Arming Teachers: The Intersection of White Male Privilege and Anti-Democratic Impulses

The subject of arming teachers has again surfaced given recent legislation in Florida allowing the practice. 

This idea is absurd. However, it persists because, I believe, it sits at the intersection of hot-button issues of  gender, privilege and power. These are much deeper than simply a question of gun usage. These issues are key in an ongoing tug-of-war for the soul of this nation.

A friend who is a lifelong educator wrote: 

I strongly object to any teacher being armed. I believe if a person with a gun is in a school that person should be a genuine experienced police officer. Handling a gun, shooting with a gun, and becoming effective as a shooter can be trained into some people but developing the needed understanding, rapid decision making skills, and having a keen awareness of all the dangers in a shooter situation takes experience, practice, knowledge and commitment. How is a teacher going to do that while at the same time handling their responsibilities with their students? This is like a secret service job title. I am fearful that one of these well-meaning teachers will become a fine example of why this is a very stupid idea.

MY RESPONSE: What he describes is exactly what some people want. They want to take people who are relaxed, confident, independent and thoughtful and turn them into trained gunmen who react.

Why in the world would anyone want this? Two reasons come to the top. 

First: It serves some politically. As the Ancient Greeks taught us, true freedom and independence comes through education, NOT weaponry. When you are skilled at critical thinking--so that you can sift through information to arrive at your own conclusions and be confident in your conclusions--then you are not easily manipulated by fear rhetoric, fake news or the mob mentality. As a result, education makes you confident and relaxed. However, many do not like a truly free population, so keeping them afraid, armed and on alert changes the psychology of the population dramatically and makes certain things politically possible that would otherwise not be possible. If you want to erode democracy and install authoritarianism, this is an essential step. An armed and fearful population is the easiest for a government to control (which is ironic since so many gun rights supporters see gun ownership as the means to stave off bad governments when it's actually the easiest way to get them).

Second: White male dominance. There is a group of people--especially white males who are not college educated--who have been told all their lives that it is their job to be dominant in society. They have been told they will simply earn that through their natural skills and abilities, and they disregard at face value that any of this achievement comes through structural privilege. But their world is slipping away. Women and people of other races and ethnicities are gaining power more and more. What is the desperate insecure white male to do? He tries to augment himself to get the power he has been told he deserves and merits. He uses steroids, he drives big, loud trucks and he keeps himself armed. I actually feel bad for him, because he feels inadequate--society tells him its his birthright to be the big dog but the facts of the world tell him that he's only average, so he desperately tries to do something to live up to those unfair expectations on him.

HERE'S THE KEY: As long as the world lives and dies based on who has guns and who doesn't, then the one calling the shots (literally) still has all the power. As long as everyone is walking around armed all day, then the uneducated white male with the gun is still the big dog in society--he's still necessary--everything is all based on him--he trains and coaches everyone--and All. Eyes. Are. On. Him. 

If you take away guns, you take away his very identity and his role, and he will feel like you are taking HIM away. It's not true, but the perception is true which is why so many fight so hard to keep their guns. They have internalized that those guns are literally an extension of themselves, so they are fighting to keep them as if their very life depends on it--and it does, but not in the way they think. It's only their PERCEPTION that their identity depends on it, because the chances of them needing their guns because of a pending gunfight at the O.K. Corral are pretty slim.

In the movies, it is almost always the white, western male who saves the day and who naturally takes command. In real life, the person who saves the day might be that Muslim doctor wearing a hijab who performed flawless heart surgery on you. It could be a female politician who commands attention and sets policy. It could be an African-American male who programmed your computer. The gap here between expectations and reality is significant and people will try to address it in better and worse ways. We blame white males for being "insecure" and "fragile" but it is actually quite unfair to put these expectations on them.

The key here is not beat up on white men for being insecure but in reducing unrealistic expectations. White men have only been dominant through complex layers of privilege, NOT by their own super powers or merit. They ARE just average--just like everyone else--and that's perfectly good!

Third: Lack of Will. It would be negligent to talk about this issue without mentioning that the inability of our nation to address gun violence by the most sensible means possible means that we are going to be facing increasingly ridiculous and absurd alternatives, such as arming classroom teachers. What are those sensible means? They certain include better regulation of weapons. Many of the weapons currently circulating in the civilian population are the type that should only be kept by the military--no different than tanks, missiles and aircraft carriers. Speaking of military, if you ever walk onto a military base you won't see weapons brandished randomly by individuals at their own discretion.  Rather, they are stored safely and only come out under the supervision and regulation of a chain of command. Regulation works. The inability of our society to effectively stop the entrenched bullying of this special interest minority means we continue to fail the people living in our society by doing what's right.

The themes in this blog post dovetail with a previous piece entitled How White Male Privilege Leads to Fragility and Violence.