James E. Miller writes:
Prior to killing the nine congregants in Charleston, Dylann Roof lived with a few friends in a grimy, ramshackle trailer on the edge of Columbia, S.C. These friends, all between the ages of 15 and 21, live a meaningless existence. They spend their days sleeping, getting high, playing video games, and waiting for an uncertain future. Most have dropped out of school. Only one works. The owner of the trailer, 41-year-old Kim Konzny, is twice divorced and pays the bills as a server at a local Waffle House. Her listless children were pals of Roof, whom they let sleep on the living-room floor.
With victim narratives all the rage, why did it take a brutal shooting to bring attention to the squalid and meager living conditions of poor white Americans? After all, the poverty and hopelessness of America’s inner cities still gets plenty of limelight. There’s something else going on.
