Sam Hamill Response

Sam Hamill Response


The necessity to speak was a very moving piece of writing. Hamill was very adamant about changing our societies’ idea about violence and acceptable violence. His words were very true in my opinion. Our society has come to accept violence and sees it as a part of everyday life. We see it on television and movies and do not think twice about it, we believe it is normal and are blind to it in real life. Our society tries to justify violence and make us believe that it is deserved to those who oppose our ruling over them. Hamill’s main idea was, that through writing, we can make people aware if what is really going on and try to stop the horridness of our world.
Hamill spoke of being in prison and how people are either victims or executioners. Hamill said he has been both and through his personal experiences he has grown. He wrote that men in prison are “sick men” who never learned to show their emotions and grew up thinking that it was weakness to do so. I believe that this is true for most men. Men are taught from a young age to not cry or allow anyone to dominate them. These men then turn into the dominators, or bullies, either over woman or others. The executioners were once victims and they learn to gain power. “The mother that was battered typically understands that the only condition worse than being a victim is to become the executioner”(Hamill 547). The women Hamill speaks of think they are better off being a victim than the executioner. But I believe that if the stay in bad situations they become their own executioner. Abused children learn how to abuse of others, it is a vicious circle. Children learn to accept violence as justice but it is false justice. Hamills’ piece relates to Immigrants in our own land by Jimmy Santiago Baca. They both have the idea that poor people or minorities go to prison. Also the idea thatsome people will never overcome being the victim or executioner. Battered women will go back to the man who hurt them, abused children will grow up to do the same, and criminals will go back to prison over and over.
I also thought it was interesting how Hamill mentioned that our society wants
to hold on to its innocence. By not educating our children and young people we help
the ones who can hurt them. "We lend a helping hand to the mugger when we don't
educate our children (of both sexes) about self defense; we lend a helping hand to the
rapist when we don't readily discuss rape. Our silence grants permission to the child
molester"(Hamill 553). These lines show how our silence on certain topics with children
could backfire.
Another topic that caught my atention was how he refered to the military as
recruiters of death. I never thought of it that way before, the military are allowed to go into high schools to bribe kids with money for college and benefits, in order for them to join. But little do they know there life could be taken from them if they had to go to war.The facts Hamill presented were alarming on how much death and violence there is in the world. He did as he said in expressing what he thought the world should know even if the world did not like what they read.