Radicalization

This week, a man walked into a school where his estranged wife worked.  He shot her, and two of her students, in front of a room full of children.  I have yet to see anyone in the media ask where and how he was radicalized.

This week, a woman in Wisconsin was walking home from her prayers.  A man got out of a truck, demanded she take off her hijab.  He knocked her down, beat her and cut her with a knife.  I have yet to see anyone in the media ask where and how he was radicalized.

The reality is, even if we asked, it would be hard to answer that question in the case of these two women.  The CDC reports that 1 in 4 women have experienced severe physical violence from an intimate partner.  Simply put, violence against women is endemic in our society, and being endemic precludes being radical.

But it should not preclude us from asking the question, because asking the question is making the argument that the prevalence of violence need not be taken as normal.  We need to ask why someone thinks he can shoot his wife.  We need to ask how someone got to the point where they could physically attack a woman based on what she was wearing.  We need to ask the question every time until we no longer think of this as normal.  We need to ask until domestic violence takes some form of radicalization.