|
Get the Facts and the History Straight, My Friend
By Fletcher Word
Sojourner’s Truth Editor
“Yes, it’s absolutely a
shame but … “
Then you know what’s
coming next, don’t you? It’s not really that big of a shame,
goes the rest of the argument. And, generally, it’s not that
big of a shame because there are bigger shames – much bigger
shames, so quit your whining.
Take for example, the case
of 49 people murdered and 53 wounded by a madman, in a gay
nightclub no less. Yes, ‘it’s oh so terrible, no ands, ifs
or buts’ our arguer argues. Then he says: “but …”
Then come the opinions,
cloaked as facts, in an attempt to convince the unconvinced
that the argument makes sense. Then the arguer inexplicably
mangles or disregards the facts and tosses in an emotional
appeal designed to excite, inflame and, above all, to
confuse.
Sound familiar? If you
read the previous article and still believe the so-called
facts within, let me take a few minutes to clarify.
Our columnist asserts that
the Pulse mass shooting was not, contrary to media reports,
the largest mass shooting in this country’s history and
presents us with four massacres that he thinks prove his
case. And, he further implies that white America, using the
media as its messenger, is trying to glorify the Pulse
shooting and neglecting those previous ones of people of
color.
The first problem with our
columnist’s list of facts is a fact that he has neglected to
mention. That fact is, all of the victims of the Pulse
shooting, save one, were people of color. Our columnist did
glibly happen to mention that Pulse is a gay nightclub but
inexplicably forgot to include the fact that the victims
were black and brown. I’m sure there was no hidden agenda
in this omission but facts, as he notes, are critical.
The Pulse is not the worst
mass shooting, claims our columnist, as he recounts four
incidents from the past that all claimed a larger number of
victims, so he tries to convince us: the race riots of
Tulsa, East St. Louis, Rosewood, during which black
communities were attacked by white mobs and the Native
American massacre at Wounded Knee.
The problem with our
columnist’s argument is, regrettably, in his facts. Not the
facts, but his facts. His version of the facts.
The number of the murdered
in the Tulsa, East St. Louis and Rosewood riots have never
been ascertained to any degree of certainty. The official
counts in all three place the number of dead at figures
lower than those in the Pulse mass murder. We just will
never know. In the Rosewood riot, for example, for years the
survivors, those who moved to other parts of Florida and the
country, were too intimidated to speak of that horror.
While the official counts
are placed at lower than the Pulse mass shooting, legend has
it in all three incidents that the totals may have been in
the hundreds. We don’t have accurate counts.
What we do know is that
none of these were mass shootings. The victims were killed
by lynchings, bludgeonings, knifings, being burned to death
in their homes and, some perhaps, by guns. But the fact is,
we have no information on how many were shot. None can be
classified as mass shootings simply because we don’t know
how many, if any, were actually shot in any of these riots.
Massacres? Yes. Riots?
Yes. Mass shootings? Not without some evidence – or some of
those facts that our columnist so cherishes.
The Wounded Knee battle is
entirely a different matter. The record is pretty clear as
to how many people were actually killed and we can presume
that most were indeed shot.
However, to classify
Wounded Knee as a mass shooting is to misinterpret the term.
Wounded Knee was part of the Indians Wars, a series of wars
that ultimately lasted over 300 years. The reason the
Wounded Knee battle has gained so much attention and
notoriety over the last century is because it was the last
battle of the war, the last time that either Native
Americans or soldiers were killed in any significant numbers
during that war.
Mass shootings are in an
entirely different classification from wars. If this were
not so, our intrepid columnist would have taken us back into
the battles of the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, the
Civil War and, yes, the Indian Wars and given you hundreds
of examples of battles in which more than 49 combatants were
killed.
One might ask at this
point if the innocent people slaughtered at Wounded Knee
were combatants? Certainly a number of them were because
they managed to kill 29 soldiers. However, that is hardly
the point. Many, many unarmed civilians – women and children
in particular – were killed at Wounded Knee but it was still
part of a war.
Was the war just? Was it
fair? No it was not. War never is. All wars are unfair,
unjust, brutal affairs in which innocent people die in
horrific numbers. In every war at least one party is clearly
in the wrong and is usually wrong because they want to
unjustly take something from another party. That’s what war
is. That’s how wars start and why they continue to plague
the human race.
Let’s be clear, however. A
mass shooting is a term used by law enforcement to
categorize a small number of individuals (one to three,
typically) who use guns (not baseball bats, tire irons,
knives or ropes) to kill a larger number of people –
generally more than three.
When you kill an
unprecedented number of black and brown people in a gay
nightclub in Orlando with guns, that act qualifies as the
worst mass shooting in American history.
That’s a fact.
|
