Excerpt from ‘The American West and Bigoted Violence in “Wounded” by Percival Everett’, an essay

Although for John Hunt, the American West is simply his home, for many others, it represents the idea of the American frontier and therefore culturally justifies the continual bigotry and hateful violence seen throughout American history.  This complex view of America as a whole leads some characters to blame the geographical location as the reasoning behind why such violence seems to continually happen. John, in response to Robert asking what the town is like, flippantly answers, “‘It’s okay. Mostly white. Indians get treated like shit. You know, America’” (Everett 56). John succinctly sums up not only modern day American life but also the manner in which European settlers colonized indigenous tribes using brute force and justifying the means with ideas such as manifest destiny. Despite the frontier no longer being truly uncharted territory, America continues to be used as a scapegoat for senseless crimes within the community despite it being understood that, most likely, all the recent violent crimes have been done by the same group of people.
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For the writer Frederick Jackson Turner, this lawlessness and lack of governmental responsibility is due to the American interpretation of, and heavy emphasis on, individualism and freedom (32). As a result, these values lead to some of the worst parts of people to remain untethered by the laws of the country, and in turn, acceptable in the eyes of society. Without properly addressing the root of the bigotry and continuing to believe in the parabolic and cultural American West, the prevalent nature of such violence will continue to be seen as simply a backdrop to American life.

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The more ingrained these themes of violence, entitlement, and white supremacy become baked into American culture, the harder it becomes to separate it from daily life, and therefore find other ways to approach difficult moments such as losing a loved one to unjustifiable murder. Issues such as racial profiling by police and hate crimes will continue to happen regularly until a cultural shift is made, and communities decide to unify against these issues and redefine what it means for there to be freedom and justice for all in America.