Words don't kill people; people kill people

The Southern Poverty Law Center has great piece up on its Web site discussing what role consuming propaganda plays in later acts of violence. They focus on Keith Luke, who shot three Cape Verdean residents of Brockton, Mass., in January, killing two of them. He also repeatedly raped the woman who survived her shooting. At the time of his arrest, Luke said he wanted to kill as many non-white people as he could (he also planned to target a synagogue) before killing himself.

In the six months leading up to his crime spree, Luke frequented several ultra-right wing Web sites, including the white supremacist video-sharing site Podblanc. This article asks four experts on sociology and media to give their thoughts on the long-running debate over whether violent media causes violent acts. Their general consensus is that, while a video game or Web site doesn't brainwash an otherwise impartial person into, say, shooting up a school, a person who's already inclined in a certain direction will be able to sharpen his/her focus by seeking out those with similar views.

It sounds like that's what happened with Keith Luke. He and his mother had lived in the same apartment complex as the shooting victims (though it's not clear whether he knew them). Apparently the town of Brockton's population has grown rapidly since about 1970, including a doubling of the African American population. In fact, it's home to more people of Cape Verdean ancestry than anywhere else in the U.S. - nine percent of the city's total population.

So Luke, who's 22 years old, sees all around him a growing number of people who don't look like him, enough of them so that they can comfortably speak to one another in languages he can't understand. The privilege he's been promised as a white man in America isn't materializing. So he takes his anger and inadequacy to the Web, where he can communicate with like-minded people around the world. They give him the words to go with his feelings, and the confidence to make his fantasy a reality.

This weekend, the Department of Justice announced that it will investigate any ties that Scott Roeder, who murdered Dr. George Tiller, had to the radical anti-abortion community. But, as the SPLC's piece shows, a person doesn't necessarily have to have formal ties with an organization in order to be influenced by its hate language.

So, is the solution to ban all hate-filled, racist propaganda? Sounds great, but who determines what messages cross the line? (I'd hate to see which of my favorite Web sites the Bush Administration would've gladly shut down...) It might be easier for racist wingnuts to find one another nowadays, but it's not like they didn't exist before the Internet. I suppose the only thing to do is to keep speaking, keep teaching, keep existing, until there simply are no more racist wingnuts.