School Shootings and White Denial Are the Ultimate Doom Loop

We’re so busy looking for danger in spaces of color, we sleep on pathology in white communities

Image: Moms Demand Action Against Gun Violence event, St. Paul, MN 2018, from Fibonacci Blue, Flickr, Creative Commons license

It happened again, and, as always, people are shocked.

Not solely because of the awfulness, but also because of where it happened: a nice, safe place, not unlike all the other nice, safe places it’s happened before.

Springfield, Littleton, Newtown, Parkland, Santee, West Paducah, Jonesboro, Edinboro, Pearl, or Moses Lake, to name a few.

Yet another mass school shooting, four more dead, and another teenage killer who opened fire on his classmates and teachers — this time in exurban Oxford, Michigan, about 40 minutes north of Detroit.

After initially fleeing the area, the shooter’s parents have also been arrested because their actions helped facilitate their son’s killing spree.

First, Ethan Crumbley’s father bought the gun for his son a few days before the shooting — a gun he wasn’t old enough to buy himself.

Then, the day before the shooting, a teacher informed his mother that Ethan had been looking up ammunition on his phone.

Rather than call the school back, she texted Ethan, telling him, “lol, I’m not mad…