The Killing Culture is Killing Us

 

Crime is on a rampage in cities all over America. Every day we are confronted in the newspapers with more and more  cruel killings. It’s a disaster. Solutions are not working. They are not working because these killings are because of the accepted killing culture that we have established in which killing is fun.

When my grandson was only seven, he was killing over 20 villains per day in video games. I remember as a kid, we played marbles, checkers and scrabble. Now, instead kids are addicted to killing video games like Grand Theft Auto.

Years later I took him to an amusement park. There I saw kids streaming  in huge numbers into an attraction. It turned out to be laser tag In this game the participants were divided into two teams and try to kill each other by an infra-red gun. The team that killed the most was the winner. The game name of the kid with the greatest number of kills was then prominently displayed so he could get the admiration of all for his killing prowess.

Years later, at an ocean resort, I was introduced to paintball. Lots of adults and kids participated. It was pretty much like laser tag, but this time the weapon was a gun that shot a paintball that marked the victim representing being killed. Of course, I did not play, but that killing game was very popular.

But these kill-for-fun games are only games although they do condition the mind. For real killing, we must turn to our government. Our Government kills  men, women and children in our endless wars in endless countries all over the world by the hundreds, by the thousands. They also kill without firing a single bullet by economic sanctions. For example, it is estimated that our sanctions against Venezuela killed 40,000 men, women and children in less than a year. Why shoot them when we can kill them by starvation. I wonder how many more thousands our sanctions have killed in other countries. I wonder how many more our illegal 60-year embargo of Cuba has killed. I am ashamed of our country. I am horrified. I am outraged. But, I am just one of a small minority. The majority does not really care about a bunch of faceless dead foreigners. Some are even proud, seeing it as a sign of our power and greatness. Let the world tremble!

But the consequences of these killings abroad have come home to our cities in the form of a surge of killing in crime. Murder rates soar. Police are supposed to protect us. I am black. I fear these ‘protectors’. If I am driving home late at night and stopped for something simple like a defective tail light. I fear I may be killed for reaching into my glove compartment for my license and registration. I fear I may be killed because my cell phone may be mistaken for a gun. “Whoops! Sorry about that, chief”.

Often police get blamed for their inability to reduce killings. In reality, police are not equipped to deal with this killing culture, which is not even recognized as the problem. Recognizing it is the first step on the way to a solution. Until then, I see no light at the end of the tunnel.

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About the Author
Michael Irving Phillips has kept abreast of Jamaican and the rest of the Caribbean by his one-man production of Hot Calaloo, a newsletter about Caribbean news and views. From April 1992 to December 1999, it was published monthly and was transferred to the web at hotcalaloo.com since then.

He was born in Jamaica and left home for Howard University in the US where he received MA (Education) and BS (Chemistry) degrees. Previous books includes :"A Jamaica Poor No More", "Boycott Money And Save Your Soul – Launching The Goodwill Revolution:, “Leave the Rat Race To The Rats” and “Poems for Husbands and Other Underdogs

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