Gun Violence In America example essay topic

324 words
Michael Moore's movie "Bowling for Columbine" uses the shooting rampage at Columbine High school as a touchstone. Moore sets out to examine why Americans have such a fascination with guns, shooting, and, as a result, killing. He gives many good supporting reasons why gun violence is so high in America. The one I am going to criticize is his view that the reason gun violence is so high has something to do with the legacy of slavery.

Instead of zooming in on proving this, Moore puts most of his focus on America's culture of fear, especially fear of black men, and blames big corporations, and mainly the media. Moore shows an animation of when fear in America began which ended up with the white man being afraid of the black man. Moore inferred that if a crime occurred then more than likely it was a black man who committed it. Moore went to South Central Los Angeles where the riots started in 1992, but didn't even bother to speak with the black or Latino residents about there lives or how they felt. He stood on the street corner talking with Barry Glass ener, also a white man, about how brave they were for standing there. He also spoke with a white teen in Oscoda, Michigan who admitted to steeling guns and selling them but Moore didn't talk to any people who bought stolen guns or shot them.

He failed to talk to any murderers. Moore stipulates that the white man has been and still is afraid of the black man, which he says has a lot to do with gun violence in America. But again, Moore didn't speak with a black man or any other race, except for whites, in his movie. I find this troubling because how can he blame them but not even hear their side of the story?