Like most Americans, I’m sickened when I hear about another mass shooting. It’s become more real whenever I enter Northgate Market, a super Mexican grocery store between Culver City and Venice, fairly crowded, day and night.
The shooting at a Walmart in El Paso, TX, in 2019, claimed the lives of 23 people, young and old, mostly Mexican Americans and Mexican immigrants. The El Paso killer admitted, outright, he drove hours from his home to kill Mexicans and immigrants. On his website, he wrote, “This attack is in response to the Hispanic invasion of Texas,” which is strange logic because Texas was always majority Mexican until the Anglos invaded after the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.
On Facebook, many of my “friends” third and fourth generation Mexican, were posting they were shaken and saddened by the tragic event. The violence in America is now hitting closer to home, reminding us how some of our radicalized fellow Americans have placed Mexicans/Latinos in their crosshairs.
In 1848, the U.S. government forced Mexico to sign the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, ceding more than 50% of its territory to Washington, agreeing to the Rio Grande as a border, and accepting $15,000,000 in compensation, in what Ulysses S. Grant dubbed, “One of the most unjust [wars] ever waged by a stronger against the weaker country.” It’s what Henry David Thoreou protested when he refused to pay taxes and was thrown into jail.
White “settlers” came west, in droves, some bringing their slaves, many bringing a White Supremacist “slave mentality.” The settlers usurped Mexican lands, jailed and executed anyone who complained or defended themselves and their families, and since slavery was outlawed, they introduced “Juan Crow,” essentially treating Tejanos as de facto slaves.
If Tejanos retaliated or organized insurrections, like in 1915, when it was rumored that Mexican, Chinese, and African Americans started the “Liberating Army for Races and Peoples,” possibly a ruse for highway robbery, the raiders killed three White Americans, under something called El Plan de San Diego, to kill all White males over sixteen and take back the Southwest, a notion one judge called, "more lunacy than insurgency.” The small group did send fear through settlers as they ripped up railroad tracks, telegraph lines, and burned bridges.
The U.S. Army intervened and sent in 4,000 troops. In a matter of days, executed 300, mostly Mexicans, guilty or not, what people in south Texas referred to as La Matanza, a time of terror in the Southwest. Scholars estimated, in the subsequent years, they killed as many as 5,000 Mexicans, possibly more, likely using the deserts and Rio Grande to "diasppear" the bodies.
On Facebook, many blamed Donald Trump’s rants against immigrants as the catalyst that drove the shooter to execute so many innocent people in the El Paso Walmart. Others argued, “words don’t commit murder, people do,” so, to hold Trump responsible is playing politics.
“Friends” began posting their reactions, some obscene and offensive, eventually deteriorating into conservatives bashing liberals and vice-versa, some friends not sounding very friendly, others down right indignant. Lost in the fray were the deaths of innocent people, the suffering of the families, and the threat to Americans everywhere.
Of course, gun control became the issue, a large percentage of Americans supporting a ban on assault weapons and laws to begin universal background checks when purchasing a weapon; some who said there were already enough laws in place to assure “crazies” can’t purchase guns but the other side arguing the existing laws don’t go far enough, the same political cliches dished out by politicians and television pundits, who offered “prayers” instead of sensible gun “laws.”
Some “friends” claimed the main problem was a Godlessness in America, too many single families, and lack of old-school, traditional values, like respect for each other, prayer in the schools. Then came the memes showing how violent music, movies, and video games were the culprit, brainwashing our kids. Of course, few people actually created the memes. Most were copied and pasted from other websites, those that fit their political ideologies.
Conservative politicians took to the air waves and immediately latched on to mental illness as a cause, which inflamed television analysts who work with the mentally ill, arguing it’s an insult to people suffering from mental illnesses to blame them for mass shootings. Most mentally ill people, they said, quoting statistics, aren’t murderers, less than 3%. Liberal politicians, on the other hand, drove home the Trump-as-chief-instigator-line and used examples of his language to support their positions.
I saw the FB response of a woman describing her liberal “friends” (Democrats) as being unreasonable, angry, out-of-control, and obscene. I thought this strange since some conservative responses I’d read also sounded much the same. I took a closer look at the posts. The person was right. How did I not see it? Maybe, we see what we want to see. There were angry posts on both sides. No particular ideology had a monopoly on crass, deplorable verbiage. Though, I admit, the majority of responses were measured and respectful, if not always supported by evidence.
Since the El Paso Walmart massacre, now in Trump’s second term, we’ve had a lot of shootings at schools, two assassination attempts on a presidential candidate, some assaults on churches and temples, all the shootings baffling. If past experience over mass killings holds true, nothing, will change. While politicians on the “left” spout Trump’s candidacy is a threat to democracy, the ex-president has ramped up his anti-immigrant rants, even as hundreds of thousands of immigrants, across the country, work at jobs most Americans won’t do. If Alex Jones can get away with making his base believe Sandy Hook was a publicity stunt, what chance do we have to stop these senseless killings based on propaganda about an invasion by a particular people or religious group?
What is unnerving to me is how what I consider “senseless killings” makes complete sense to somebody else, especially those who believe what their messiahs tell them, not unlike the followers of Jim Jones who drank poison Kool at his request. Some people believe “Whites” (I’m not really sure what “white” means), are losing control of the country, and “nonwhite” people are invading and taking control,” like the El Paso shooter believed, propaganda pushed by Trump advisor Steven Miller. However, people, like Miller, never mention the fact that, by any measure, the majority of people in positions of power are White, male, and heterosexual.
None of that is the point, or, at least, it shouldn’t be. What matters is that we are Americans, regardless of ethnicity and religion, and we hold on to the promise of success. We work hard for ourselves and our families. We shouldn’t have to worry about someone coming into a store and shooting up the place, just because another person pushing propaganda told him to do it.
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