Kingman Brewster Jr.: The Conceptualization Of Violence

Kingman Brewster Jr. once said, “There is no lasting hope in violence, only temporary relief from hopelessness.” Violence is witnessed in many forms, from large-scale genocides or terrorist attacks to assaults on single individuals. It continues to be a driving force shaping human history in countries globally. However, the forms that violence takes in specific locations are not identical. Victims of violence vary but a major percentage of them have a commonality. People of minority groups are often the same people who experience a greater deal of poverty. Minorities and poorer communities are more likely to be subject to violence than any other group of people and leads to a difference of their conceptualization of violence.
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When asked about the different types of violence he went on to say that in the US a lot of people focus on violent actions like “bullying and domestic abuse”, but they never really talk about war. This particular individual had grown up in the Democratic Republic of Congo and immigrated to the United Sates at the age of 12. He talked about how in his country problems like domestic abuse and bullying were never really brought up, because there were more important things at hand, war. He pointed out that growing up in a war-torn country was quite different from growing up in the United States. He shared his thoughts of it was easy for Americans to not associate their war efforts with the violent effects that it has on the people of those affected countries. The interviewee was slightly bothered that more people were not aware of the horrors that many of these underprivileged people had to experience, at the hands of government disagreements (Student C). This resentment is explained by Farmer; Farmer writes, “... not all suffering is equal, in spite of the pernicious and often self- serving identity politics that suggest otherwise.” (Farmer 279). This explains violence as well. People experience violence at varying degrees and many times it is because of the structural institutions that have put them in that particular situation. This same individual from before, who had mentioned the desensitized view of war in America, explained his childhood. He was five when in school and found himself caught in-between a war zone. His mother along with the rest of his family had gone to his school to retrieve him and returned home where his mother believed they would be safer. However, the rebel group opposing the government at the time later invaded their home. His mother quickly reacted and stuffed him into a dresser in hopes that they would