Crazy Faith Ministries

There is something about white supremacists, White males in particular, that is quite obvious: these people are spoiled and they are afraid and insecure.

When the administration said that arming teachers in schools should be an offshoot of the recent, I groaned because the last thing this country needs is White people, again, especially the men, being given more power to shoot people.

Historically, White men have been deputized and authorized to shoot Black people. Bus drivers in the South were notorious for using force against Black people. White men were deputized after the Civil War to catch runaway slaves; they were given license to carry guns and to shoot to kill Black people – which they did.

White police officers are trained to “shoot to kill” when they feel that their lives are in danger – which is almost always when it comes to dealing with African Americans. It is quite interesting that known armed shooters, like Nikolas Cruz, the shooter in the recent Florida school shooting and, of course, Dylann Roof, who massacred people while they sat in a prayer meeting at church, were apprehended and taken into custody without serious injury being done to their bodies.

White criminals, even and including known mass murderers, apparently do not make White officers fear for their lives.

But it is a fact that White people are more often than not afraid of Black people – or so they say – and thus, they are free to shoot and kill. Because so many White people are afraid of Black people, including Black students, it is highly likely that if teachers are given license to carry guns in schools, more Black children than White will be victims. As it is, Black students are more likely to be suspended or expelled for behavior that only gets White students a warning.

There seems to be a spirit of justification in hunting down and injuring or killing Black people; we are seen as being amoral and disruptive in general. Law enforcement officers are not worried, frankly, about being held to accountability for shooting and killing Black people. And while they almost always say they were “in fear for their lives,” the underlying reason seems more to be a sense of entitlement that they can shoot Black people and get away with it – because Black people deserve such treatment.

The outcry against the open and legal sale of assault weapons seems to reveal yet another part of the white supremacist psyche: they have been spoiled, allowed to rest in their sense of privilege and feel entitled to have everything they want. Their reaction to the desire to get these weapons of war off the streets seems to be immature and infantile; they feel they are entitled to have whatever they want. Acting like spoiled children, they stomp and pout at the thought of not being able to have everything they want and circulate the lie that gun control means the government wants to “take away” all of their guns.

Nothing could be farther from the truth, but these people who have been spoiled, pampered and coddled by too many for too long will not listen to reason. They are acting like spoiled children who because they cannot have the toy they want, begin to smash up the toys they have. Their behavior is childishly manipulative.

White supremacy has done a job on the capacity of too many White law enforcement officers to protect all people, including Black people, and I am afraid that if teachers carry guns, at the end of the day we will see more innocent, unarmed Black children being shot to death with society not saying a word.

If it is a fact that diverse races, religions and ethnicities have upset some Whites who yearn for America to be a country for White people, this petulant and dangerous behavior of White people authorized to carry and use guns is going to result in more deaths of African American children and youth, and more pain for parents who will not only have to mourn the murders of their children and also the refusal of the American justice system to make those who shoot Black people suffer and go to jail.

We cannot afford more deaths of Black children who are killed by people who kill them just because they can. Enough is enough. Arming teachers is a bad, bad idea.

Rev. Dr. Susan K Smith is the founder and director of Crazy Faith Ministries. She is available for speaking. Contact her at revsuekim@sbcgloba.net.