Sandy Hook and the Stigma of the "Other"

In the aftermath of the Sandy Hook shooting a lot of media focus has been on mental care in the US, and not in a good way. The focus has been making punitive measures against those who would dare to have something be "not right" with them and ensuring that they lose even more of their rights. The same thing happens almost every major act of violence, the first step is to assign a sense of "otherness" to the assailant: he was a gang member, he was Islamic, he was mentally unwell, etc. Once this blame on some "issue" has been placed the media sets its fucking sights on this minority culture and finds every way possible to blame every world ill on it: how welfare creates a criminal class, how we "apologize" to Islamic nations, how psychological treatment is not reals, any attack on what our culture sees as an "entitlement". Of course this is bullshit and just a refusal to see that the real entitlements go to selfish SAWCSMs (Straight, Ablebodied, White, CiSgendered, Male): Rather than acknowledge that everyone is ENTITLED to a decent life, we make sure to vilify the poor as lazy; rather than let everyone be ENTITLED to their own religious beliefs we find the most extreme elements of other belief systems and attribute it to the whole group; rather than let everyone be ENTITLED to some basic feeling of happiness, society tells us we have nothing to be upset over and to just "go out into the world". While mental health does suck in the US, this is all simply a derail to avoid confronting a culture that feels entitled to guns and a culture that affirms a definition of "manliness" defined by power and violence towards others and this needs to change. Of course any attempt to change the culture is seen as (lol) misandry (just look as seminars telling people to not rape is "labeling all men as rapists") and there's no way to change this unless we are relentless in sending messages out to change.

As a personal note for the last 10 years I was conditioned to seeing my depression as a problem, I had to deprecate myself to fit in while being left to fight my personal demons and daily thoughts of self-harm/suicide alone. Last week I finally sought treatment as a last resort and I have literally never felt more free than I do now. So a huge FUCK YOU to everyone who marginalized and belittled me and I don't want anyone else to go through what I have and labeling anyone with a mental health issue as a future killer sure as fuck won't help.