Gun Violence and Sag Harbor
Gun Violence and Sag Harbor
By Mateo Hernandez
Throughout Colson Whitehead’s Sag Harbor, there has been an underlying theme of toxic masculinity. This theme is present throughout the chapter, The Gangsters, where essentially Benji and his friends play with BB guns and end up harming each other. Society promotes the use of toy firearms, and alongside issues rooted deep into our country, this dangerous concoction develops into something much worse, which may be a cause of increasing gun violence across America.
To begin with, I think that we should look at some ‘Fast Facts’ from the CDC about gun violence. The article's key point is: “Firearm injuries and deaths continue to be a significant public health problem in the United States. While firearm violence and injury affects people in all communities, some groups have higher rates of firearm injury than others.” The article was written on July 5th, 2024, and claims that (based on data from 2022), around 132 people die each day from firearm-related injuries. Around half of these deaths are suicides. Black, Hispanic, and Native American teens and young adults are among the most affected. Obviously, gun violence is one of America's biggest problems, but what does Sag Harbor have to do with this? What deeper meanings and themes can be pulled from the narrative?
Gun violence doesn’t just happen. It’s not like people get guns and instantly start causing chaos; there’s always more to it. A weapon is simply a tool, and whether people realize it or not, they are being influenced, especially during childhood, when they are still being shaped. One of the hardest sections for me to read was when Benji’s Dad confronted him about the conflict he had at school. Benji sort of panics and knows that his Dad is going to do something abusive towards him. His mother wasn’t able to do anything as she was also verbally abused by Benji’s father. Benji’s father said, “‘Your mother said some boy called you a n****r last week’” (Whitehead 134). Essentially, Benji’s classmate Tony Reece hadn’t explicitly called him a racial slur, but he had done a really gross act. “Tony Reece reached over to my face, dragged a finger down my cheek, and said, ‘Look–it doesn’t come off’” (Whitehead 135). Benji’s father goes on to say that he was basically calling him a n****r and that the ‘right’ response would be ot punch him in the face. So he then strikes him and claims that Tony wouldn’t be able to hit him harder than that. He then goes back to school and punches Tony in the face. This event doesn’t completely change Benji; in fact, there’s evidence suggesting that he’s completely against using BB guns and violence. His biggest concern is actually protecting his brother when his friends are trying to schedule a time for the BB war. He also tries to schedule it when Reggie is working at Burger King, but when that fails, he tries to convince him to wear eye protection, which is quickly dismissed. Ironically, Benji isn’t able to protect himself and ends up with a BB in his eye socket, which is still with him today. While this event isn’t necessarily one that defined Benji, it can give insight into why people might resort to violence. With African American people, there is deep generational hurt from things like slavery, but today the racism that is ingrained into society. It might lead to some people thinking that the best course of action is to retaliate.
Diving specifically into the war game, Benji has many things to say. After the BB was shot into Benji’s eye socket, Benji says that the BB guns didn’t come out again that summer. He said, “For some of us, those were our first guns, a rehearsal. I’d like to say, all these years later, now that one of us is dead, another paralyzed from the waist down from actual bullets–drug-related, as the papers put it–that game wasn’t so innocent after all. But it’s not true. We always fought for real” (Whitehead 158). This section really speaks for itself, but that line that we always fought for real leaves me with such an eerie feeling. It gives people an opportunity for people to try out new personas that make them tough, and this leads to more violence.
In the end, there is only so much that we can do about this problem across America. These problems are ingrained in society, and as the statistics show, Americans are dying. Raising awareness is key, but promoting other solutions to continue to combat racism and inequality has to be pursued.
Works Cited:
CDC, Fast Facts: Firearm Injury and Death, https://www.cdc.gov/firearm-violence/data-research/facts-stats/index.html.
Whitehead, Colson. Sag Harbor. Vintage Books, 2009.
Great blog, Mateo! Gun violence is such a tragic phenomenon, and difficult to discuss, but I think you put it well: "A weapon is simply a tool." It's an extension of using violence as a tool, and Benji, as you point out, is certainly influenced by his father to use violence to combat racism. The passage you quote on page 158 always strikes me when I read it. "We always fought for real." Wonderful job!
ReplyDeleteHi Mateo! I loved reading this blog! Gun violence is a hard topic to discuss (as harmony has noted above) but you handled it very well. great job!
ReplyDeleteHi Matty Boy, I thought your connection between Sag Harbor and real-world gun violence was really powerful. Instead of treating the BB gun scene as just kids messing around, you showed how Whitehead connects it to larger ideas about toxic masculinity, violence, and social conditioning. Your analysis of Benji’s father was especially strong because it explains how violence can become normalized and passed down through expectations of what it means to “be a man.” I also liked how you pointed out the irony that Benji, the character most concerned about safety, is the one permanently injured. The final quote about the boys “always” fighting for real leaves the same unsettling feeling you described, and your post does a good job explaining why that moment feels so significant beyond just the scene itself.
ReplyDeleteHello Mateo! I really liked how you discussed the topic of Gun violence. The moment when Benji's dad talk about this topic is very impactful to how the worlds is right now. There are a lot of bad things that people think black people and a lot of people think that they do a lot of Gun violence. Anyways, amazing blog mateo!
ReplyDeleteHello Mateo. This was a very thoughtful post about the development of gun violence and its representation in Sag Harbor. I like the point you made that gun violence doesn't stem purely from the firearms themselves but also from the hardships faced by the people in possession of them. In the case of Benji, his father was the main perpetuator of violence in his life, leading him to keep the notion of violence in the back of his mind at all times, releasing it in the occasional bout with one of his Sag Harbor friends. It's possible that the BB gun fight and subsequent interactions with his father helped Benji turn his mind away from violence, avoiding the path that some of his friends would unfortunately take later on in life. Fantastic post overall!
ReplyDeleteHi Mateo,
ReplyDeleteThis is a really interesting and nuanced post. I especially like how you highlight Benji's determination to protect his brother from gun violence, and the irony of it. I distinctly remember that in the very first chapter Benji related some anecdote where he fantasized about protecting Reggie, his *little* brother. Despite this, Benji is ultimately unable to protect his brother from his father, who is one of the principal people in his life he would need protecting from, the onus falling on Reggie to take shifts at Burger King at the time when their parents would come over.
It strikes me that Ben never clarifies which of his friends were injured or killed by gun violence, but I would speculate that one of them was Clive, given that Ben is always laudatory towards him, and that he makes an offhand comment about his fall from grace, as well as saying that Clive had good sporting potential in the last chapter.
Great blog Mateo! I liked that you drew the connection between childhood gun games and actual violence. It's something I never really though of before. You're totally right in that violence, and the need to be masculine is something that is passed down.
ReplyDeleteI have puzzled over that line you quote at the end, about "always fighting for real," because the "fighting" in this chapter generally doesn't seem all that "real"--these are "toys," after all, and Ben the narrator constantly underscores all the posing, preening, and projection going on among these boys. But there is something chillingly "real" about how easily the presence of a real-looking toy gun makes these boys kick in to posing-mode, and posing-mode quickly leads to insulting each other in gendered terms ("pussy" being the operative insult), and soon enough they're shooting at poor Marcus's feet, making him dance. Even Clive, the genuinely cool and level-headed guy in their crew, gets involved. It's as if the guns bring out this toxic aspect of masculinity in these boys who are insecure for a host of reasons. The most chilling part of this chapter for me is his indirect reference to one of his childhood friends being paralyzed and one dead from "drug-related gun violence," as reported in the papers. He leaves us wondering who he's referring to, and I think it's very effective that he doesn't name names. It could be any of them.
ReplyDelete