The latest—never the last—horrifying deadly shooting rampage in America was brought to us by Mainak Sarkar, a disaffected former UCLA student who murdered Professor William Klug over an imagined slight. Before killing Klug and then himself, Sarkar also killed his estranged wife Ashley Hasti. While no one was paying attention or keeping track, Hasti’s murder was one in a line of particularly relentless, horrifying, gruesome domestic violence murders in the past seven days. It’s easier, sometimes, not to notice patterns—particularly at an outlet where we write regularly about violence against women, which is constant and, if you’re not careful, numbing in its grim predictability.
Greetings from America, a wondrous land of plenty, where citizens freely exercise all manner of considerable butthurt over the shooting death of a zoo’s gorilla while barely acknowledging violence committed against people. They’ll become all sorts of outraged over animal abuse (and rightly so)…even as they continue to blithely ignore the twin public health crises of domestic abuse and gun violence.
You might not have noticed- perhaps because you were too busy mourning the death of Harambe, the Cincinnati Zoo’s gorilla- to notice gun violence on the campus of UCLA…which was preceded by the gunman’s murder of his estranged wife. Another day in America, another episode of gun violence and domestic abuse. Yawn…so, what did Donald Trump say today? And is The Black Guy in the White House © still trying to take our guns?
To say we’ve become numb to the sad, distressing frequency of domestic violence and gun violence would seem something of an understatement. As long as we’re not the ones burying our loved ones, it’s an abstract concept- tragic, to be certain, but not so much so that we need to actually do anything about it.
A week like this of any other kind of incident—mass shootings, publicized incidents of bullying, canoeing accidents—would probably occasion some editorials, some discussion on the morning talk shows, maybe even a grim press conference from the president, vowing not to stand for any more. Consider, for example, that we are now on day seven of a news cycle about a dead gorilla.
But because this is simply violence, murder, mayhem enacted on women—the same kind as always—we won’t see any of that here.
Our collective short-term memory, as measured in news cycles, is virtually nonexistent when it comes to the constant drumbeat of domestic violence and gun deaths. We’re no longer able to muster up much in the way of outrage when each seemingly brings more news of senseless violence and murder. We’ve become inured to tragedy involving human beings- not because we don’t care (though sometimes I have to wonder), but because it’s all around us, part of the background noise of life in America.
Our national attention isn’t always impatient. We have an amazing capacity to see every bit of presidential election jockeying, for one. It’s not that we refuse to see pain, either: just that we see pain most clearly when it registers as raw, or surprising, and violence against women is so common that it’s ceased to seem like anything but more of the same. It’s easier, sometimes, not to notice patterns. But that doesn’t mean they don’t exist.
Something north of 1,600 women die each year at the hands of their male partners- in most cases, people who’ve pledged to love and protect them. More than 30,000 Americans die from gun violence every year. This should be cause for action and outrage, but such tragic news involving guns or domestic violence barely moves the needle these days.
Mark Twain once said when speaking of India that all life there is sacred…except for human life. The same holds true for America, where we’ll expend considerable moral indignation over the killing of a gorilla…but can barely be bothered to take note of yet another domestic violence incident or mass shooting.
Welcome to America, where ALL life is sacred…except human life.
