From the Assassinations of the 1960s to Stoneman Douglas: Guns, Violence, and White Masculinity in Crisis

Six days after the tragic shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School that claimed seventeen lives and launched the #Never-Again movement, Oprah Winfrey joined a host of other celebrities in pledging $500,000 for the upcoming “March for Our Lives” planned for the U.S. Capitol. In her tweet, Winfrey lauded the students’ efforts, writing: “These inspiring young people remind me of the Freedom Riders of the 60s who also said we’ve had ENOUGH and our voices will be heard.” The following week, presidential historian Jon Meacham made a similar analogy on Politically Incorrect, comparing the students to the civil rights activists he encountered in the 1960s. “There was explicit apartheid in my native region, in the South. These kids,” he said, “are now leading an extraordinary effort in terms of reform, I have a feeling, who may take their place with the children of Birmingham who went into the streets, who drew Bull Connor’s wrath, who bore witness.” Certainly, these students should be applauded for their fierce activism, from senior Emma Gonzalez’s¹ poignant speech at a Fort Lauderdale rally to junior Cameron Kasky’s questioning of Marco Rubio during a CNN town hall for accepting campaign contributions from the National Rifle Association (NRA). Yet, the comparison between the Freedom Riders of the 1960s and the Stoneman Douglas students obscures several important differences. Chief among these is the role of systemic racial inequality in both public and legislative responses to mass shootings, police brutality, and other forms of entrenched social violence. Perhaps a more fitting comparison would be that between the Freedom Riders of the ’60s and the Movement for Black Lives² today.

The racial politics at the center of the current epidemic of societal violence, from school shootings to the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, are all too familiar—so familiar that we can almost hear the echoes of the race riots reverberate. In fact, the cultural under-currents driving gun legislation today are remarkably similar to those that prompted the Gun Control Act of 1968. In both eras, the push for legislation was motivated not by the ongoing protests against systemic violence facing black Americans but by a handful of significant events that targeted primarily white citizens, symbolized by the assassination of JFK in the 1960s and the Stoneman Douglas students today. But, just as the Gun Control Act of 1968 did not put an end to the violence, neither will any piece of gun legislation passed today, no matter how well intentioned. Guns may be the vehicles used to carry out these acts, but they are not the impetus. The impetus is cultural. Like the ’60s, the 2010s are a time of great social change accompanied by a rise in identitarian politics, including American exceptionalism and white masculinity in crisis. As numerous studies have shown,³ more so than mental illness, religious views, or party affiliations, what most perpetrators have in common is that they are white men. If we want to address the root of this violence rather than its symptoms, this is the place to start. And the voices we should be listening to are those of our children—including those on the front lines of the Movement for Black Lives.

Unfortunately, their voices are not being heard as clearly as those of their lighter-skinned peers. A primary reason the Stoneman Douglas students have emerged as the face of gun control is the combination of their (predominantly) white skin, their affluent backgrounds, and the suburban zip code in Parkland, Florida. Made up of mostly gated communities, Parkland is known for its strict zoning laws, which have prevented commercial businesses and traffic lights from disturbing its “park-like” character. The Parkland students are precisely the children who do not usually face this kind of violence. In other words, the fact that state and federal legislators are listening to the Stoneman Douglas students has less to do with the uniqueness of their political savvy and more to do with the politics of who they are...