Editor, The Smithfield Times:

I have frequently been surprised that I failed to hear anything about most school shooters being white males. Mainstream media, psychological circles, sociological/historical trends all seemed to ignore what to me seemed an obvious trait.

Once again, some white “Boys/Bois” are acting out their emotions as opposed to being in a position to experience them, own them and work them through. After all, who of us was in a position to teach those skills? At any rate, the Men’s Movement, in terms of healing wounds specifically associated with growing up male in our culture, only seemed to last 10 or 20 years back around the ’90s.

And as a woman, I know much more about growing up female. I can only try to imagine what it is like to feel one’s position, way of life, how things have always been from a masculine perspective as being threatened. That anger can feel more comfortable than the more vulnerable feelings of hurt and fear that fuel it can produce a self-perpetuating ongoing cycle of rage.

In the past 20 years, behaviors that had been acceptable for centuries have started to be unacceptable, and sometimes even prosecuted. Gaining solid footing in changes as they come along can require many adaptive skills.

 

Jo Weaver

Zuni