Working class
people are more prone to violence because of continuous acts of workplace
bullying, social bullying, and domestic bullying, causing violence to spill
over to jobs like policing, colleges, and social events; where these acts of intimidation
are brought to a head in the form of some violent outburst or action. “In the 1980s the manifest
functions of government were to maintain order in society, but its distinct
function produced a hard lesson learned by the individual who broke the law. James Flynn, “observed in the 80s that IQ
scores had consistently increased in the past decades”… “3 IQ points per decade
and thought that intelligence itself had not increased, but abstract
problem-solving ability had, making people more intellectually capable”…
“Factors that may have played a role are computers, long-schooling, media
stimulation, better health and nutrition, and more parental attention.” Consequently, from 1991 to 1999,
according to A-infos website there
was one incident of unjustified police brutality every year for nine
years. Even closer to 2015 you have
similar events: Timothy Russell and
Melissa Williams, who were unarmed and shot more than 137 times by Cleveland
Police; South Carolina Officer Micheal Slager, who shot and killed unarmed
Walter Scott. This type of injustice has
sparked the Justice or Else movement that focused on the injustice of police
who are committing murder and felony assault, and falsifying reports.
The Cleveland
abduction showed just how monstrous working class people have become to enrich
their lives socially and personally.
When Ariel Castro abducted and tortured those girls for 10 years in a
residential home in Cleveland right under the noses of the surrounding
neighbors in the community, this showed the lengths everyday working class
citizens will go to attain and maintain a certain status quo in the community
they live. Ariel Castro was not
considered to be mentally disturbed until it was discovered what he had done;
neither were the other shooters who committed the mass killings mentioned in
this paper. Ariel Castro is not alone in this crime of kidnap and sensory
deprivation; cases in Georgia, Tennessee, Oklahoma, and many other states as
you read this passage. They all fitted a
profile; they were ordinary working class people who were not ill-spoken of
until these atrocities were discovered to be committed by them.
“According to data compiled by Mother Jones magazine, which looked at
mass shootings in the United States since 1982, white people -- almost
exclusively white men -- committed some 64% of the shootings. "What made Dylann Roof do what he did?
You know, I mean, that's the question, isn't it? I don't know," Jeffrey
Swanson, professor in psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Duke University,
told CNN's Don Lemon. "There are
pieces of the puzzle, and you put them all on the jigsaw board, and you're
still going to have a big hole there. What I do know is that violent behavior
-- whether it's serious violence or minor violence in populations -- is never
just one thing. It's not a one thing problem. It's going to be an accumulation
of things, kind of a whole cocktail of factors," he said.
Mass shootings
date back as far as 1984 that have its origins in “Workplace Violence.” The shooters in the majority of recent mass
shootings all had no criminal record, college students, working class citizens
who collapsed under the “cocktail of factors” from home, work, and school. The shooters felt that they had been the
target of “acts or verbal comments, negative physical contact, repeated
incidents or patterns, asserted power through aggression, the object of a
person’s need to control someone, a set of acts of commission or omission,
undermine legitimate business interests, escalates to involve others, and
requires consequences for the targeted.”
These are the characteristics of workplace bullying; elements that
spawned most of the mass shootings in recent times. While race, gender, and mental health all
played a factor in the execution of these crimes, the commonality here is that
all the shooters felt that they had been unjustly done. “The fugitive Edward Snowden, convicted spy
Chelsea Manning, and mass murderer Aaron Alexis all had one thing in common,
U.S. government security clearances which they turned into weapons.” This quote
by Scott Pelley is a perfect example of seeking justice as an
encouragement. “Some believe that
Snowden and Manning were right to expose what they saw as government abuses
like the NSA's domestic surveillance program, but few believe that all of
America's secrets should be not at risk to spies, criminals or the mentally ill.”
Since the 1980s, rehabilitating
the criminal has been a priority of the criminal justice system. Crime has become an integral part of hip-hop
culture, so connected, that the style of dress, slang, and habits of the double
failure have made their way to the forefront of several minority cultures as fashionable
trends. With the popularity of the life
of the double failure as a popular trend, now there is what I term the “triple
failure,” because the standard for success has become tough in the life of the
double failure, unlike it once was 30 – 40 years ago. Criminals who have
committed the crimes of murder, robbery, burglary, drug selling, and assault
all have found themselves on the inside faced with wanting to get out of prison
and stay out. A perfect example of this
philosophy is Shari L. Thomas.
“Shari L. Thomas went to prison more than 25
years ago for killing the man who she said had abused her as a child. She used her time there to remake herself,
becoming the first woman in Virginia to obtain a college degree behind bars. [Shari]
earned a master’s degree in biotechnology after her release. She has kept her
record clean since, managing research laboratories for major hospitals and
pharmaceutical companies. And yet even
now, her criminal record has the power to reach through time, upending her life.”
This philosophy only works when the individual
wants it to work, can keep pace in this fast-moving, high-tech advanced
society, and the community is proponents of the person and their efforts.
The majority of mass shootings
start out as some form of workplace violence; where a disgruntled employee or
student with no known criminal history or known mental history has busted under
the pressures of work, home, and their social life. My personal experience has led me to know that
about 90% of the present day workforce is composed of ex-convicts,
probationers, and parolees. Most are
still working because they are tired of going back and forth to prison, being
on probation or parole, and want something different than the “thug life’ that
led them to jail. “Al-Qaeda leader Ayman
al-Zawahri called on Muslim men to carry out lone-wolf attacks in Western
countries, according to a video circulating on the intern[e]t in recent days,
suggesting Muslim youth follow the example set by the Tsarnaev brothers. When terrorist goes from attacking
corporations and organizations literally to your front door, then we must take
a look at the rehabilitation of the criminal, and where this is truly
leading. Full of drugs, guns, murder,
and a lot of times, no promise for tomorrow for young African-American children
who are caught up in this culture of dope houses and gangs, this is an upside
to the downside of African-American culture.
