To me it seems obvious that years of using racist epithets, adorning
onself with swastikas and doing fun guy things like naming your fantasy
baseball team the Border Hoppers with the Taco Bell as a logo--all things
the parents, principal and peers apparently did not challenge (take a
moment and think about that please)--work to undermine one's repsect for
fellow human life and confirm one's self perception as a lord of mankind.
>From this self appointed position of lordship, it is a short step to
retaliate beyond the law, reason, proportion and decency against every and
anyone who has crossed you. As my favorite black political theorist once
said, the chickens come home to roost. I am not sure however if the media
coverage of this horror is the incident to stake one's argument against
D'Souza's Reaganite end of racism thesis. This massacre is not reducible to
race the auxilliary role of which in this massacre seems clear to me, and
there are several better examples to dispute D'Souza's thesis, including of
course his own book which in the end grants the greater plausibility of the
Charles Murray world view.
I wish I could remain plugged in to find more about what I said that Michael Pollak finds bracing; my ideas often in the form of "brainstorms" are as always open for revision. If you could cc anything to my personal address, I would appreciate it, Michael. I'll look for "heavenly creatures". Thanks.
Yours, Rakesh