For the purposes of this debate, ‘Apples’ refer to systemic or structural
violence; harm caused by social, economic, or political systems (e.g. poverty,
institutional racism, environmental degradation) that is often indirect, diffused,
and normalised. ‘Oranges’ refer to interpersonal violent crime; direct, individual
acts of physical violence such as assault or murder, which are highly visible
and strongly condemned. Public discourse often treats these two categories as
fundamentally distinct and resists comparing them morally or socially (i.e. it is
a taboo to do so).