Norman Mailer's Thoughts On State Violence

"[T]here are two kinds of violence: individual violence and the violence of the state. The violence of the state is not just wars, it's also concentration camps...There can be violence in total censorship. Anything that cuts off expectations from people, possibilities from people, anything that compresses people by external government force is the violence of the state....Individual violence is very often the natural answer of people to the collective violence of the state." --Norman Mailer, from Mailer: A Biography by Hilary Mills (Empire Books, 1982), Page 36.

The Slap That Was Seen Around The World

According to People magazine (May 9, 2022 issue), actor Will Smith traveled to India right after slapping comedian/actor Chris Rock at the Oscars on March 27. Smith slapped Rock because Rock made a joke about Smith's wife, actress Jada Pinkett Smith, who has hair loss as a result of alopecia.

The trip to India was "for spiritual purposes, to practice yoga and meditation." Too bad Smith didn't do those things prior to Oscar night. He would have avoided being banned by the Academy for ten years. Some people have to learn the hard way.

We Need "A Red Record" For The 21st Century

In 1895, while living in Chicago, African-American social activist, journalist, public intellectual Ida B. Wells published A Red Record. In it, writes Iowa State University professor Brian Behnken in his essay,"The Quest for Racial Change," published in Black Intellectual Thought in Modern America (University Press of Mississippi, 2017), "Wells forcefully articulated an intellectual vision regarding how the government could work to end lynching." (Page 83)

We need a similar publication like A Red Record in the 21st century to document the numerous shooting deaths of black men, women, and children across the United States by police officers and non-police individuals.

These shootings have reached such an epidemic level that A Red Record-like publication would help put a human face to these deaths with photographs, background information, and a summary of each shooting incident. They would no longer be just statistics in a newspaper or an evening newscast.

A 900 to 1,000-page record of these deaths would demonstrate to political, civic, religious, and academic leaders that there is a dire need for a solution to this slaughter that's taking place in our urban areas. Gun violence is not just a legal issue, it is first and foremost a public health issue inextricably linked to mental health.

History Repeats Itself

The recent violence against Jewish individuals in the New York metropolitan area is a throwback to an earlier time. In John Strausbaugh's Victory City: A History of New York and New Yorkers During World War II (Twelve/Grand Central Publishing, 2018), he writes: "Through 1942 and 1943 there would be numerous reports in the press of roving gangs of young men, mostly identified as Irish and affiliated with the [Christian] Front [Catholic priest Charles Coughlin's anti-Semitic organization], beating and sometimes even knifing Jews in neighborhoods such as Flatbush, Washington Heights, and the South Bronx, where Irish and Jewish communities abutted. Many shops, synagogues, and cemeteries were vandalized." (Page 155)

On an earlier page, Strausbaugh points out that "The city's police force, which was nearly two-thirds Irish, turned a blind eye [to any violence against Jews or the distribution of anti-Semitic literature on the streets]; some number of them were Christian Fronters themselves." (Page 152)

But unlike what went on back then, today's mayor and police commissioner have responded with a considerable amount of police presence in heavily Jewish neighborhoods of New York City like Crown Heights, Brooklyn to prevent any further attacks.                                                                                                     

Federal Troops In Chicago Won't Solve Social Problems

President Donald Trump said that he would send federal troops to Chicago if the murder rate there kept increasing. The truth is the National Guard can only do so much to quell urban violence. The social ills in the black community of Chicago are so deep-seated and have existed for so long that a law-and-order approach can only have limited results. The presence of federal troops might even exacerbate the situation. It will take a slew of people--social workers, religious and civic leaders, psychologists, educators, corporate leaders, and others--to deal with the underlying causes of violence in Chicago and anywhere else. These problems did not occur overnight and they won't be eradicated overnight. To expect a law-and-order solution to be a quick fix is to be living in a fantasy world.

Violence In America

The following letter-to-the-editor was sent via e-mail to the Metro New York newspaper on May 28, 2015:

Dear Editor:

In retired police sergeant Sal Giarratani's letter (Metro, May 27), he expressed the belief that "a culture of violence...permeates communities of color." This view is one-sided. It also ignores American history as well as the '60s saying that "Violence is as American as apple pie."

The history books are full of examples of American violence: the Hamilton-Burr duel, gunfights in the American West, gangland slayings, the massacre of Native Americans, witch-hunts, Ku Klux Klan lynchings, police violence against labor organizers, presidential assassinations, to name a few.

And if you add to that the glorification of firearms in the movies and on television and the subsequent bloodlust and carnage on screen, you will see that communities of color are not and have never been the only segment of society plagued by violence.

Sincerely yours,
Charles Michael Smith

Note: This letter was published in the Metro New York newspaper on May 29, 2015.

Overcoming Our Violent Side

A city like New York is a testament to the scientific and technological strides that human beings have made over the centuries.Despite our ingenuity, there lurks within each of us, whether we want to admit it or not, a primitive side that manifests itself through violence and mayhem. If we could find a way to eradicate that side of ourselves, we would have a truly beautiful world in which to fully enjoy our technological advances and we wouldn't need to fear war or its handmaiden terrorism.