Lingmiao's Blog

In the article “Why Most Mass Murderers are privileged white man”, Hugo Schwyzer argues the unearned privilege of white male leads to the current situation that most mass Murderers are privileged white middle-class male. Schwyzer’s inference are very convincing. He refers to the previous mass murderers, Seung-Hui Cho and Maj. Nidal Hasan, to demonstrate that media focus on murderers’ family background and faith instead of their mental illnesses. And connecting his personal experience, Hugo acclaim that white man are raised to expect to be welcomed wherever they go. So they are confident enough to choose a public place to commit massacres. Schwyzer decodes James Holmes’s crime in negotiated reading. He believes dominate ideology of stereotype of people from different background encourages the white man to commit crime in public place.

But I kind of have a mixed feeling about his inference. On the one hand, I agree that most people have some stereotype towards people from different background and media magnify this effect. On the other hands, I don’t believe white middle-class male privilege is one of reasons that white male criminals choose public spaces. Stereotype of other people do influence the behavior of people. But it is no longer a big factor.

Nowadays, when we are communicating with others, we more focus on that person’s character and his or her pasted accomplishments or failures instead of his or her family background, religion or faith.  I am not very familiar with how American people judge the murderers of massacres. But in my country, the similar case happened in 2004. The criminal Jiajue Ma is a university student. Because of unknown reason, he killed some students and professors in his university. That event shocked the whole China. Media attribute his behavior to his family background. But, people’s analysis about why he skilled so many students and professors in his university is not merely based on his background. Instead, his pasted behavior and his mental illnesses are the focus of people. Media did magnify the effect of Jiaju Ma’s background. But people are not fool. They will unbiased explain the whole events and decode the message from media in negotiated reading or even oppositional reading.

You will probably object that I have misrepresented Schwyzer’s work here. I concede the white male privilege do exist and influence our life. But I just thought that Schwyzer exaggerates this effect. Today, people may become inferential racists unconsciously because of the preferred reading from the media. However, I do not deem that effect is powerful enough to switch people’s whole judgment towards serious public events. Nowadays people’s dominate ideology is not racist ideology any more. Today’s dominate ideology, I thought, is that people can only understand the matter utterly by analyzing ALL aspect of that matter.