ASA2 Section2
10/22/17
The relationship between mass murders and racist intent outlined by Darrell Y. Yamamoto in “Empire of Death and the Plague of Civic Violence” is one that almost goes unnoticed in debates about a killer’s motivation. While the crimes committed by killers such as Ted Bundy, John Allen Muhammad, and Charles Joseph Whitman seem to stem largely from psychotic violent tendencies, the murders Yamamoto describes later have clear underlying tones of racism. To bridge the connection between pure acts of rage and those intertwined with jingoist intent, he documents the case of Jeffrey Dahmer, a serial killer who claimed 17 lives. In a statement about his son, Lionel Dahmer came to his defense by saying that the color of their skin hadn’t matter to Jeffrey. Seeing this case through a racially motivated perspective was especially edifying on a personal note. Having read the graphic novel “My Friend Dahmer” by his high school acquaintance (under the pseudonym Derf Backderf), I was already familiar with Dahmer’s background and (perceived) motives for killing. It was a complete surprise to me that according to Yamamoto, his friends and family spoke with hatred about most of his victims, gays and blacks, because Dahmer himself was gay. I also think that the author of this article may have been trying to nitpick for hints of racism because Dahmer truly had killed men of all ethnic backgrounds, and the points Yamamoto describes are not substantial.
Question: Clearly, cases of mass murder stem from issues far deeper than just racism. However, racism plays a factor in a killer choosing his or her victims, for example, by American war veterans still traumatized by their time in Vietnam. Are there similar cases of racially-motivated, and war PTSD, mass murders committed in other countries where the victims are predominantly white?
References:
1. Hamamoto, Y. Darrell. “Empire of Death and the Plague of Civic Violence.” Masters of War: Militarism and Blowback in the Era of American Empire, by Carl Boggs, Routledge, 2003, pp. 277-292.
2. Lynch1 [Digital Image]. (n.d). Retrieved October 22, 2017 from http://images.asian-nation.org/lynch1.jpg
No comments:
Post a Comment