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"Trained
to Kill"
Unlearning
Violence
What
is the road home from the dark and lonely place to which
we have traveled? One route infringes on civil liberties.
The city of New York has made remarkable progress in recent
years in bringing down crime rates, but they may have done
so at the expense of some civil liberties. People who are
fearful say that is a price they are willing to pay.
Another route would be to "just turn it off;" if you don't
like what is on television, use the "off" button. Yet, if
all the parents of the 15 shooting victims in Jonesboro
had protected their children from TV violence, it wouldn't
have done a bit of good. Because somewhere there were two
little boys whose parents didn't "just turn it off."
On the night of the Jonesboro shootings, clergy and counselors
were working in small groups in the hospital waiting room,
comforting the groups of relatives and friends of the victims.
Then they noticed one woman sitting alone silently.
A
counselor went over to the woman and discovered that she
was the mother of one of the girls who had been killed.
She had no friends, no husband, no family with her as she
sat in the hospital, stunned by her loss. "I just came to
find out how to get my little girl's body back," she said.
But the body had been taken to Little Rock, 100 miles away,
for an autopsy. Her very next concern was, "I just don't
know how I'm going to pay for the funeral. I don't know
how I can afford it." That little girl was truly all she
had in all the world. Come to Jonesboro, friend, and tell
this mother she should "just turn it off."
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Read
a different article:
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Encyclopedia
of Violence, Peace, and Conflict, Volume 3, p.159
©
1999 by Academic Press. All rights of reproduction in any
form reserved.
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