Quite a lot of unhappy stuff has happened just recently, nationally – stuff that I’ve been reluctant to comment on for various reasons – but I have reactions to  them that I’d like to get out there.

Rachel Dolezal’s deception and others’ reactions:

• My first reaction was “that was monumentally stupid”. That’s still how I feel. However good she was as director of her branch of the NAACP she was, she will never get past the trust boundary she ruined. And her continued unwillingness to answer straightforward questions about it is making it worse.  I even, to a limited extent, understand her not wanting to be white – I am reularly appalled by the overt racism and privilege that Caucasian-appearing  people have here. I’m biracial (by way of my heavily Bukhari ancestry), and being Jewish, not strictly “white” as many people define it. But I pass, and never gave it a thought until a few years ago. Even so, I don’t claim to be Asian American – I can’t conceive of doing so, as hat isn’t the experience I’ve had. So, I kind of understand why she might do what she did, but she is still lying about her fundamental identity, and that is not ever going to be helpful.
• I’m also having a strong reaction to the idiots out there claiming the Dolezal’s situation is akin to being a trans person. (Caitlyn Jenner, as a recent example) That reaction is “fuck you, you ignorant schmuck”. The situations are not vaguely similar, other than that they each involve a human woman.

The White Supremacist terrorist attack in Charleston, North Carolina

• I’m having the same reaction that most people I know are having: horror, disgust, fear, and revulsion.
• Some people though, seem to want to somehow soften the blow, by saying he’s mentally ill, or was somehow “driven” to it, or any number of such apologetics.  That’s bullshit. Dylan Roof is guilty, both by admission and witness. The only thing to do with him is to remove him from civil society, permanently, if that’s via the death penalty or by life without the possibility of parole doesn’t matter, to me (though I’d prefer the latter).
• i also see the irony of a white man who gunned down nine people in front of witnesses being unscratched when taken into custody, when juxtaposed by the many, many incidents of police killing unarmed black suspects. Though I’m glad the cops didn’t brutalize Dylan Roof, I do wish they had exercised similar restraint with Michael Brown, Eric Garner, John Crawford and dozens of others.

And lastly, to Erick Erickson, Fox News pundit and conservative ignorance-positive shithead, who is blaming the church shootings on the fact that our society is learning to accept trans people – please Erick, die in a fire.