The Epidemic of White Male Suicide

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 60 percent of all suicides are firearm-related and 80 percent of firearm-related suicides are by white males. These men are older, uneducated and from an impoverished socioeconomic background.

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According to sociologists, the general populace remains focused on the tragedies of gun violence related to school shootings, gang violence and homicides, but unknowingly ignore the biggest offender of firearm related deaths: suicides.

“Low levels of household income ($20,000 or less) are associated with lifetime mental disorders and suicide attempts,” the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Manitoba, Canada, said in a 2011 population-based longitudinal study on the relationship between household income and mental disorders. {snip}

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The less a person makes, the more likely they are to kill themselves, especially white males. According to sociologists, the reason white men are killing themselves is not because of guns but the white-oppression complex.

“(It’s) the feeling that if whites express pride in their heritage, they are branded as racists and bigots,” said Mitch Berbrier, a sociologist and dean of The College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences at The University of Alabama in Huntsville.

Tim Wise, an anti-racist activist and writer who has spoken at more than 600 universities across the country since the mid-1990s said, “When you’ve had the luxury of presuming yourself to be the norm, the prototype of an American, any change in the demographic and cultural realities in your society will strike you as outsized attacks on your status.”

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According to sociologists, white uneducated men of impoverished socioeconomic backgrounds want to protect their homes and families even if they have to by force. Their fear of losing their masculinity and having their racist image of the “prototype of American” challenged leads them to despair.

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[See the original story for other graphcs and charts.]