex marriage was unconstitutional. Because all of the courts did not rule the same, a Supreme Court intervention was inevitable. While the case was going through the circuit courts, James passed away.

During two years of appeals, Obergefell v. Hodges became larger. Plaintiffs of Bourke v. Beshear from Kentucky, DeBoer v. Snyder from Michigan, and Tanco v. Haslam from Tennessee were added. The plaintiffs in each of these cases had been denied marriage rights from their home state, even if their marriages happened in another, just as Obergefell had. It was in April of 2015 when Obergefell v. Hodges, which now consolidated the cases from all four states, presented oral arguments to the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) to challenge the states’ same-sex marriage bans constitutionality. Two months later on June 25th, SCOTUS ruled that marriage is a constitutional right and ruled in favor of marriage equality. This allowed for same-sex marriages to be legalized by the government.

While the historic ruling by SCOTUS happened in 2015, June has been Pride Month for decades before marriage equality. We know Pride Month today as a month-long celebration full of parades, events, and parties. It did not begin that way. The first Pride Parade was a riot at the Stonewall Inn, which is known as “the place that Pride began.”

The Stonewall Inn. Photo by Tyler Goodwin

Stonewall Inn, New York City, 1969

It was illegal to engage in homosexual behavior, giving the police the “right” to attack anyone thought to be gay and arrest them. A majority of the gay bars and clubs had been raided and shut down by the New York City Police Department (NYPD). On the evening of June 28^th, a group of people gathered at one of the few gay bars that remained open, The Stonewall Inn. The police barged in shouting, “We’re taking the place!” The patrons then began to resist. As those who were at the Stonewall Inn were arrested, a large crowd formed outside of Stonewall. Marsha P. Johnson, a transgender woman of color and LGBTQ activist was outside. She threw the first brick in protest and ignited the Stonewall Riots. The riots were eventually doused that evening by police reinforcements but protesters returned the next night with over 1,000 people filling the streets. The people of Stonewall emerged victorious by fighting back. As a result of the riots, the police ceased to interfere with LGBTQ safe spaces and no longer attacked them on the streets; and by making headlines across the country, LGBTQ issues were brought to the forefront, organizations were started, and the community began to fight for their rights. The Stonewall Riots began the LGBTQ movement.

Marches, today known as Pride marches, sparked across the US when news spread of the riots. The Stonewall Riots were violent; however, they ignited a nonviolent movement across the nation and world. June has been deemed Pride Month in honor of the riots.

A Symbol of Unity, Hope, and Safety

The first Pride Flag was designed by Gilbert Baker in 1978, in San Francisco. It was in honor of Harvey Milk, who was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. Milk tasked Baker with drafting up a design for his campaign. His platform was hope for the young gay people, saying, “The only thing they have to look forward to is hope, and you have to give them hope.” Thus, the Pride Flag was born. Milk was the first openly gay person to hold public office in a major US city and was later assassinated for that same reason. After his death, the Pride Flag production increased. Businesses all over San Francisco were flying them proudly in remembrance of Milk. “T he flag is an action – it is more than just a cloth and the stripes. When a person puts the Rainbow Flag on his car or his house, they’re not just flying a flag. They’re taking action,” Baker said, “I am astounded that people just got it…that this was their flag. It belonged to all of us.”

The original Pride Flag had seven colors, with fuchsia, which represented sexuality, at the top. However, due to a shortage of fuchsia in the factory where it was reproduced, it was condensed to the six-color flag that flies today. The remaining six colors also represent something powerful and meaningful to the LGBTQ+ community. Red stands for life. To some people, coming out as LGBTQ can mean life or death. In a lot of scenarios, when one comes out their family shuns them, kicks them out, and/or verbally abuses them. This pushes a lot of youths to suicide. Suicide is the 2^nd leading cause of death among young people, and LGBT youth are four times likelier to attempt than straight youths, according to Innerbody Research. Red represents the importance of life, and how giving up on it is never the answer. Orange represents healing powers of love in the community. Yellow is for sunlight. It is a metaphor for being yourself rather than hiding in the shadows. Green stands for nature and everyone’s ties to it. Blue represents serenity, which is defined as a state of being calm, peaceful, and untroubled. Finally, violet stands for spirit, which is the most important of all the colors, as the spirit unique and inalienable.

Other symbols of Pride and safe-spaces have also emerged in the past few years. Organizations like the Human Rights Campaign have trademarked the yellow equal sign with a blue background. This symbol is known in the United States but the Pride Flag remains the prominent international symbol.

Human Rights Campaign. Source: Ron Cogswell, Creative Commons

Progress has been made for the LGBTQ community, but there have been large setbacks as well. During Pride Month last year, 49 lives were taken at Orlando’s Pulse Nightclub in the deadliest mass shooting in modern-US history that took place during Orlando’s Pride celebrations. Sean Kennedy was another hate-crime victim. In 2007, he was leaving a bar in South Carolina when he was attacked for his sexuality and died as a result of it. In 1998, Matthew Shepard made headlines across the nation when he was found beaten, tortured, and left to die while tied to a fence in Wyoming.

The United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) sets fundamental human rights to be universally protected. During Stonewall, the Pulse Shooting, and the individual murders, many rights declared by the UHDR were violated:

Article 3: Right to life, liberty, and security of person. The Stonewall Riots happened because queer folk had been attacked by the police without cause, violating their security of person. The Pulse Shooting and the Kennedy and Shepard murders were violations of the right to life.
Article 5: No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman punishment. Shepard was tortured and brutally beaten before he died.
Article 7: All are entitled without any discrimination and equal protection to of the law. In the case of Stonewall, NYPD had not only been attacking the LGBTQ community, they were being denied justice by not having their attackers persecuted.
Article 9: No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest. The LGBTQ folk were being arrested for being LGBTQ in New York.
Article 19: Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression. Throughout history and in modern times, the LGBTQ community is targeted simply for existing.

There were many countries that gave same-sex couples the right to marry before the US. The Netherlands, in 2001, became the first country in the world to allow same-sex marriages. Many countries joined the Netherlands, including Canada, Belgium, France, and Ireland to name a few (You can see the timeline of when countries allowed same-sex marriage here). Today, June 30, German Parliament voted to legalize same-sex marriage. That makes 22 countries in the last 16 years allowing same-sex marriages, which is important as it shows that the world is growing to be more accepting of the LGBTQ community. Countries that allow same-sex marriage gives validity to its citizens that identify as LGBTQ and promotes a more accepting environment. According to Forbes, when same-sex marriage is legal, LGBTQ youths are less likely to commit suicide and hate-crimes decrease.

In contrast to the 22 countries that allow and support same-sex marriage, there are 76 countries that have anti-LGBTQ laws in effect today. Last week, Turkish police shot rubber bullets at Pride Parade attendees and proceeded to detain who they could. In Chechnya, reports of a concentration camp for those who identify as homosexual made headlines as more than 100 men were abducted, tortured, and few were killed in a systematic purge of the LGBTQ community.

The world can be a scary place for someone who identifies as LGBTQ. It is imperative that those of us who can remain resilient and visible by not being afraid to show who you are. Showing up at Pride celebrations are easy ways to let the world know that the LGBTQ community exists, and gives comfort to those who cannot “come out”. That is exactly what Pride Month stands for. It is a time for us to unite and show our pride. Pride means strength, unity, and acceptance.

A Peculiar Request: The Right to Life

the beginning of the March for Our Lives. A group of girls holding signs of some of the victims of gun violence — photo by Ajanet Rountree

Paducah, Kentucky.

This is the first school shooting I remember. All these years later, I still remember what I thought once I saw the photos: “How did this happen? Surely this is a random tragedy that will never happen again.” The writing of this blog comes just over five weeks on the memory side of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland, Florida and on the same day as the Great Mills High School shooting in southern Maryland. The shooting at Heath High School is a distance memory, eclipsed by Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, Sandy Hook Elementary in Newton, Connecticut, and Huffman High School in Birmingham, Alabama.

Many conversations and references, in recent weeks, center on the complicated nature of the gun control debate in the United States (US) due to the Parkland shooting and uncharacteristic demands of the teenage survivors. This blog does not directly address those conversations or references. There are many sides to the issue and other blog writers this week gave voice to some of those issues. Therefore, this blog explores the peculiar request of the teenage survivors, which is, seemingly lost among the defense of the Second Amendment.

The right to life.

It seems peculiar that children are demanding adults to protect their lives, to look out for their best interest, specifically when many in the US pride themselves on their pro-life stance. They champion every bill, legislative act, or protest which positions them as the protector of the “rights of the unborn”. As protectors of the unborn, they label women who choose to have abortions and the medical practitioners who perform the abortions as murderers. Some pro-life advocates stand outside Planned Parenthood centers, shouting vile, hurtful words and phrases at patrons and workers. They object to numerous women’s rights issues. All this occurs because of their belief in protecting the innocent, unborn baby who deserves the right to live.

Where are the pro-life advocates joining the protests initiated by the Parkland students who are demanding the protection of their right to life? These children lost their innocence when their classmate murdered their friends and teachers in hallways and classrooms on Valentine’s Day. Many pro-life advocates are standing on the sidelines, protecting their Second Amendment constitutional right to bear arms. Yet, at what point did adults abdicate their responsibility to protect the lives of children to protect their rights to own weapons? Does the “pro-life” label still apply when there is a willful and complicit allegiance to a hobby and lobbying group than to children?

Perhaps a reclassification needs to occur wherein we label pro-birth rather than pro-life.

The Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), in accordance with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) asserts, “A child means every human being below the age of eighteen years… [and] in all actions concerning children, whether undertaken by public or private social welfare institutions, courts of law, administrative authorities or legislative bodies, the best interests of the child shall be a primary consideration.” When the best interest of the child is the primary consideration, how has the brutal transformation of schools and universities continued? It seems implausible that for the last 20 years, parents across the US have sent their children to school with hopes and dreams for the future, only to have to bury their 5-18-year-old days later. The Children’s Defense Fund (CDF) reports “children are learning there is no safe place in America.”

a picture of a sign that reads "Human rights not guns: Right to Life" — photo by Ajanet Rountree

When No Place is Safe and Those Who Can/Should Help, Don’t

The US is the ONLY member of the United Nations to not ratified the CRC.

The cliché ‘no parent should have to bury their child’ seems redundant considering needless tragedies of gun violence. Its redundancy comes from the very real reality that pictures and videos from schools, universities, and playgrounds, as well as the rhetorical thoughts and prayers of government officials has yielded minimal results. Unlike natural disasters like tornados and earthquakes, controlling the impacts of gun violence is possible as evidenced in Australia, Great Britain, and Switzerland. Therefore, it is the normalization of violence in the US which continually isolates us from the rest of the world. Data reveals the hypocrisy of the ill-spoken narrative that children are the future of this country. CDF reveals

Children are forced to witness tragic mass shootings that occur with regularity in public spaces including schools, churches, concert venues, community centers, nightclubs and movie theaters.
Since 1963, the number of children and teens killed with guns on American soil was more than three times higher than the number of U.S. soldiers killed by hostiles in wars abroad. Nearly 180,000 children and teens died from guns in the U.S. between 1963 and 2015.

With less than 5% of the global population, American civilians own 310 million guns (35-50%) of the global civilian gun-ownership, whereas the US military and law enforcement possess nearly 4 million. The US spends considerably more on defense than on early childhood and education, than every other country with smaller federal budgets.

Children are not a priority in the US.

Who’s doing the shooting?

Brown et al. analyzed two cases, identified four characteristics, and concluded “school violence is a somewhat distinct form of aggression that should not be viewed through standard lens.” The typical mass shooter is a white male who exacts revenge on those he deems dishonored him in some way. Research identifies this cultural phenomenon as “culture of honor”. In a culture of honor, people favor the death penalty, more tolerant of expressions of aggression as a response to threats/insults, and conflate a high degree of connection with status or reputation. This culture fuels the overall feeling of slight through a lack of interpersonal conflict resolution skills. The culture of honor creates a cultural standard wherein brutality becomes the recommended response to a perceived affront to one’s dignity or reputation; thus, a misguided sense of justice.

This misguided sense of justice positions whites as unapologetic for the behavior of shooters. Mingus and Zopf studied four mass shootings: two with white shooters (Columbine High School and Northern Illinois) and two with non-white shooters (VA Tech and Fort Hood). Using “Racial Formations” by Omi and Winant as a key text on racial projections, Mingus and Zopf assert, “The historical significance of race is important in understanding the way in which race affects any interpretation of shooting rampages.” They find that white privilege allows for the addition of race as a factor when identifying the “abhorrent behavior of non-whites” and the subtraction of race when redirecting “focus away from whites as a distinct population by pathologizing their aberrant behavior”. They conclude that non-whites groups often advocate for themselves as a means of not facing retaliation, even offering an apology in the VA Tech tragedy, whereas being white means never having to say you are sorry.

a picture of a boy holding a sign which reads "books not bullets" during the March for Our Lives — photo taken with permission by Ajanet Rountree

“If they’re old enough to be shot, they’re old enough to have an opinion about being shot”

Reports occur daily of the ‘perceived threat of children’ when confronted by white people who feel a threat to their power or status. These reports extend beyond the scope of school shootings, and the requests to “stop killing us” commenced long before the Parkland shooting. The #NeverAgain movement includes the voices of the seemingly voiceless by including students from Chicago, Newtown, and 11-year-old Naomi Walder of Alexandria, VA. Walder, who highlights the deaths of Black girls forgotten by the media, organized her classmates during the National Walkout Day.

Political satirist and late-show comedy host Trevor Noah challenged the notion leveled by Fox News talking head Tucker Carlson after last week’s student walkout campaign. During a segment, Carlson questioned the validity of students making demands of lawmakers regarding guns by stating, “They’re not citizens; they’re children.” What’s interesting is that children are too young to make demands for gun control but not to find themselves in adult prison or forced into child marriage. Noah responded brilliantly stating, “…if kids are old enough to be shot, they’re old enough to have an opinion about being shot.” When processing the numbers provided by the CDF, it is time someone said something.

7,768 children and teens were killed in the US to gun violence during 2013-2015
113 children under five (5) died from guns in 2016, compared to 65 law enforcement officers killed by guns in the line of duty. Guns were used in criminal acts to kill 62 law enforcement officers while three (3) were killed in gun accidents.
In 2016, 43% of gun deaths were among Black children and teens, although they made up only 14% of all children and teens.
1,335 Black children and teens were killed by guns in 2016, one every 6 hours and 34 minutes.
The gun death rate for Black children and teens was nearly 4x that of White children and teens and more than 8x that of Asian and Pacific Islander children and teens.
Most gun deaths among Black children and teens were by homicide. Most deaths by White children and teens were by suicide.
Guns are more often used to cause harm than in self-protection. A gun in the home makes the likelihood of homicide 3x higher, suicide 3-5x higher, and accidental death 4x higher. For each time a gun in the home injures or kills in self-defense, there are 11 completed and attempted gun suicides, seven criminal assaults and homicides with a gun, and four unintentional shooting deaths or injuries.
More than half of youth who committed suicide with a gun obtained the gun from their home, usually a parent’s gun.

Given the fact adults consistently prove children are not a priority in this country, children have made an opportunity to make themselves a priority.

a picture of sign with names of some of the victims of gun violence — photo by Ajanet Rountree

Today, millions of children and adults domestically and internationally, participated in the #NeverAgain movement by joining the March for Our Lives protest. The campaign is not to initiate a disarmament; however, it is to reinstate the ban on assault rifles like AR-15 used in several mass shootings, including Las Vegas and Orlando. Additional demands include an expansion of background checks and a rise of the minimum age to purchase. At the core of the demands and the purpose of the protest lies a peculiar request for the most important human right: the right to live.

A right to a life without fear and terror.

A right to a life where adults apologize for hurting, neglecting, and not prioritizing children who are reliant upon them.

A right to a life without the trauma of relieving the horrors of running to save myself.

A right to a life that does not include witnessing my friends and teachers die before my eyes.

A right to a life by enjoying the full scope of childhood and adolescence which includes mistakes that should not end life because of a perceived threat

A right to a life because adults believe that I and my future are worth fighting for… just as they do for the unborn.

March for Our Lives is a pro-life movement.

We Beretta Do Something: Gun Violence, Public Health & Their Discontents

doctor-gun. Source: spacecoastdaily.com, Creative Commons

Continuing the Institute for Human Rights’ blog series on gun violence, this contribution illuminates a public health lens, offering an evidence-based analysis and pragmatic solutions to the U.S. gun violence epidemic.

Following the February mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School (Parkland, FL) that resulted in 17 fatalities, mainstream fervor on U.S. gun violence has, once again, returned. Parkland Students have utilized their recent tragedy as a platform to demand an end to gun violence and mass shootings, stressing why their lives matter. According to Amnesty International, the world’s largest grassroots human rights organization, U.S. gun violence is a human rights crisis. Human rights are protected and enforced by international and national policy, and with the U.S. government marshalling many of these treaties and laws, it is, too, culpable of upholding such rights.

The nation’s leading science-based voice for the public health profession, the American Public Health Association (APHA), claims gun violence is one of the leading causes of premature death in the U.S., killing over 38,000 people and injuring nearly 85,000 annually. Gun violence can not only affect people of all backgrounds but disproportionately impacts young adults, men and racial/ethnic minority groups. Recently, Parkland Students teamed with students in Chicago to address inner-city gun violence, a phenomenon commonly overlooked by the media while addressing its threat on young lives. Though most gun violence is not an agent to mass shootings, the APHA claims, in 2017, there were 346 mass shootings in the U.S., killing 437 as well as injuring 1,802.

Furthermore, the American Medical Association (AMA), who leads innovation for improving the U.S. health care system, labeled gun violence “A Public Health Crisis”. At their 2016 Annual Meeting of House Delegates, the AMA actively lobbied Congress to overturn legislation that averts the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) from researching gun violence. The CDC is one of the leading institutions of the Department of Health Human Services (DHHS), working 24/7 to protect Americans from foreign and native health threats, whether they be chronic, acute, curable or preventable, accidental or intentional. Ultimately, the CDC protects U.S. national security and critical science is imperative to addressing health threats.

According to the Union of Concerned Scientists, a 1993 CDC-funded study published by the New England Journal of Medicine found that firearms in the home increased the risk of homicide in the household, as opposed to home protection. This galvanized the National Rifle Association (NRA), a major force in U.S. gun rights and education, to campaign against the CDC and its “anti-gun propaganda”.

In response to this 1993 publication and the NRA’s support, Congress in 1996 passed an appropriations bill known as the Dickey Amendment, named after former Arkansas congressman and NRA member Jay Dickey, which states, “none of the funds made available for injury prevention and control at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention may be used to advocate or promote gun control.” Almost two decades and thousands of tragedies later, Dickey renounced these restrictions in 2015 by claiming, “Research could have been continued on gun violence without infringing on the rights of gun owners, in the same fashion that the highway industry continued research without eliminating the automobile.” Despite this humility, the Dickey Amendment persists, curtailing efforts to address gun violence in the U.S.

a picture of a Beretta handgun — Beretta 9000S. Source: James Case, Creative Commons

In the U.S., a common method to circumvent the argument that guns extrapolate acts of violence is to scapegoat people with mental illness. The American Psychiatric Association (APA), the leading voice and conscience of modern psychiatry in the U.S., recently published a book on gun violence and mental health. Specifically, they address the topic of mass shootings and mental illness.

Some popular misperceptions are:

Mass shootings by people with serious mental illness represent the most significant relationship between gun violence and mental illness.
People with serious mental illness should be considered dangerous.
Mass shooting will be effectively prevented with gun laws focusing on people with mental illness.
Gun laws focusing on people with mental illness, or a psychiatric diagnosis, are reasonable, even if they perpetuate current mental illness stigma.

On the other hand, it is evidence-based that:

Mass shootings by people with serious mental illness represent less than 1% of all annual gun-related homicides.
People with serious mental illness contribute to an overall 3% of violent crimes. An even smaller percentage of them are found to involve firearms.
Laws for reducing gun violence that focus on the previously mentioned 3% will be extremely low yield, ineffective, and wasteful of resources.
The myth that mental illness leads to violence is perpetuated by gun restriction laws focusing on people with mental illness, as well as the misunderstanding that gun violence and mental illness are strongly linked.

However, a significant caveat related to mental illness and gun violence is suicide. The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP), who funds research and offers education on suicide, claims depression is one of the most treatable psychiatric illnesses yet is seen in over 50% of people who die by suicide. Suicide lays in the shadow of repetitive, media-frenzied mass shootings, while representing nearly two-thirds of gun-related deaths in the U.S. Harvard University T.H. Chan School of Public Health indicate a number of factors that define lethality of suicide methods, including inherent deadliness, ease of use, accessibility, ability to abort mid-attempt and acceptability — all attributable to gun ownership and usage, specifically in the U.S. To strengthen civil discourse on gun-related deaths and injuries, we must uphold a national platform for suicide prevention, too. If you or a loved one is experiencing a suicidal crisis or emotional distress, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-8255 (available 24/7).

Last year, researchers at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine analyzed data from the Nationwide Emergency Department (ER) sample between 2006-2014 and concluded the U.S. accumulates an annual $2.8 billion in hospitals bills from gunshot wounds, with an average ER cost of $5,254 and approximately $96,000 in follow up care per patient. This study was limited because data was only used for gunshot victims who arrived at the hospital alive; people who did not seek medical treatment or were dead on arrival were not counted. Furthermore, after accounting for lost earnings, rehabilitative treatment, security costs, investigations, funerals, etc., a 2015 Mother Jones report estimated gun violence cost Americans $229 billion annually.

The APHA insists gun violence is not inevitable but preventable, and suggests core public health activities are capable of interrupting the transmission of gun violence. Notable ways to curb gun violence are:

Better Surveillance
- Increased congressional funding of The National Violent Death Reporting System which is currently employed in 40 U.S. states, D.C. and Puerto Rico.
More Research
- Lifting restrictions on federal funding for research on gun violence. There is barely any credible evidence on the effect of right-to-carry laws.
Common-Sense Gun Policies
- Criminal background check on all firearms purchases. This includes gun show and internet purchases.
Expanded Access to Mental Health Services
- Funding for mental health services has declined, so increased financial support for the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) is advised.
Resources for School and Community-Based Prevention
- Intervention and preparedness programming to prevent gun violence and other emergencies in communities, namely schools.
Gun Safety Technology
- Innovation that prevents illegitimate gun access and misuse such as unintentional injuries.

If the above prescriptions are not followed, the tragedies will likely continue. So, it is imperative we support leaders who will encourage gun policy that protects public health and our right to life. Tomorrow, March 24, 2018, people across the world will March For Our Lives, demanding the lives of kids and families, amidst the controversy circling around gun violence, become prioritized.

A march for our lives, your life and mine is exactly what the doctor ordered.

The Responsibility to Protect, Revisited: Gun Ownership in the United States

Tennessee, Tennessee, Ain’t No Place I’d Rather Be

I grew up in rural Northeastern Tennessee, situated 30 minutes from both the Virginia and North Carolina state borders. In my hometown of Kingsport, itself a part of the Tri-Cities, I inherited many traditional Southern cultural mannerisms and beliefs as a growing kid. True to form, I can whip up banana pudding and biscuits and gravy, I sometimes use the word “ain’t”, and I will always hold the door open for others. Southern culture can be a simple one; try sitting on your front porch for the entire weekend – something we in Tennessee consider high entertainment. Tennessee made me a fan of great music (I’m an avid Bonnaroovian), a taste for delicious foods (ever tried Pal’s Sudden Service?), and a reverence of nature. My family, tried-and-true Southern kinsfolk, embody many Southern ideals. Most of these traditions, such as saying, “yes ma’am” and “no sir” are benign. These mannerisms just are – part of the charm of hailing from the South. Tradition is quintessentially Southern.

A photo of the author's family farm in Tennessee. — “Tennessee.” Photo by: Nicholas R. Sherwood

Part of a traditional Southern rearing is a respect for and knowledge of firearms. Almost all members of my extended family know how to operate these weapons using proper gun safety measures. I recall many afternoons as a child refining my marksmanship. This often involved setting up targets (nothing fancy, soda cans would do) across long pastures in the various farms my family owns. All the cousins and our parents would gather ‘round, grilling ribs, searing vegetables, and baking buttery breads. We swam in muddy ponds and hightailed across our properties in four-wheelers. All the while, the children, teenagers, and adults would take turns practice shooting a variety of revolvers, magnums, bolt-action rifles, and muzzleloaders.

This is a Sherwood tradition- we all know how to responsibly fire a weapon.

In my family, gun ownership is a serious endeavor. I vividly remember my uncle and my dad explaining to my sister and me that guns can and do often kill other human beings. To own and operate a gun is to have access to an awesome power, and we only used this power under the strict supervision of properly-trained adults. Firing a gun required two things: every person on the property was safely accounted for and our parents knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that we were mature enough to grapple with the destructive power in our still-growing hands. Today, I am thankful for being desensitized to firearms. I can watch someone shooting a gun and know if they have good or poor form, how to properly handle the weapon, and have the maturity to wield it. Most of the Sherwoods have taken at least one, if not several, Tennessee Hunter’s Safety Courses. This too was crucial to our firearm education. Additionally, many of us have Conceal & Carry permits. This is not to say the Sherwood clan only buys guns just to keep them; we have several avid hunters in our ranks. For us, hunting is a sacred tradition with specific rules we abide by. I was taught never to overhunt in an area – disrupting animal populations would wreck local ecosystems. Thankfully for us, East Tennessee has an overpopulation of deer, meaning local hunters can bag and tag a regulated amount of these animals without destroying the Tennessee natural ecology. In fact, by hunting excess deer, wild apex predators are kept in check and the vegetation deer overconsume is conserved. Descending from a long line of Cherokee Native Americans, instilled in every Sherwood is an understanding that we, like our ancestors, have a responsibility to care for the land around us. Hunting is part of that responsibility.

A Portrait of the Responsible Gun Owner

With this upbringing in mind, when acts of mass gun violence rip through the social fabric of America, I am thrust into a dissonant space. How do I reconcile my upbringing of responsible gun ownership with the dire need to regulate these weapons – for the safety of all Americans? Parsing through these issues, the Institute for Human Rights is currently running a series on gun control in response to the horrific massacres of school-children throughout the United States. It is my intention to show that responsible gun owners do exist, and they too must be a part of this conversation. Moving towards reconciliation of these two issues, public safety and private liberty, I have these questions:

What is responsible gun ownership?
Is it a regulatory process that educates the general population on gun safety protocols or an ethos of responsibility? Is it both?
Does gun control involve federal law, perhaps barring ownership from individuals with moderate to severe psychopathologies, histories of criminality, or a lack of maturity to handle weapons?
Is gun control a responsibility to protect the gun owner from his or her own mistakes in handling the weapon, or is gun control a responsibility to protect society at large from individuals with the sole intent to do as much damage in the least amount of time?
How do we reconcile the responsibility to protect the most defenseless members of society with the responsibility to protect freedom of thought and behavior?
What institutions bar authentic and transformative debates from occurring in the American public sphere and within global civil society at large?

What is undeniable is this: no productive and sustainable progress in gun control will take place without the inclusion of responsible gun owners within the conversation. And all gun owners must accept that governmental limitations on gun ownership is not an existential threat to one’s personal liberty. This limitation is a recognition that an individual’s participation in society requires a widening of responsibility to protect not only one’s immediate family and friends but also the protection of all members in a society. What we are facing here is a tension between individual liberty and the need for a cosmopolitan protection of all members within a society. To resolve this tension, we must first acknowledge that a solution is indeed possible, and that we already have the necessary tools to move towards successful resolution.

Towards this end, we must first define an oft-nebulous construct: responsible gun ownership. I propose a “responsible gun owner” possesses the following qualities:

a working knowledge of local, regional, and national laws that dictate the possession and usage of any and all types of firearms,
a vetting by official state authorities (such as the local police and / or military personnel) on said knowledge of gun possession and usage,
is of sound mental health (yes, this advocates for universal mental health background checks upon purchase of any firearm),
constant usage of a locked gun safe that prevents children and other unqualified persons from accessing firearms,
has undergone a rigorous criminal background check, with a waiting period before firearms can be purchased, requiring an utter absence of violent and harassment-based crimes, such as stalking and intimate partner violence,
an acceptance that gun ownership will always be a contested issue that must be resolved through constant dialogue between all invested parties with concessions on all sides,
a commitment to solution-focused resolution rather than a problem-focused resistance to negotiating gun ownership.

This last point is especially salient. Any meaningful conversation on gun control must arise from a negotiation between second amendment advocates and gun control advocates.

Too often (on both sides of the spectrum) the prevailing narrative of this discourse is a blanket denial of the rights, responsibilities, and needs of all involved parties.

Specific institutions promote this denial and antagonism, thereby promoting a particularly insidious form of structural violence and resistance to civil dialogue. I speak specifically of the National Rifle Association.

“NRA” by Bart, Creative Commons.

The National Rifle Association’s Culpability

In the aftermath of the massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, the National Rifle Association (NRA) participated in a town hall on gun policy in America. In attendance were survivors from the high school, Senator Marco Rubio, local politicians, and the NRA’s spokeswoman, Dana Loesch. Ms. Loesch, a one-time contributor for Breitbart News and Glenn Beck’s The Blaze, relied heavily on her familiar stumping strategy: invoking the maternal instinct as an emotional appeal to advocate for gun ownership. She and other members of the NRA assert a broad dissemination of guns throughout American society (their opinion of who deserves such weaponry is inconsistent, to say the least) is one of the most promising methods to protect children and other marginalized groups in America from the “people who are crazy” who possess guns. Essentially, the NRA argues more guns in society increase the chances that “good guys with guns” will deter or kill the “bad guys with guns”. This is, of course, tautological.

Flooding the market with guns would increase the likelihood that these “crazy” people get ahold of a firearm. After all, the NRA has made no serious attempt to advocate for mental health reform in response to calls for tightened gun control. The ‘mental health’ argument has long been a smokescreen of the NRA, a method of distraction to bait the normally health-promoting left a fight on mental health care reform. This bait-and-switch technique is a political gambit used by an inherently political institution, and it does a disservice to responsible gun owners throughout the United States.

Furthermore, it duplicitously reduces individuals with mental health issues to be political pawns; this reduction is utterly dehumanizing and offers no solution to the massive structural issues facing access to mental health care in America.

These theatrics add to the antagonism on both sides of the issue. Of course, a critical question remains regarding why such controversy exists: who stands to benefit from these bitter feuds? The answer is overwhelmingly politicians.

Millions of dollars of contributions from the NRA have fundamentally altered how politicians are able to fundraise, which politicians receive adequate funding to mount serious campaigns, and (this is most concerning) when or if a given politician will advocate for common-sense, widely-supported gun control policies in the face of unspeakable tragedy. This puppeteering is, by its very nature, anti-democratic and antithetical of American ideals. This ability to openly buy politicians, including Presidents of the United States, is an existential threat to American democracy. Add in the suspected ties to Russia and the political jockeying on display during CNN’s Town Hall, and you have a political institution that effectively and openly operates as a site of political nepotism and deception. Topping it all, the National Rifle Association has been linked to white supremacy ideology and it’s spokeswoman, Ms. Loesch, accused of encouraging violence as an acceptable form of response for critiquing the NRA. This dimension of intentional structural violence transforms the NRA from an institution not only engaging in political bribery, but also one that reflects tendencies of homegrown terrorism.

In my opinion and personal experience as a responsibly-trained gun user, the National Rifle Association functions a terrorist organization stoking fear and tribalism, thereby driving responsible gun owners away from the debate table on this issue.

Support for the NRA is a moral failure to denounce election-buying, white nationalism, and foreign meddling in the American political system. This support is an abject failure to protect American society from treacherous forces undermining a functional society, and this failure is far beneath the maturity and discipline typically shouldered by responsible gun owners throughout their mastery of weapons capable of both indiscriminately murdering and responsibly nourishing.

Conclusion

As I have stated, responsible gun owners do exist. These individuals see the inherent danger and power in firearms and acknowledge that controlling this power requires specialized education, careful observation, and highly specific locations where guns may be appropriately used. Responsible gun owners must hold other gun owners responsible, whether leading by example or calling out inappropriate practices as they occur. This responsibility extends not only to other gun owners, but to the American public as well. The conversation on gun control requires an intentional suspension of disbelief from both camps in order to find a middle ground in the issue.

I assert responsible gun owners have the moral responsibility to inclusively and adroitly address the legitimate calls for disarmament in the face of such abject horrors and losses exemplified by the recent school shootings throughout America. Without genuine participation in this exchange, gun owners lose the opportunity to educate the public on successful encounters between liberty and responsibility, and they may well lose their firearms as a result. An unwillingness to come to the discussion table with open ears and clear heads will result in the marginalization of responsible gun owners unless they are willing to make strident concessions in the ongoing debate of gun control. Similarly, gun control advocates must accept that responsible gun owners do exist, and these individuals have a constitutional right to bear arms.

The only way the mayhem will stop, the only way lives can be saved, is if both sides accept the only way towards a meaningful and equitable solution for all involved parties will require an intentional partnership to confront and transform the meaningless violence that currently terrorizes the safety of many Americans – most notably schoolchildren.

The first step in this partnership must be a resounding denunciation and deconstruction of the practices and ideologies of the National Rifle Association. You are not a responsible gun owner if you support the NRA in its current form. Only once the NRA has been disbanded, its latent ideology of political radicalism reconciled, can authentic encounters between gun control advocates and responsible gun owners reshape the horrifying trends of gun violence currently annihilating the safety and wellbeing of schoolchildren and marginalized groups throughout the Unites States.

In the south and in the US, we feel criminalized; in the Middle East, we are criminalized.

When No Place is Safe and Those Who Can/Should Help, Don’t

Who’s doing the shooting?

“If they’re old enough to be shot, they’re old enough to have an opinion about being shot”