Creating Story by Using the Three Levels of Conflict

By Gamal Hennessy

If I can write a book, you can write a book. This article just offers a few tips to help you explore your own creative gifts.

When writing, I’ve always found it helpful to understand the vast majority of all fictional plots boils down to a struggle to achieve a goal. A protagonist or hero has an object of desire that is material or situational. Maybe they want to get a rare item or get into a relationship with a particular person. To get what she wants, your heroine has to exert effort against everything that stands between her and her goal. The power and intensity of her obstacles will define both your heroine and the strength of your story. But where do those obstacles come from and how can we build them into the story in a way that tests the heroine in the most satisfying manner for readers?

I’ve found one answer in playing with the different levels of conflict.

Three Levels of Conflict
 

A level of conflict is a source of antagonism that stands between your protagonist and their goal. Robert McKee's book Story defines three major levels of conflict:

  • Internal: where the thoughts, feelings or physical characteristics of a protagonist block achievement of the goal
  • Interpersonal: where relationships with other people or groups block achievement
  • Extra-personal: where institutions, natural phenomenon and situations block achievement

As an example, let's say you're writing a story about a Jewish boy living in Jerusalem. He has just seen a beautiful Arab girl and in that moment realizes he’s in love. What obstacles does Adam face in his quest for a relationship? As a writer, you have several options:

  • Internal: His shyness, lack of experience with women and unattractive features could get in the way of his budding romance. 
  • Interpersonal: The girl might resist his advances for her own reasons, or she might have a boyfriend who wants to remove him from the picture. Also, his parents could try to prevent him from getting involved with an Arab girl. The girl's brothers might threaten him with violence.  His own friends might reject him.
  • Extra-personal: The wider Arab Israeli conflict could also inhibit our hero. Hezbollah bombings into the settlements could disrupt Adam's life or create a curfew situation. A suicide bomb could destroy everything or even kill the girl. Protests, strikes or other mass social events could tear their relationship apart before it even gets started.

This is just a few examples of what this boy might be up against. If he is able to win this girl's love, the obstacles he'll have to overcome could make an amazing story.

The type you choose is often a function of genre. An action adventure might have heavy interpersonal and extra personal conflict when the hero battles the arch villain on the top of a mountain in a blinding snow storm, but very little internal conflict. A cozy mystery might have strong internal focus as the detective quietly strains her intellect to solve the crime. Every style of writing can tap into each type of conflict, but some genres lend themselves to specific conflict types.

Conflict as Spotlight

The best way I've found to develop conflict in my work is to focus on the aspects of my protagonist that I want to reveal and then creating conflicts that explore those traits. One of my main characters in my new novel Smoke and Shadow is a man named Harrison Trent. At the most basic level, Harrison’s conflict is internal. He wants to forget the mistakes he’s made in his past and he is willing to place himself in extreme danger because the immediacy of a life and death struggle is the only way he can forget the things he’s done. To show his dedication to this goal, I put several obstacles in his path every time he steps into the readers mind.

The best stories have the strongest conflicts. While it's not necessary to throw every obstacle at every character in every story, a weak story is most often the result of weak antagonists. Pit your heroine against the strongest combination of antagonism that you can think of. Your characters will hate it, but your readers will thank you for it.

Now go write something. ;-)
Gamal

Smoke and Shadow is On Sale Now!

ON SALE NOW

Smoke and Shadow

You’ll never see them coming…

In the dark world of espionage, Hamilton Chu and Harrison Trent are secret warriors. Driven by loyalty, excitement, and money, these modern day mercenaries travel around the world to spy, sabotage and kill. 

But how much of their humanity do they sacrifice with each turn of the knife or pull of the trigger? How can they succeed in missions where violence only makes things worse? 

Smoke and Shadow is my new novel in the Crime and Passion series. The e-book is on sale now on Amazon.com for $0.99. The paperback is available for $9.99. Fans of The Bourne Identity, Taken and The Usual Suspects will enjoy this international spy thriller. 

If you decide to read it, I hope you enjoy it.

If you decide to read it, I also hope you’ll leave me a review no matter what you think. Feedback is important for any artist trying to get better. Even a bad review can have a good impact…

But good reviews are better, obviously. ;-)

Have fun.
Gamal

I Have Three Ways to Say "Thank You"

I appreciate you. 

You visit my website, and you indulge my delusions of being a writer. Those things have more of an impact on me than you might realize.  

As a small way of saying thank you, I’d like to offer you not one, not two, but three gifts to celebrate the release of my new novel, Smoke and Shadow.  

First, you can get a copy of my new novella called Friends and Family just by contacting me. Friends and Family is a prelude to Smoke and Shadow. It follows a professional killer named Harrison Trent in his hunt for a slave trader in New York City.

Second, I’d like to give you early access to Smoke and Shadow. You can pre-order the book on Amazon before it goes on sale Tuesday, November 17th.

Finally, you can get Smoke and Shadow at a special RSVP price. The normal price for the e-book is $3.99. You can get it for just $0.99. 

If you get a chance to read the prelude or the full novel, I hope you’ll enjoy them. I also hope you’ll take the time to write me a review no matter what you think of the book. Your opinion matters. If the attachments or the links don’t work, please let me know and I’ll take care of it.

And if you want to spend more time in the world of Crime and Passion, sign up for the free RSVP Newsletter. 

 Have fun.

Gamal

Consequential Violence: The Impact of Combat in Fiction

by Gamal Hennessy

The action and thriller genres rely on certain established tropes. The hero needs someone or something to protect. He (or in rare cases she) will define their individuality by being a lone wolf with no affiliation or being a rebel in an existing power structure. When it comes to physical prowess or combat skill, the hero will be placed in situations where they can to injure, maim and kill to show how badass they are. This is one of the pillars of action stories from The Odyssey to Spectre and it can be the best part of a story. But combat, fight scenes and violence lose their impact when they become inconsequential.

Defining Consequence

Dictionary.com defines consequence as:

1.       The effect, result, or outcome of something occurring earlier

2.       An act or instance of following something as an effect, result, or outcome.

3.       The conclusion reached by a line of reasoning; inference.

4.       Importance or significance:

5.       Importance in rank or position; distinction:

In action and thriller fiction, violence often has no consequences for the characters or the hero. I’ve read a best-selling novel that started with a six man shootout in New York’s Central Park during the day in the 21st Century.  The hero moved through the plot without any acknowledgment of the effect that event would have. The cops never arrived and never investigated the event, even though there is a police precinct in Central Park and the surrounding area has a heavy police presence because of all the high priced real estate around. No one had any video of the incident, even though there are cameras in the Park and everyone has an iPhone. The hero was shot during the incident, but suffered no physical, mental or emotional impact from the incident. There was no mention of any news story about a massive gun battle in the middle of the most famous park in New York City. This lack of consequence gnawed at me until I was forced to put the book down because I couldn’t suspend enough of my disbelief to keep reading.

Exploring Consequence

In real life of course, violence has consequences for everyone involved. Books like Violence: A Writer’s Guide, Real World Self Defense, On Combat and the Writing Violence series discuss the consequences of violence in depth, but in broad strokes physical combat can affect a character’s

  • Mental facilities: people often see and perceive the world in a different way after a violent encounter. Depending on the situation, their view of the world, other people and themselves can undergo profound change. This can happen whether they win or lose.
  • Emotional well-being: We have learned a lot in recent years about the impact of post-traumatic stress disorder on people who go through violent encounters. It doesn’t just impact soldiers engaged in drawn out conflict. PTSD can hit anyone involved in any number of encounters. It should also be noted that some people react in the opposite way, developing emotional frameworks that seek out and enjoy violence.
  • Physical health: It might be obvious to say violence often hurts and can sometimes kill, but when reading action novels or watching action movies, this reality is often ignored. Characters can be shot, stabbed, beaten and bruised in one scene and restored to full health in the next. I know people who have suffered long term injuries in the relative safety of practice. Why ignore all those realities in fiction?
  • Legal Status: Most types of violence are officially illegal in most countries of the world. People who engage in violent acts can easily face arrest, prosecution and prison for something as simple as a street fight. The more over the top and bloody the encounter, the more likely the police will be to get involved, and the legalities of “self-defense” usually don’t protect people who willingly participate in violence
  • Social Status: Different segments of society react to violence in different ways. While a shoving match at a high society party might send someone into exile, a friendly fistfight might not even be remembered the next day in another part of the city or country. In either case, if the event is in public it probably won’t go unnoticed or undocumented in the modern world. Just type in “street fight” or “fist fight” in YouTube to see what I mean. In addition, the “winner” and ‘loser” of the fight will have to deal with the repercussions of their actions in their social circles, whether they are positive or negative.
  • Daily lifestyle: Violence often creates more violence. The winner of a fight today might find himself hunted by the loser, or his friends, or his company, or his country depending on the importance of the loser. The winner of a fight might find himself constantly looking over his shoulder for the revenge attack. In the worst case scenario, he might not be able to ever go home again.
  • Financial Status: Between doctor bills, legal bills, psychology bills and protecting against future attacks, the cost of violence in dollars and cents can cause more long term damage than the physical beating. People have been bankrupted by violent encounters even if they won and even if they were exonerated in court.

Consequence in Story

Barry Eisler is one of my favorite writers and his style inspires my own work when it comes to depicting violence. The John Rain Series is full of violent scenes, but consequence always plays an important role before and after the fight. Mr. Eisler’s characters often spend most of the novel trying to anticipate, eliminate or reduce the impact of impending violence, creating a tension few other writers can create.

In my next book, Smoke and Shadow, I tell stories of two combat operators and their missions against warlords, slave traders and insurgents. In each novella, the characters take the time to plot, plan and prepare for what might go wrong in their violent encounters. I hope the result creates a dynamic both interesting and realistic.

The Truth about Fiction

Not every story benefits from complex portrayals of violence. Part of the fun of a James Bond or superhero film is ignoring legal and emotional realities for a few hours. But some stories and characters can be enhanced and improved if their violent actions had more consequences.

What do you think? Let me know in the comments. I look forward to hearing from you.

Have fun.
Gama

America's Mass Shooting Crossfire (Part 3: Responding to Reality)

This is the third and final installment of my essay on mass shootings in America. If you’d like to read parts one and two, you can find the links below:

Part One: The Pro-Gun Side

Part Two: The Anti- Gun Side

If more guns aren’t the answer and fewer guns isn’t the answer and ignoring the problem isn’t the answer, then what is the answer?

We have a training model and technology that can protect unarmed civilians without plodding through the mire of gun control law. The answer for schools, malls and businesses of any kind is creating and supporting a rapid evacuation program.

What is a Rapid Evacuation Program?

If a school catches fire, we do not expect teachers to put out the fire. We teach them to get the children out of the school safely. In offices, hotels and public buildings, we don’t leave fire safety to chance. We have professionals in place that monitor systems, drill the population and coordinate with first responders. I am simply suggesting expanding the fire prevention program to cover mass shootings. My idea includes the following parts:

Each school would have an evacuation professional whose job included: 

  • Creating and updating the evacuation plan
  • Monitoring the evacuation systems,
  • Patrolling the area to ensure exits, barriers and security screening systems are in place,
  • Periodically training everyone with evacuation drills to ensure information is distributed,
  • Leading an evacuation in the case of an emergency,
  • Coordinating with first responders and managing the media

Each school would also be connected to a central monitoring system similar to ADP. This system could remotely monitor the school and the surrounding area with cameras and other devices to aid the evacuation professional on the ground and coordinate with first responders in the event of an emergency

The schools would conduct regular evacuation drills that differ from fire drills because they take into account the specific skills needed for dealing with an active shooter. This will reduce the likelihood of a fatal loop in the OODA cycle because the children and teachers will know what to do.

Finally, the evacuation professional should have non-lethal tools and deterrents (tasers, smoke grenades etc.) in the event that he or she has to engage the killer to ensure the evacuation of the children. But the primary duty would always be removing as many children as possible from the danger area.

What a Rapid Evacuation Program Can Do

Rapid evacuation can be useful because it deals directly with the issue of protecting people from mass shootings

  • It does not require an excess of political will to alter laws or society’s attitudes about a contentious subject. 
  • It does not require extensive money to alter or fortify institutions. 
  • It can be implemented in malls, schools, churches and buildings of all kinds. 
  • It uses the same training model we are already used to and modifies it for an increasingly frequent problem. 
  • It can be used to help move people out of a dangerous area in the event of floods, earthquakes, or violent individuals. 
  • It doesn’t make assumptions or ignore the reality of American society. 
  • It can deter mass shootings and reduce the death toll when and if the deterrence fails.

What It Can’t Do

Of course the difference between dealing with fire and dealing with a killer is the human variable. Fire conforms to certain predicable, natural laws while a killer can act in ways that no evacuation program can anticipate. I’m not suggesting that rapid evacuation is the last word in dealing with mass murderers. It is likely that law enforcement and potential evacuation professionals will have to improve and adapt their methods as killers alter their attacks. But that struggle would be minor compared to the devastation that we have to endure when people are gunned down at random. Rapid evacuation programs can protect our children while the war of words surrounding guns continues. 

Best
Gamal


America's Mass Shooting Crossfire (Part 2: The Anti-Gun Problem)

by Gamal Hennessy

This is the second part of my three part essay on mass shooting in America. For a look at the pro-gun problems, please click here

I have seen many anti-gun proponents suggest that changing the gun ownership laws would take guns out of the hands of people who want to kill. They go on to cite other countries that have little or no private gun ownership and the correlation between the lack of mass shootings and the absence of guns. While this concept might be a viable long term solution, it cannot protect unarmed civilians now or in the near future for a variety of reasons including:

  • The debate over gun control taps into emotions of fear, anxiety and control on both sides. Any attempt to change the law would create political and legal conflict that would rival recent debates about abortion, gay rights and health care.
  • Any change to gun ownership laws on a national level could require an amendment to the Constitution. That means a two thirds majority in the House and the Senate and ratification by thirty eight states. In the modern political climate, that kind of bi-partisan cooperation is almost unheard of.
  • Even if an overhaul of the gun control system could be put in place, it would not eliminate the 200 million privately owned firearms in America. Even if the law was passed, it would not alter the mentality of gun owners in the same way that changes to women’s suffrage hasn’t changed the mentality of many men towards women in more than 90 years and the civil rights movement hasn’t changed the way minorities are treated in America more than 50 years later.
  • During the long debate and struggle to alter the gun laws, many more guns would be purchased. There is a chance that a dramatic increase in firearms purchased could occur as people stockpiled as many legal weapons as they could before the laws changed.
  • Finally, the focus on changing the laws in the future does little to protect unarmed children in the present. 

If you want to spend more time in the world of Crime and Passion, sign up for the free RSVP Newsletter. 

Why Ignoring Potential Gun Violence Isn’t Helpful

I have seen many people express shock, condolences and grief when faced with the latest mass shooting. Feeling helpless, they attempt to ignore or avoid the subject, hoping it will go away or at least hoping that it will not impact them directly. While the chances of being a victim in a mass shooting are still relatively rare, this course of action is not helpful to anyone involved because

  • The number of mass shootings has steadily increased in the past thirty years.
  • The variety of locations shows that there is no protected space or safe haven that is immune from mass shootings. Schools, businesses, religious buildings, malls and movie theaters are equally vulnerable.
  • While prayers, condolences and expressions of emotional support are comforting after a crisis, they don’t do anything to help a community learn from that crisis and take steps to prevent and deal with the next one.

Now that I've touched on some of the concerns I have about the pro-gun, anti-gun and majority solutions to mass shootings, I'll turn my attention to my potential solution in my next post.

Gamal

If you want to spend more time in the world of Crime and Passion, sign up for the free RSVP Newsletter. 

America's Mass Shooting Crossfire (Part 1 The Pro-Gun Problem)

If my intent is to write something useful that people can understand, then it’s better to write about the way things are instead of what we imagine them to be.
— Niccolo Machiavelli: The Prince

 

The latest school massacre has once again separated online America into three camps. On one side, the anti-gun camp uses the deaths of children as proof that we need stronger regulation on all types of guns everywhere. On the other side, the pro-gun camp uses the same mass murder as proof that concerned citizens need more guns to protect them from lunatics. In the center, the majority of the country is shocked for a moment, frightened for a time and then complacent as they go back to ignoring the problem of gun violence in America. Everyone takes their position, using the dead children as a weapon in their war of ideology.

The sound bites from all three camps often ignore certain realities of mass shootings and the greater legal, political and social environment that impact their positions. I’d like to point out some of the obstacles to the most extreme positions and then offer a solution that I think will protect more people without waiting for the war of words on gun control to play itself out. 

I am not offering this idea as an authority figure, expert or pundit. I am simply using my legal background and my studies on violence as a writer to offer ideas not tied to any other position on this issue. 

Why Giving Guns to Teachers Isn’t Helpful

I have seen many pro-gun proponents suggest that arming more civilians would create a deterrence effect that will eliminate shooting sprees. Some of them go on to say that if the killers are not deterred, the armed civilians will be in a position to protect themselves and the children around them. There are several potential problems with this concept that will occur before, during and after a violent incident. Taking the guns in school example, consider that:

Before a killer walks into a school: 

  • Many teachers have an aversion to guns and will not carry them, and they may refuse to work in an environment that requires carrying or using a weapon. This will decrease the already limited pool of qualified teachers in America.

  • Many parents would refuse to send their children to a school where the teachers were potentially armed and would be in a position to sue the school board or the state for creating an unsafe environment for their children.

  • Liability for potential gun related accidents for the school or the school system could be substantial.

  • The risk of gun related accidents or incidents between students or involving student theft of the weapons can create unintended consequences

  • Most importantly, deterrence is a powerful incentive for a rational thinker to take or avoid certain actions. Recent mass shootings have involved killers who were not rational. To assume that an irrational person will think rationally and be deterred could be a severe mistake.

If you want to spend more time in the world of Crime and Passion, sign up for the free RSVP Newsletter. 

When a killer walks into a school: 

  • Even if teachers or school officials wanted to carry firearms in school as a deterrent, many teachers who are overworked, stressed or distracted may not have the gun readily available in the critical moment.

  • A person confronted with sudden violence is likely to freeze because of a fatal loop within the OODA cycle (Observe, Orient, Decide and Act). That freeze can prevent them from ever using their gun even if it is in their hand when the killer arrives.

  • Many people have a natural aversion to killing other people, even to save their own lives. Many soldiers on the battlefield, who were trained to fight, have failed to fire their weapons at an enemy that was actively trying to kill them. There is a very real chance that a teacher faced with a killer might not be able to shoot even if they have a gun.

  • The accuracy of an average person who does not have substantial training with a firearm is extremely low. If the teacher did have their gun and didn’t freeze in the face of a killer, there is a high chance that they could hit one of the children instead of the killer.

  • If two or more people are exchanging fire in an enclosed space and other teachers or officials arrive (because they are also armed), if could be very difficult in the smoke, noise and adrenalin boosts that everyone is experiencing for the new teachers to hit the right person. More children could be inadvertently killed by the people who are trying to help them.

  • Any teacher who is killed without using their gun for any of the reasons listed above is providing an extra potential weapon for the killer.

  • If the teachers are focused on attacking the killer then it will be difficult for them to focus on removing the children from the situation which leaves them in greater jeopardy as the killer closes in.

After the shooting has stopped

  •  In the same way that other teachers in the school might be confused about what is going on and who the real threat is, first responders will arrive on the scene without knowing who is a killer and who is a teacher. While they are trying to sort through the chaos teachers could be mistaken for killers and inadvertently injured or killed. Killers could be mistaken for teachers or victims and escape. There could be an extended delay for EMS to help the children because there are so many live weapons in the area.

  •  After the incident, there will be significant civil and criminal liability for the teacher, the school and the school system if any parent decides to go after the school because their child was injured or killed by a stray bullet.

  •  Finally, the support and comfort that communities display after a violent massacre that help everyone move on can be twisted into a force that tears a population apart if people start to feel like their loved ones were killed because of the failure of the teacher.

In my next post, I'll try to explain why the anti-gun movement can't achieve the goal of protecting children in the short term with stricter regulations or bans on guns.

Gamal

If you want to spend more time in the world of Crime and Passion, sign up for the free RSVP Newsletter. 

Please Allow Me to Re-introduce Myself

By Gamal Hennessy 

At some point, I invited you to go on a trip.

I promised to take you away from your daily grind and guide you through a world of crime and passion. I offered you a ticket to action, espionage and seduction. I wrote three novels and half a dozen short stories of the best work I could create. You rewarded me with your time and attention.  

Then life got in the way.

 Personal, professional and financial realities cut me off from my fictional journeys. They also prevented me from staying in contact with you since late Spring. I apologize for stopping the trip in such an abrupt fashion, but I’d like to make it up to all of you in two ways.

First, I’m going to make all the books in the Crime and Passion series available on Amazon for $0.99 each for the next thirty days, including my full length novels

If you haven’t had a chance to sample some of my work yet, I hope you’ll take advantage of this 75% off sale to step into my world. 

Second, I plan to have a series of bi-weekly posts leading up to the release of my next novel in November about the role violence plays in being a writer. I hope these essays lure you back into the world of crime and passion and all the other work I plan to create.

I know one less email doesn’t make much difference in your busy life, but I also know everyone can use a break from real life once in a while. If you’re willing to keep hearing from me, I’ll try to make the trip worthwhile. 

If you’ve got any questions, comments or observations, please let me know. I enjoy hearing from you.

 Have fun.

Gamal

If you want to spend more time in the world of Crime and Passion, sign up for the free RSVP Newsletter. 

Espionage and Covert Operations: A Book Review

By Gamal Hennessy

Spying is often referred to as the second oldest profession (prostitution being the first). In Espionage and Covert Operations: A Global History, Professor Vejas Gabriel Liulevicius traces spying from Biblical mythology up to our current surveillance state. While the twelve hour audio book skims over or leaves out much of the global history of spying, the book is a good overview for anyone interested in the impact of espionage on history.

Liulevicius takes the reader on a trip through the major epochs of world history and attempts to peer behind the curtain to see how spying (stealing secret information for a political, military or economic goal) and covert action (secret attacks against opposing forces) have shaped historical events. The book does offer a fresh perspective on the world history you took in high school and draws out themes in tradecraft and operational methods for the readers of modern and historical espionage. Liulevicius even explores the relationship between spy fiction and the real world of spies, focusing on the impact of Kipling, Fleming, Le Carre and Clancy.

Where the book falls short is in its lack of global focus. The vast majority of the course is Eurocentric and biased towards the United Kingdom, the United States and Russia. The combined impact of the assassins of the Crusades, Chinese espionage during Sun Tzu’s warring states period and the rampant spying during the Sengoku period of Japan take up less than ten minutes in a twelve hour lecture. The organic covert action and spy activities by and against populations in Africa during the slave trade are left out completely. If you accept the term “global history” to mean “Western history” then the book has few flaws. Anyone looking for a true global history will need to add another source to this material.

Espionage and Cover Action is a solid overview of the second oldest profession. Anyone interested in history, military affairs, or spy fiction will enjoy the unique perspective the author provides. Like most introductory courses, it should be used as the beginning of an exploration into the subject and not a definitive analysis. But it is one of the better books on spy history I’ve read.

Have fun.
Gamal

What Happens If American Police Departments Get Their Own Torture Sites?

 

by Gamal Hennessy

Last year, the internet expressed a considerable amount of outrage when we realized some elements of American law enforcement were using military weapons and tactics on American citizens. People went out into the street to protest sanctioned police brutality and murder (See Who Watches the Watchers). On this blog, I advocated endangered groups in our society adopt a version of the Moscow Rules to cope with the reality we live in (See Racism, Misogyny and the Moscow Rules). All these deaths and revelations have not altered the climate of fear. If the latest reports are to be believed, things might be getting worse. 

The Guardian recently ran a story about a secret detention center run by the Chicago police department. (See Chicago Police Detain Americans in Black Site). Like Abu Gharaib in Afghanistan, the CIA secret prisons in Turkey and Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, we might be creating institutions and venues to deal out the same punishments we ascribe to our hated enemy. The only difference between Gitmo and Homan Square is the nationality of the people being abused. In the military secret prisons, alleged foreign fighters and terrorists are the inmates. In Chicago, and perhaps in other cities, the prisoners are American. 

If the Guardian report is true, then the Homan Square detention center might have more in common with the old Soviet Union gulag system then the War on Terror black sites. When Stalin and his regime wanted to remove dissidents from the political discussion and sow fear into the populace, people would be snatched off the street and perhaps never heard from again. Dictators like Pinochet, Pol Pot and Idi Amin are accused of doing the same thing. Is it time to add the Chicago chief of police to this list? Have we moved from fighting totalitarian regimes to supporting them, to using their tactics on our enemies to using those same tactics on ourselves? If so, if the Guardian report is true, what happens next and to whom? What, if anything, are we going to do about it?

Based on the internet chatter going across my screen, we aren’t going to do anything. This week, I’ve seen far more arguments about the color of a dress than the alleged atrocities of Homan Square. There wasn’t even the impotent call for indictments like the one the Times issues after the CIA torture report was issued. (See The Futile Call for Torture Justice). Why? Have we so fully accepted our collective impotence against the power of the state that we’re not even willing to address their atrocities anymore? Are we so numb to discussions of torture that we accept it as an inevitable reality? Do we enjoy the idea of security so much that a secret police prison makes us feel better? (See America’s Love Affair with Torture).  

I understand the concept of police using detention and the labyrinth of the criminal justice system to manipulate and abuse suspects. As a person of color, the fear of walking into a police station and never coming out has crossed my mind more than once. The idea has become a trope in modern crime drama from Dirty Harry to The Wire. Is Homan Square just another step in the direction of roughing someone up in an interrogation room? Is it too late to turn back now?

There is a line from the last Captain America movie I think of when situations like these cross my mind. Steve Rogers and Nick Fury are staring out at four huge aerial battleships designed to hit anyone in the world anywhere at any time.  

Fury: We’re going to use these to maintain security all over the world.

Rogers: That’s not security. That’s fear.

The exchange might come from a comic book movie, but there is more insight there than in our current cultural discussion. It is a sad day in America when local law enforcement creates secret prisons to hide and abuse Americans. It is a tragic day when Americans decide they don’t care. 

Have fun.

Gamal