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The online journals of George Sodini, the gunman that entered a Pittsburgh gym and killed four women last Tuesday, have not only revealed a deeply troubled misogynist but also pointed to an emerging trend that has arised since the Obama presidency: Blame the Brother.
Now, it has been reported that Sodini, 48, had hadn't had a girlfriend since 1984 and hadn't been on a date for over a year (welcome to the club, son). We know that instead of looking at the reasons for his troubles within himself, perhaps investigating his own character flaws he blamed (among other reasons) women's supposed preferences for black men:
Good luck to Obama! He will be successful. The liberal media LOVES him. Amerika has chosen The Black Man. Good! In light of this I got ideas outside of Obama's plans for the economy and such. Here it is: Every black man should get a young white girl hoe to hone up on. Kinda a reverse indentured servitude thing. Long ago, many a older white male landowner had a young Negro wench girl for his desires. Bout' time tables are turned on that shit. Besides, dem young white hoez dig da bruthrs! LOL. More so than they dig the white dudes! Every daddy know when he sends his little girl to college, she be bangin a bruthr real good. I saw it. "Not my little girl", daddy says! (Yeah right!!) Black dudes have thier choice of best white hoez. You do the math, there are enough young white so all the brothers can each have one for 3 or 6 months or so.
Sigh.
Personally, I do not think that Sodini's obvious racism (and fear/envy of the mystical black penis) was the main instigator in his actions, but instead it accentuated his anxiety of losing control and that undeserving others (black men) were able to obtain what he, a deserving white man could not. Despite being an educated, handsome white man making an estimated $250,000 a year, the fear about layoffs at his job and his inability to obtain what is perceived as a conventional heterosexual relationship, drove him to the edge. Normally I wouldn't advocate prostitution, but couldn't he have just satisfied himself with a hooker? Or his left hand?
That's what a lot of people are saying, but casual sex does not come close to quelling lonliness and the desire of a committed relationship. Jill at Feministe mentions that some have said that if he used 'tricks' such as "The Game" to get women, maybe he wouldn't have felt compelled to murder:
Well… no. Sodini was clearly an unbalanced and aggressive man who fixated on women and blamed them for his problems. The same cultural misogyny that enabled Sodini to blame women for his own social ineptitude and aggression also underwrites “The Game,” and informs people like Roissey’s interactions with women. It glorifies male dominance and relies on male entitlement. And, notably, it relies on there being a class of less-dominant men to serve as contrast to the alpha males — it’s not exactly looking out for the whole of the Brotherhood.
Over at Jack and Jill Politics Jill Tubman wonders why mainstream media outlets have not mentioned this content within Sodini's posts. Is it best that this information should be swept under the rug?
This is the part of the dark secret lurking in suburbia/disturbia and should be the stuff of all our nightmares: the intense racial anxiety, confusion, fear and rage some whites are feeling & how they plan to express. The birthers and the tea parties are just more symptoms of it.
So does this case compare to the April murder of three cops (also in Pittsburgh) when Richard Poplawski, who thought that an Obama presidency meant that his rights would be taken away? There is an interesting comment on one of the two excellent posts by The Atlantic's Ta-Nehisi Coates on the case, where the commenter feels that those with a mental illness are more succeptable to racism and sexism:
I think it's also worth discussing how racism and sexism intersect with mental illness. For a lot of hate crimes, the perpetrator is not only a bigot but also has mental illness issues that are separate from his (and yes, it's usually a "he") bigotry. The bigotry is what lights the fuse, but it's the mental illness that builds the powder keg to begin with.
