This horrific incident might even take some of the wind out of the sails of people who are quick to accuse law enforcement of racial profiling. To hear them, you’d think it was so automatic and ingrained that the term “DWB” (driving while black) was the rule, rather than applied in exception situations. If that were so, it might have happened in the sniper case. Perhaps the police were “profiling” but using one that seemed to be more “appropriate” for the situation.
Thankfully, while psychotic killing still represents aberrant behavior, is even rarer that such a killer will be black. The Colin Ferguson case on Long Island (December 7, 1993) is one that immediately comes to mind. The D.C. sniper case also stood out because the killings took place in an upper scale area. It didn’t happen in some graffiti plagued, gang infested area of the inner city where robbery, murder, and mayhem are a “normal” fact of life.
John Allen Muhammad’s actions represent an extreme example of what can happen when we maintain an “us vs. them” way of thinking against any people, irrespective of the race, religion, gender or nationality… even if they think of us as a “them” (bad guys) versus their “us” (as the good guys). No one who is actively trying to kill someone else is ever “good” to his or her target.
If they are convicted of the crimes they are being charged with, Mr. Allen and Malvo should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law and punished accordingly. If that punishment means being put to death, then so be it. If it means life imprisonment, then so be that too. The important point to be gleaned from this case for individuals -- you and me -- is to cherish and enjoy life and honor each other.
Rage is yesterday’s news. Let’s not make it tomorrow’s. We don’t have to do it. As a schism-form, race is yesterday’s “religion.” It need not be tomorrow’s either.
A number of generations ago, racial schism was the way of mind and the law of the land in America. Schisms don’t exist in a vacuum. In order to exist, all parties -- each playing various roles -- embraced it. The residual effects of our racial caste system continue to exist to the extent that individuals still base their assumptions on comparative data (the only information actually available), rather than qualitative, experiential understanding. However, the truth is that human beings can’t have, or know anyone’s experience but their own. But we can sure sound like we know about others’ experiences, as well as their motives. Yet, the “truth” of our assessment of others is only as good as the assessment is “true” of us.
I would like to see a safe and prosperous America, and a safe and prosperous world. Waging war, even to “ensure” our prosperity is not, in my opinion, the best way to make the world a safer place. Sending Americans to “secure” another country -- to kill another country’s men who will defend, even though their leader is a tyrant -- doesn’t diffuse the desire to continue to engage in war.
While Americans should not be sacrificial lambs in any stretch of the imagination, we should be using our imaginations more, individually and collectively, to diffuse the “warspeak” and “jihadism” between the various sides. The silence of reason in the face of such escalating rhetoric implies tacit approval. I can be silent no more.
The sun shines on every human being on this planet. Oxygen doesn’t deny itself to anyone who can breathe it in. It goes to all and nourishes them equally, each to his or her need. Gravity holds down every human being, each to their need. It doesn’t pick and choose who is worthy of “gravitational anchoring” to the planet’s surface. Who are we -- whether we’re talking John Allen Muhammad, George W. Bush, Palestinians or Israelis -- to decide that someone else doesn’t belong, and that we’re going to eliminate them? It’s not our place to unilaterally decide what is “right” for someone else. It is our place to be clear on what is “right” for us, and to create relationships that don’t involve annihilation as a possibility.
Of course, my ramblings represent rational thinking as applied, in both hindsight and hope, to irrational behavior. I’ll concede that point. Yet, the truth applies. Rational thinking must be presented, examined, and given a chance, even if the individual, to whom the idea is addressed, is being irrational. I believe that everyone has their “price”… where they will be rational and peaceful under the right circumstances. I believe there is a price where each will be willing to act on a higher level of belief in self and strive to create a life worth living for, instead of one worth dying, or killing for. It may have little to do with money. But whatever it is, let’s agree to look for it and be willing to make a new deal. That would be "fresh" indeed.
I have nothing but praise for the efforts of law enforcement authorities and agencies in apprehending John Allen Muhammad and John Lee Malvo, the suspected D.C. area snipers. It would be easy to criticize the police in hindsight for the times that they unknowingly had the suspects in their hands (traffic citations, etc.), but let them go. One could carp about how the agencies did, or did not talk to each other, or the jurisdictional squabbles that came into play. But I don’t mind. None of these individuals shot at least thirteen unsuspecting people in cold blood, killing at least eleven. None of them terrorized an entire nation by taking human target practice with a Bushmaster XM15 semiautomatic assault rifle. Let’s give the police some good credit.
Adam Abraham is author of I Am My Body, NOT! (www.iammybodynot.com), A Freed Man: An Emancipation Proclamation (Release Pending), Love Proclamations™ and other works. He is also publisher of Fresh Thought an e-Zine for Life Transformation. To receive Fresh Thought, send an email to: fresh_thought@topica.email-publisher.com and type “Subscribe” in the Subject line.
Also by Adam E. Abraham:
When the Reality of Race Oneness Sets In
Favoring Meaning Over 'Ease'
It’s Not the ‘Ism’ Anymore
Calling for More Good Change
Putting the Spirit of ‘Us vs. Them’ to Rest
Notes from a ‘Political Expatriate’
Allowing the ‘Miracle’ of Change
To the Birth of I Can
Focus On Humanity
A Wonderful and Not So 'Silly' Dream
Musings of a Philosopher: Or When 'Silence' is No Longer 'Golden'
Wedges Are Not ‘Tools’ Of Unity
On the ‘Birthing’ of New Futures
When Simple Truths Are Submerged In Complexity
Bush’s Dilemma in “Gunning Down” Saddam
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