I'd be lying if I said I felt sad when I heard about the Charleston Church Massacre. I was more stunned than anything. After I heard my first thought was AGAIN! Then I went on twitter, and saw wonders! Some agents in the media were trying to pass it off as a result of the failure of the American Mental Health system rather than what it was, the racially motivated decimation of people who only wanted to pray. I don't know that it is the clearest example of White Supremacy we've ever seen - Steven W Thrasher dial it down a bit. He wrote, "In America, you can be subjected to white supremacy for driving while black, walking while black, swimming while black and now praying while black." To that I say chill. There's no need to list the things that you may be subjected to White Supremacy while doing. If you are black and you live in a place where White Supremacy is the in thing, then no activity that you do is free from it.

Also, I don't want people to join issues. With the police there, the racism is institutional, but with one gunman albeit a very prolific one, the racism is personal. Don't make the chap out to be the face of White Supremacy. The only way that the two are connected in this case is that if a black man were to shoot a lot of people he wouldn't be given the luxury of insanity. I mean, did anyone ask if our infamous panty bomber Abdulmutallab was mentally ill after he attempted to blow that plane up? Actually that's a little bit messed up. Why is it that white people are given the luxury of being mentally ill and black people aren't? This world is really a pot of beans. On the one hand it's really messed up that black people have to fight for the right to be insane and criminal and on the otherhand it's really messed up that they are literally fighting for our rights from the gutter up. White Privilege is a strong something.

Here's what you should know about the accused, Dylan. 

He is a fanboy of Apartheid.

He used to joke about wanting the return of segregation, because to some people somewhere Segregation is like the Backstreet Boys. When someone says that he wants it back it's like he's saying, "How cool would it be if NSYNC toured together one last time." Face Palm. Not everything is a haha affair. Have you ever tried to make a joke about the holocaust that painted Hitler as a hero? But here these boy's friends were listening to him talk about race wars and going, "Haha! Dylan! You are such a riot. Like you should totes be on SNL. I love your sense of humour so much!" These Americans are just Crazy.

He's about 21 but he hadn't really been up to anything since he graduated from high school.

He was arrested in February after being found with Suboxone (used to treat opiate addiction), and in April his folks got together and said, "We're so liberal that we don't mind that you were arrested for drug possession two months ago! Here's some cash. You can do whatever you like with it. Who cares that you've been banned from the local mall for three years? You're clearly on the straight and narrow so we'll be your enablers!"

After getting cashed up by his folks he went and picked up a gun. Clearly, America doesn't really give a damn about guns because they're more readily available than decent healthcare. I can't really be sure of this but it seems this way through my Nigerian telescope.

What I find most tragic about this incident is that it's symptomatic of a failure to deal with race issues. For the longest time too many have upheld the obviously ersatz notion that we live in a post racial society when we don't. How can we live in a Post Racial society when a young man walks into a church, sits down for an hour, opens fire, shoots 9 people, and then deliberately leaves a survivor to repeat his words to us?

"'You've raped our women, and you are taking over the country... I have to do what I have to do."

I suppose now would be a very good time to ask Rachel Dolezal if she's still transracial.

The end!

End note:
I think he should be punished to the full extent of the law. I would like it if he were killed because that would be some sort of poetic justice. But - And this But is very large - Lives have been lost and his isn't enough to pay for them. To kill him now, when he still thinks that his cause was worth the trouble would do nothing. I want to see him inflicted with the pain he's caused. I want him to understand what he's done. I want him to understand that his attempt to spark a racial war left too many families grievously wounded. I want us to stop speaking and reporting his name. He shouldn't be anybody's martyr or hero, and that's what's going to happen if keep talking about him like we are. If you must, use only his first name, so some other guy doesn't think that committing a similar act of terrorism will see him gain a sick sort of celebrity. 

Another end note: 
The worst thing that he's done is contribute to the fear that black people in America can't escape. It hasn't been a good couple of years. There's been Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, and Freddie Gray. It's increasingly looking like America's just plain old unsafe if you so happen to be black. It's just madness! Really! I think we're getting to the point where we go outside and shout, "We're mad as hell and we're not going to take it anymore."
 

 I don't think that anyone should be surprised that Caitlyn Jenner got pulled into the Rachel Dolezal controversy. On one hand we've got a man who has embraced a new gender identity, and on the other hand we've got a woman who assumed a new racial identity. Caitlyn Jenner's ascension to femaledom was celebrated but Rachel's experiment with blackhood has been trashed. She'll forever be a topic of discussion in race. There'll be a million and one essays on her blackness or lack there of. She's the new Roe vs Wade. She's been tried in the court of public opinion and found wanting, and she'll probably pay for it for the rest of her life.

I had a discussion about it over the weekend. The people I was talking to asked an important question. The said, "Why is one person being allowed to live their truth while the other isn't? And, why don't we accept that the world is made up of double standards?" That argument is flawed as only one of those stories is true. If Bruce Jenner had competed in the Olympics as a woman while actually being a man and possessing the physical advantages that being male presents then the issues would be similar. And there's the subject of honesty. In the court of public opinion all available evidence is admissible and permissible. Since the scandal broke here are a list of lies that Rachel Dolezal told to support her blackness. 

As a child, Dolezal and her family apparently hunted their food with bows and arrows.

She, her mother, her stepfather and three siblings moved to from Colorado to Capetown, South Africa.

She and her siblings were physically abused by their parents according to skin complexion. According to Rachel her mother and stepfather used to punish with a baboon whip, used to ward baboons away in South Africa and she said,  “they were pretty similar to what was used as whips during slavery.”

This man is her father.

As if all of that weren't enough she tanned like a Jersey house wife and permed her hair like the 80s were back to stay. Are you still comparing her to Caitlyn? No matter how you look at it one of those things is clearly not like the other.



Rachel clearly knew what she was doing. The woman hasn't even been to South Africa! At the very best, she's psychotic and in serious need of mental assistance and at the worst she's a pathological liar. She played that black card well! Talk about making affirmative action work for you. She used her created blackness to obtain advantages that would have been denied the typical WASP. If she really wanted to do good for the black movement then she could have done it and still been white. Now all of the so called good that she did has been tainted by her fraudulent behaviour. As bad as all of this is it isn't even the worst part. The worst part of everything is that, by appropriating a race that she cannot legitimately claim she took white privilege to the next level. Forget about Iggy Azalea and Eminem, and bring Rachel straight to the front of the line. Chopping the small benefits of being black while chopping all the benefits of being white.

It wasn't a one time mistake. She told the lie consistently, with every braid that she got, with every truly terrible perm, and with every form that she filled. So why are we still talking about her being trans racial when all she is is a white woman who claimed that she was of black and American Indian descent somewhere and somehow? It's obviously a question for the gods.