History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, need not be lived again.-Maya AngelouFrom the very first pages
History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, need not be lived again.-Maya Angelou
From the very first pages of Scripture, we are warned what happens when wrongdoing is ignored. When Cain killed his brother Abel, he tried to deflect responsibility with the haunting words: “Am I my brother’s keeper?” But God answered with truth — Abel’s blood cried out from the ground. The violence could not be silenced, and the consequence carried forward.
America has long played the role of Cain, avoiding the responsibility of holding white male violence accountable. Like Cain, the U.S. has turned away, asking, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” But the blood still cries out —
- from lynchings,
- from rapes,
- from arson,
- from human trafficking,
- from killing children,
- from terror,
- from assaults,
- from mass shootings,
- from child abuse,
- from torture,
- from war on citizens
- from silenced Survivors.
What is ignored does not die. It festers. And now, generations later, we reap the harvest of that avoidance.
“Not So Long Ago” — and Not Over
People say: “That was so long ago.” But violence doesn’t vanish with time. If anything, unaddressed criminal behavior festers like untreated infection. White male violence in the U.S. — from sexual abuse to mass shootings — was never truly confronted, punished, or prevented. What was ignored did not dissolve. It spread.
Excuses Protect, They Don’t Heal
Too often, when white men commit crimes, society responds with excuses: “troubled,” “misunderstood,” “mental health issues.” Black and brown communities, on the other hand, are criminalized in bulk. This double standard shielded perpetrators and left Survivors unheard. It created a culture where violence could thrive in silence.
Victim-Blaming Is Misdirection
When we speak these truths, the reflexive response is: “You’re always playing the victim.” But this isn’t about someone’s playground definition of victimhood; it’s about accountability. It’s about naming the pattern that was allowed to metastasize because America did not want to see white men as participating, even being leaders in criminal behavior.
Abusive people or people who support abusers often accuse victimized persons of “playing victim” as a power tactic. It is a way to shift attention and responsibility away from the acts of harm, the aftermath, and the scars.
Anyway, no services for the harm doers, no intervention, and no absolutely no accountability.
Now We Reap
Like bacteria left to grow unchecked, generations of violence and entitlement have multiplied. Gone completely unaddressed and unchecked. They didn’t get help, or held accountable. Less history because it made them “feel bad”. But they did get more guns.
Innocent people got mass shootings. Sexual exploitation. Domestic violence. Online trafficking. None of these appeared from nowhere. They are the harvest of avoidance.
The Call to Confront
We cannot heal what we refuse to name. Until “we” stop excusing and start intervening, the cycle will keep repeating. Confronting this truth is
not about blame alone — it’s about breaking the chain so that our children and grandchildren aren’t left with an even greater epidemic of violence.
The story of Cain and Abel has no satisfying end. Abel does not rise again. His parents are left with grief that no punishment of Cain can erase. And Cain himself is marked, wandering — shielded, but never restored. That is the truth of violence: once it has been allowed, it does not simply vanish. It leaves cries in the earth, it shapes generations, it becomes a shadow over every future step.
America has done the same — shielding, excusing, avoiding. Refusing to deal with white male violence has left us with Abel’s blood crying out from the ground in every generation. History is not so long ago; it lives in us now. And the longer we refuse to face it, the louder the cry becomes.
Living teaches us this in ways that hit deeper than words ever could: what is not confronted festers, what festers spreads, and what spreads devours. Avoidance is not mercy. Only truth can stop the wandering.
Avoidance is not mercy — it’s an invitation for violence to grow unchecked.
Truth and history is not hate. Not telling it just to satisfy the wants of someone else is erasure. Truth does not bend to comfort. Truth exists so wounds can be seen, so healing can begin, so justice can have a chance. To silence truth is to side with harm. To speak it is to side with life.”
We are only as blind as we want to be.- Maya Angelou