Memories of gift shopping with my mother at McCory’s, as a young child of no more than seven, are the inspiration for this essay. Walking down the toy filled aisles, I was seduced by a M-16 toy machine gun, like the ones seen being used by soldiers in Vietnam War movies. I pleaded with my mother to buy it for me. What could have gotten into my young mind to be seduced by such an object?
To better understand the issue that I intend to cover in this essay, let’s consider a young 34-year old man who is 5’11”, with a chronic shortage of breath, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and susceptibility to a heart attack at any time. Obviously an unhealthy person, he must take the necessary steps to change his physical diet as his body’s vital alarm system has warned him that his way of living is unhealthy. Parallel to this example, hundreds of thousands of young American men and women have been victims of gun violence in wars, in our inner cities, and in our suburban communities while America has the highest rate of incarceration in the world. This country is unhealthy and must soon take the necessary steps to change the its mental diet, as our social conditions alarm system has warned us that our way of living is unhealthy.
When analyzing the problem that confronts us, when put into its proper perspective, one can easily concur that it is a simple math problem: not one of algebra, but basic arithmetic. What we ingest into our minds affect us in a negative and positive way, just as the food we ingest into our bodies physically does. We are a reflection of what we eat both mentally and physically. The primary reason we find ourselves seduced by guns and violence is rooted in our mental diet, what’s fed into our minds. And just as the physical body begins to suffer from an unhealthy diet, so too do our social conditions suffer from an unhealthy mental diet.
In the last 40 years, the images seen on television and the big screen, as well as in the music played on our radios, have been systematically nurturing violence. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, we witnessed a spike in the violence broadcasted on television where even the programs that were geared towards children became agents of violence. Programs such as “Fat Albert,” “Scooby-Doo,” “The Jetsons,” and “The Jackson 5,” to name a few, were being replaced with violent programs such as “G.I. Joe,” “He-Man,” “Thundercats,” and “Transformers,” which enticed young minds toward guns and violence. Even naive programs with innocent appearing characters such as “Tom & Jerry,” Woody Woodpecker and Bugs Bunny all displayed acts of violence where someone or something would eventually become damaged or hurt.
To show cause and effect of this type of psychological seduction: in the 1980s, the 3:00 cinema would broadcast Chinese movies in which children in the Red Hook housing project complex in Brooklyn, New York, where I grew up, would rush indoors to watch enticing acts of Kung-Fu that kept our eyes glued to the television screen. Come 4:00, most of us were eager and ready to try out the karate moves we had just witnessed on television where we all became Ninjas and Samurais.
Parallel to this example, the case that I’m currently incarcerated for becomes unique as is serves to highlight how young minds are seduced to recreate the images of violence portrayed in movies, though with much more consequence. “Lethal Weapon” was a popular movie that came out in the early 1990s.
This movie showcased the actor Mel Gibson simultaneously firing two guns at his foes. This act of bravado looks good on the big screen; however, it is actually reckless and irrational in real life to try to simultaneously fire and control two high-powered weapons. Needless to say, in the environment I grew up in, its recreation proved unimaginably tragic.
As a result of the violent images and messages fed to our minds on television, the movies, and radio during the early 1980s and right up to this very day, our communities have literally become a recreation of battle fields. This has left millions dead or incarcerated because of violent crimes.
While this has been taking place in our inner cities, America’s culture of racism and discrimination across ethnic groups and class has desensitized whites as well as middle class America towards the ills of our violent culture. However, as of late, as this social illness has begun to spread towards America’s suburban communities (i.e. Sandy Hook, Columbine, Virginia Tech, District of Columbia), white and middle class America has begun to feel the ill effect of this unhealthy culture themselves, in which we all have become fat and full of violent thoughts and persuasions. In effect, we all have become criminals, contributors, enablers as well as victims to the cycle of violence.
Need I say that the entertainment industry, the NRA, the government, America corporations, ourselves, parents, and our peers are all accessories to the crime of consumption. Our diet of violent images and messages being fed to us through television, movies, and radio is killing our kids. To understand the mechanics of this violent culture and still sit back and do nothing, while continuing to feed violent images to ourselves and our children, America has systematically become a population of perpetrators …
Khary Bekka is currently serving a prison sentence of 25 years to life for his participation in a gang fight that led to the shooting and death of beloved PS 15 Principal Patrick Daly, back in 1992.
