It’s unfortunate that columnist Chris Collins is so very disappointed in City Council President Rudy Renaud for having indicated that she fears heterosexual white men with guns far more than she fears undocumented immigrants. Her fear is real and legitimate, and it has nothing to do with “identity politics” or prejudicial stereotyping. It is a simple matter of who keeps doing what violence to whom in the name of what power. It is a historical fear, and it is a fear as current as today’s newspaper.
And no, Chris, it would not be the same thing if (hypothetically, of course) the gun-toting Isaac Mass “made the same comment about black and Hispanic gang members” — something that would amount to a threat based on ignorance and prejudice, without a basis in any reality I know of. The fear of white heterosexual men with guns, on the other hand, is based in a terrible and objective reality regarding our recent carnage.
The idea that the two fears are somehow equivalent is part of what keeps much of this nation mired in its blind, stupid and violent racism, and part of what keeps communities like this from embracing safe-city policies. I strongly support Greenfield’s designation as a safe city because it is the right thing, and the only right thing, to do. And I am grateful to Rudy Renaud for putting a name to the effort to block it.
Wesley Blixt
Greenfield