Can we avoid using the Orlando Shooting to go after America’s racist past?

So the news is all abuzz now, trying desperately to salvage narratives and advance agendas with the Orlando shooting, including reminding us that the news is wrong about this being the worst mass shooting in history.  It turns out that the prize belongs to – America!  Americans killed 250 Indians at Wounded Knee, or so the memes are saying.

For what it’s worth, that was not the only massacre of Indians. There were many others.  And it wasn’t the only massacre in general.  Indians would massacre other Indians with help from, and in alliance with, Americans and Europeans.  And Americans were massacred by Indians.  One of the biggest body counts of European immigrants being killed by Indians numbered around 350 at Jamestown.  I’m sure you’re familiar with that attack since it’s no doubt repeated on a daily basis.

So there you have it.  People have been killing each other for centuries.  This isn’t something new.  It’s worth noting, however, that each period of killing had certain characteristics which we are always happy to study, such as racism, imperialism, Manifest Destiny, Christian zealotry, McCarthyism, and on and on.  What might make this rash of killings so different is a sudden lack of desire to study the direct causes, and try desperately to look to anything other than the obvious.