Jack Tulloss: Violence as wallpaper

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Published: 01-16-2025 2:55 PM |
Here’s a bit of history: Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin, the reincarnated incarcerated H. Rap Brown, was a consequential figure of the 1960s Black Liberation Movement and author of one of the most iconic aphorisms to emerge from this period. During a 1967 media interview, Mr. Al-Amin declared, “Violence is a part of America’s culture. It is as American as cherry pie.”
It seems history has elevated Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin from resentful seditionist to seer. From the arrival of the first Europeans to today, the narrative of violence in North America continues to be broad, deep, and unbroken. In 1944, Will Durant, the American philosopher, wrote, “A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself within.”
Is the country on the road to perdition? It’s hard to say.
What’s clear is that indifferent acceptance of perpetual violence has consequences. Not the least of which is the destruction of the American ideal. Any notion of American exceptionalism and the belief that American democracy is the most distinguished democratic form is threadbare fantasy.
Regrettably, the New Year’s Day bloodshed in New Orleans, Las Vegas, and Queens, New York, is, in all likelihood, a harbinger of what’s to come in 2025. It is also the metaphorical canary in the nation’s cultural coal mine that should not be ignored.
So, what can be done about the endemic violence that has ripened into our national wallpaper? Nothing for now. Enduring change requires inspirational leadership coupled with determination, and with the new POTUS, aka DOOFUS, on the throne, domestic transformation is out of the question. Pondering correctives to sustained violence is doubtless far down on most people’s to-do lists. Still, with the advent of Skechers slip-in shoes, one would think citizens have more free time.
Sad to say, the wretched palliative of robotically lowering Old Glory to half-staff in response to preventable national tragedies may be the best we can do for a country on the clock. Decades ago, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. cautioned, “Today, it is no longer a choice between violence and nonviolence; it is either nonviolence or nonexistence.”
Words to live by. Or not.
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Jack Tulloss