A Phrase for America's Random Acts of Violence
American Ethnocidal Berserk • noun • (uh-mer-i-kuhn eth-no-sahyd-l ber-zurk)
Definition: the random acts of violence inherent to America’s ethnocidal society
Origin: The Sustainable Culture Lab
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We decided on this week’s phrase prior to Friday’s deadly attack on the U.S. Capitol that killed one police officer, but the attack only reinforced the necessity of this week’s phrase.
On Friday morning, I had a doctor’s appointment, and as many D.C. residents do, I rode my bike. My bike ride takes me by the Capitol building, and I have seen the various levels of protection erected around our government buildings over the years. Following the previous attack on the Capitol, I would bike through a militarized zone consisting of large fences, armored militarized vehicles, and soldiers brandishing machine guns as I made my way to the chiropractor. Due to the numerous road closures and lack of traffic, I probably shaved off a couple of minutes on my commute, but I would have preferred arriving late to my appointment if it meant I could live within a normal, demilitarized environment.
This week, the police presence had significantly decreased. This bike ride more resembled a pre-January 6th Capitol Hill, and I actually arrived late to one of my appointments this week. I left the house a little late, and due to the lack of military, I had to watch out for traffic and bike a little slower. Showing up late, in the grand scheme of things, was a welcomed problem.
I was already safely back at my house when the attack occurred, and my route home does not take me by the Capitol. I was far from the attack, but still within the vicinity of the target of domestic American terrorism. A demilitarized normal meant a return to terrorism, and the pleasant feelings I had as I rode my bike on Friday had been rendered meaningless.
These random acts of domestic terrorism have been the American norm for decades, but we still struggle for the language to describe them. We lack the language because we prefer to imagine that these attacks are anomalies. Anomalies do not need precise language. Americans are left speechless, and this impairs our capacity to solve our problems.
As I thought about the adequate word or phrase for America’s self-inflicted plague, I remembered a phrase by Jewish American novelist Philip Roth, “the indigenous American berserk.”
In his novel American Pastoral, Roth writes “The daughter who transports him out of the longed-for American pastoral and into everything that is its antithesis and its enemy, into the fury, the violence, and the desperation of the counterpastoral—into the indigenous American berserk.”
The indigenous American berserk is the deadly and equally true American reality that runs counter to the supposed American Dream. For the most part, America prefers to ignore this reality. Additionally, this American berserk does not derive from Indigenous people or a culture of indigeneity, so the use of “indigenous” represents another example of American ethnocidal cultural erasure. Even the language for describing our previously unspoken cultural flaws remains problematic. American ethnocidal berserk more accurately describes our problem.
Ethnocide, Motive, & Indigeneity
On Friday, as I watched the news coverage of the attack on the Capitol, I was struck by how a concern for the attacker’s motive dominated the conversation. In this situation, the attacker’s weapon was not a handgun. He used his car and a knife, so we did not need to discuss how he was able to wage terror. There was no need for a doublethink conversation about the second amendment and gun rights. “How?” was not the core question, therefore people desperately wanted to know “Why?”. Learning his motive would hopefully give us the why.
The discussion around the attacker’s motive presented a new dynamic because the motive needed to be something abnormal. It needed to be something to justify his deviation from America’s “safe” normal, but as domestic terrorist attacks remain the American norm, we must entertain that the motives of our domestic terrorists may not derive from an anomaly, but instead from America’s foundational culture.
Roth’s language of “the indigenous American berserk” speaks to an almost inexplicable, yet repetitious American berserk that emerges from the soil of American life. The berserk is allegedly a deadly American peculiarity that undermines the American Dream, and the nation we are supposed to love. This is a berserk that has not been created by Americans, but instead is something that we all need to be aware of because ignorance of the berserk could ruin your life. The use of “indigenous” implies that it is a berserk that is attached to the physical place, and not the ideas of the people who colonized the place. This is where the flaw of Roth’s language resides. According to Roth, there is an attachment to the supposedly good ideas of the American Dream, but the deadly byproducts remain nearly inexplicable abnormalities. Americans need a motive in order for America’s deadly norms to appear as anomalies so that the terror fades away but the fantasy of the American Dream remains fixed in our minds. This is a conversation about essence and not existence.
By replacing indigenous with ethnocide, we no longer linguistically include the Indigenous people of Turtle Island into a discussion about the domestic terrorism consuming a colonized nation. The responsibility of America’s cultural terror does not come from afar, but from within. America prefers to imagine that foreign dangers pose our greatest threat, and again this perspective shifts the responsibility to the “other.” All of this speaks to the divisive, exploitative, destructive, and unsustainable norms that are foundational to ethnocide.
When your culture is built upon the destruction of the culture of the “other” it is only logical that violence, destruction, and terror will be viewed as a means for solving your problems.
Pre-racial Ethnocidal Berserk
Whenever a mass shooting occurs, there remains an unhealthy impetus to ascribe blame to a particular race, but this narrative is reductive and inadequate. The recent shooting in Atlanta was done by a white man. The shooting in Boulder was by a man of Middle Eastern descent. Friday’s attack at the Capitol was done by a Black man. America’s discussions about race and toxic masculinity are just as inadequate as our conversation about domestic terrorism. These attacks represent a convergence of inadequate conversations, and they make us less likely to cultivate solutions. At SCL, our focus on culture fosters a pre-racial conversation that provides greater clarity and less division than these conversations.
Ethnocide is a culture that shapes the lives of all Americans, but it impacts our lives differently depending on social constructs like our race and ethnicity. America’s understanding of “white” and “Black” derive from the ethnocidal culture of the colonizer as they created a racial hierarchy to distinguish between the ethnocider and the ethnocidee. White Americans could exist as the ethnocider, those who implement ethnocide, and the “other” became the ethnocidee, who are exploited and oppressed by the ethnocider. Ethnocide precedes race in America, and this is why we must have a pre-racial conversation.
The white essence/identity/race of the American ethnocider depends on the exclusivity of a European appearance, therefore the prospect of equality across a racial divide can equate to the destruction of one’s white identity or essence. Racial equality shatters the racial exclusivity that the ethnocider depends on. Racial equality can create angest and anxiety amongst some white Americans as they fear the “changing face of America.”
Obviously, it would be unfair to say that all white Americans have this anxiety, but America’s ethnocidal culture has created this anxiety within the white American community. The existence of the “other” as an equal ruins their dream, and now violence or going berserk equates to an attempt at sustaining their American Dream.
Donald Trump’s presidency and the attack on the Capitol on January 6th equates to American ethnociders going berserk in order to tragically sustain their American Dream that is built upon division, ignorance, and exploitation. This is a cultural problem, and not a racial one.
Likewise, the ethnocidee may decide to go berserk after becoming exasperated with a society that both literally and figuratively exists at their expense. The driving force behind the ethnocidal transatlantic slave trade was to use the labor of the ethnocidee to enrich the ethnocider. An ethnocidal society is funded at the expense of the humanity of the ethnocidee. This exploitative norm can drive many people to going berserk, and ethnocide encourages Americans to attempt to solve our problems with violence. We are looking for the “silver bullet” that can fix everything that ails us.
Friday’s attacker by most accounts was an “average jock” whose mental health appeared to unravel in recent years. He recently became a follower of Louis Farrakhan, and his family believes that head injuries from football may have contributed to his declining mental health. Unemployment and the stress of COVID-19 also appear to have negatively impacted his mental health. All of these factors could become a “motive” or explanation for Friday’s attack, but it should be clear how these “whys” will get us no closer to addressing our problematic ethnocidal culture. Until we recognize that our pre-racial, ethnocidal culture inclines people to go berserk, we will never come close to adequately addressing this deadly problem.
This week, practice viewing America’s problem with gun violence as a cultural problem. We create and perpetuate our culture, so hopefully this new perspective can empower us to ask the right questions, and know that we can change our culture for the better.
