Violence has become a prevalent--even expected facet of the nationwide media, and what some may call "scapegoats" have been given for the blame. For some people, it's the people behind those guns. For others, it's the guns themselves. But most notably, when a self-recognized Muslim opened fire in an Orlando nightclub, the pressure to ban Muslims from entering the country was added.

Despite the circumstantial link, looking back at it, after all of the mass shootings this year, only two of the perpetrators were self-proclaimed Muslims. However, that didn't stop millions of Americans from a hatred almost as extreme as the shooters' faiths.

Meanwhile, with all of this critique going around, mafia movies are not receiving even the slightest speculation. Many movies, over the years, have been critiqued for not being what would be acceptable in 2016. Some of the makers of those films have come out themselves talking about it; Seth Rogen recently talked about how some jokes in Superbad were "blatantly homophobic." Despite all of this, mafia movies are not only not diminishing in appeal; it seems as though they're gaining it. And why is this? White privilege.

Mafia movies are, more or less, about rich white people committing organized crimes. I'm not here to belittle it; many of them are excellently made. However, there's little more than that. Oh, yeah. Most importantly: most are based on true stories.

And how about on the flip side? It would make sense that there would be movies coming out about gangs in the streets of the inner cities. If not that, individual tests like growing up in Baltimore in Ta-Nehisi Coates' The Beautiful Struggle. However, movies about race always have a "saintly" black protagonist teaming against a a white force in the past that has been shamed upon in a bipartisan agreement. I'm talking about movies like 12 Years A Slave and Selma. People talked about how Rey was too "perfect" in The Force Awakens. What were the flaws of Solomon Northup and Martin Luther King Jr.? On the flip side, what were the flaws of Henry Hill and Don Corleone?

So what is the dichotomy here? Why is a guy putting a hit on a guy for crossing him seen as art while a man stealing to feed his daughter seen as being a thug? The answer, I think, is organized crime. To explain, here's a quote The Joker said in The Dark Knight:

I just did what I do best. I took your little plan and I turned it on itself. Look what I did to this city with a few drums of gas and a couple of bullets. Hmmm? You know... You know what I've noticed? Nobody panics when things go "according to plan." Even if the plan is horrifying! If, tomorrow, I tell the press that, like, a gang banger will get shot, or a truckload of soldiers will be blown up, nobody panics, because it's all "part of the plan". But when I say that one little old mayor will die, well then everyone loses their minds!

The mafia is an organization. An evil one, be that, but still an organization. They have plans, and they put hits on people, and they follow through. It's all "according to plan." Crime on the streets, on the other hand, is not a plan. It's random. It's circumstantial, often because it's not something they want to do but something they have to do. Despite this, it's out of the control of anyone. Unorganized crime is not despised because it's unorganized. If anything, on it's own, it seems like the lesser of two evils. However, it's feared more because of fear itself.

And what have we learned about fear in this election year? Fear has turned millions of Americans to Donald Trump, someone who fears Immigrants, Muslims, etc. For a man who seems so confident, so in control, his whole platform is based on fear. And when you attack this fear, you attack a vague opponent that might not even be malicious? Isn't fear inherently about the unknown? Therefore, the unknown is just that: unknown. It's something that might not be or might be something to actually be feared, and all we have is statistics. However, statistics aren't absolute, and ambiguity is not seen as enough, often enough. You hear Trump speak, and you hear his superlatives. Sure there are the obvious ones, identified by and replicated by even the most amateur of impersonators, like "the best." However, there are just too many assumptions and generalizations to count that put certainty into the equation.

It reminds me of the saying "you don't know what you have until it's gone." But here, about issues that are verified problems in this country that often go underseen. It's a fact that Wall Street is the cause of the recession, it is a fact that CEOs are illegally harboring un-taxed profits overseas, and it is a fact that we spend more on our military budget than the next 26 countries combined, 25 of which being allies. However, Trump avoids this to go to more vague, more uncertain conclusions made certain. It's as if the certain are too certain to talk about? I can't even explain the rationale. I just think that these things aren't talked about because they are something that have already happened, not some things that are about to happen, or at least speculated to already happen. It's the same thing that makes the "slippery slope" argument a thing.

And as we look deeper, we realize that this isn't as much of a race prejudice as much as it is a socioeconomic prejudice. We like people that are wealthy and in charge. Think of the American dream: the number one goal is to be rich in America. The number one goal is not to be nice or kind or selfless. If you're rich, you've won. It seems, though, that we've also attached being rich to being morally sound, like if you have commitment to your grades in school and grades in work, you have the discipline that will equate a similar moral understanding. Think about how so many politicians like Donald Trump, Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton have come to defend Wall Street amid the economic collapse. Think about how we give longer sentences for the same crimes to poorer people--and especially black people. Think about how we scoff at expanding welfare, criticizing the people receiving it in the first place, but we follow through to give billionaires tax cuts despite the huge wealth disparity. African Americans are just left in the cross-hairs.

Eventually, mafia movies will reach their sense of critique, just as Westerns did before-so. And the critique for Westerns are not for their quality but instead for the over-masculinity that currently plagues America in the form of the "bro." And, soon enough, the pendulum will swing back as we admit our mistakes and move on, enjoying the Western with a grain of salt. That's the thing with Westerns and it will be the same with Mafia movies. They're not bad, and they're not bad for you; we just got a little too carried away with them, just another argument for the danger of certainty.