Their Desperate Arsenal: Beasts with No Leashes

by Vanessa Tottle

The gall of them:

The gall of some little bitch with a bowl cut, son of some proud lineage of death in South Carolina.

The gall of a Chicago cop who treated his trigger finger like that of a Ferguson cop or a Cleveland cop.

The gall of a man in a movie theater with a gun and the anger to use it.

The gall of Roseburg, Oregon. The gall of San Bernardino, California. The gall of Houston, Texas. This is the 355th mass shooting this year.

The gall of a man who once lived in a town called Black Mountain, like a beast from mythology. We best not return him there, in the fog of a cabin lonely in the woods where police will hear a man has hit his wife and shot at dogs and do nothing because that is the purpose of living in the fog of a cabin lonely in the woods.

Dear Colorado Springs,

Here’s my body, dictate it.

“No more baby parts,” he said.

We fight a war of remembrance, the names too many. Across the nation, victims will be remembered for their relation to others, for cruel fates, for last moments spent wanting to be a child again hiding under covers.

I want to hide under the covers. I don’t want to be saddled with memory now.

“No more baby parts,” he said, like a Fiorina or a Cruz. Like a Rubio or a Trump.

We tell the shooters this: I swear to God I will forget you. I swear to God I will forget you. I swear to God I will forget you.

Yet I can’t. We strive to keep terrorists out, but their sponsors hold debates on CNN and say that women bleed too much to ask questions on national TV, that a woman’s body is given too much freedom, that we must be kept, or dangerous if escaped, or shot if dangerous, or forgotten if shot, or meaningless if forgotten, so why spend so much time on women at all?

They are beasts with no leashes, they are footsteps coming closer in the hall outside with the lights off. Hiding under the covers won’t prolong what comes next. I know.

Which is more dangerous, the gun or the camera? The gun points one at a time. The camera points 45 million men with guns in the U.S. alone.

He once lived in a town called Black Mountain, like a beast from mythology, and beasts beget beasts, and to return these beasts to myth is to make them myth, is to beget beasts, is to hide under covers at night with the lights off and footsteps coming closer in the hall.

We are not crafted of hiding under covers. We are not crafted of anticipating our own pain. We are not crafted of covering this over with Star Wars and Christmastime and ‘It will get better: because.’

We are made of voices, all. Support what they hate. Support feminism with a fury. Support freedom of religion for Muslims and Christians and everyone else. Accept and offer asylum for refugees, whether victimized by ISIS across oceans or a man with a fist who lives in your own town. Ban guns and fucking mean it. Get the KKK out of our police departments. Haul everyone you know to vote.

We can ignore them endlessly, we can hide under covers endlessly until the day it’s not our problem anymore, and the young look up and see us hiding under covers and think it must be a good example to follow. Or we can make them obsolete. And we can make them obsolete.

“No more baby parts,” the gunman said. Just body parts.

To him, that is all we are.

We are crafted out of so much more than that.

 

For more:

“Their Desperate Arsenal: Isla Vista and the War at Hand”

“Silent All These Years – American Terror Story”

“If Only She’d Had a Gun”

News Snapshot, November 11

by Gabriel Valdez

This is a snapshot of what’s on the news 9:30-10:30 AM today. I flip back and forth to catalogue what each channel is showing and who they’re interviewing, and try to give equal time to each.

CNN: White people in Ferguson, MO are buying guns (sales up 50%) because they’re scared of black people, even though the only people shot in the town thus far are black. Here’s a random white person we scraped off the street to tell you why white people are so scared. Later, coverage on one doctor passing through his ebola quarantine.

Weather Channel: Investigative report into the number of deaths suffered by immigrants crossing the border, featuring interviews with relatives, experts, and immigrants themselves. Examines the root causes of illegal immigration, the history of migrant workers, and law enforcement’s response. Later, a report on a lava flow destroying property in Hawaii. Brief breaks for the weather.

FOX: Special report on Ronald Reagan, featuring newly released tapes of him being apologetic to Margaret Thatcher about having to meet foreign dignitaries. Followed by Lou Dobbs telling us why net neutrality would ruin America and Martha MacCallum (I believe) insisting that free internet in libraries is an evil that must be stopped. All interviews are with in-house personalities.

Al Jazeera: Roundtable discussion on the Trans-Pacific Partnership and whether China is being excluded or will have a future role, followed by a report on Nigeria’s upcoming election in the face of terrorism. Later, an interview with a woman campaigning against forced sterilization of the poor in rural India.

MSNBC: Fairly nonstop coverage of one doctor in New York passing through his Ebola quarantine.

Comedy Central: Daily Show editorial on U.S. intelligence basing their assumption of killing the leader of ISIS on a tweet made by Jordanian intelligence pretending to be ISIS. Followed by editorial on President Obama’s placement of 3,000 troops in Iraq despite insisting there are no “boots on the ground.” Followed by an on-site investigative report comparing public uproar when dogs are shot by police to lesser uproar when minorities are shot by police, including three expert interviews and an opening panel discussion.

CNN, FOX, MSNBC
1 on-site report interviewing 1 expert and 1 man-on-the-street. At least 5 interviews with personalities who work for the same network.

Weather Channel, Comedy Central, Al Jazeera
5 on-site reports including interviews with at least 8 outside experts, as well as 2 roundtable discussions. Zero interviews with internal network personalities.

This is just a snapshot. Please draw your own conclusions.

Silent All These Years — American Terror Story

WARNING: This post contains graphic, documented footage of police and military brutality.

by Vanessa Tottle

What is there to say about being black? I held a weeping friend last night. She had clawed scratches in her deep black face. I thought that only happened in the movies.

What is there to say about being a woman? I wish I weren’t. That is what you’ve made of us: I wish I was a white man with a gun and the badge to give me freedom to exorcise my demons on the body of another.

What is there to say to you, America? You have taken all my freedoms to give to new Middle Eastern despots who do not want them, who in 20 years will turn around and need fresh wars to overthrow their horrors.

And you will send in our black babies and brown babies and red babies and yellow babies who are by then old enough to go to college but won’t, because college will be a luxury and useless in the service economy that serves white men with guns and the badge to give them freedom to exorcise their demons on my body. On the body of the daughter I may one day have. On her daughter’s body. As tradition dictates.

Ask not what you can give for your country, it was never handed out. You have to give a life in service behind a counter at minimum wage, or a life in service behind a rifle at even less.

Women have to give our bodies, which were never fully ours. They are rentals, waiting for the day their mark is called and we submit ourselves to what we’re often told is duty. The mistake was thinking we were never built on bodies, swaddled in the blisters of smallpox blankets. The mistake was thinking we were never built on bodies, on the backs of bent black slaves. The mistake was thinking we were never built on bodies, on a Mexico that stretched to Washington State. On the Iroquois and Mohawk, on Comanche, on Aztlan and Navajo and Inuit, on Puerto Ricans and Spaniards and Filipinos, on the corpses of Latin America, on Cubans, Guatemalans, on Vietnamese, Laotians, Cambodians, Egyptians, Libyans, Afghans, Palestinians, Iraqis, Syrians, and how many dead little kids making shoes and jeans in pan-Pacific firetrap workshops.

The mistake was thinking democracy made us better than dictatorships and communists. The mistake was thinking democracy was anything but brand loyalty. The mistake was thinking a serial killer deserves to be the world’s police.

And now we are the world’s police. And look how they act. They shoot the black and poor in store aisles, at gas stations, outside convenience stores. We shoot Muslims in Iraq, in Syria, in Afghanistan. We are the country with a gun and the badge that gives us freedom to exorcise our demons on the bodies of others.

I am terrified to be a woman in America.

I am terrified to be a human in America.

I am terrified to step out of my home when in America.

I am not the only one.

If I could cut this uterus from me and lay it in Congress’ chambers as their prize, I would. If I could bleach my skin a blinding white, I would. That is what you’ve made of us. You could have it all, America, and I could go about my life free from all your terror.

Thank you to Amanda Smith for verifying all video is real footage.