Why Are White Men Like Michael Dunn So Angry?

The Root ^ | February 17, 2014 | Travis L. Gosa, Ph.D.

[2ndDivisionVet]

A crisis in white masculinity is killing black teenagers and, history says, the violence is likely to continue.

Why are so many white men like Michael Dunn angry?

Dunn, the man found guilty Saturday on three counts of attempted second-degree murder for shooting into a car full of black teenagers at a Jacksonville, Fla., gas station after an argument over loud rap music—but not convicted of the murder of Jordan Davis, the 17-year-old slain in the incident—provides some answers. Like Trayvon Martin’s killer, George Zimmerman, Dunn’s case represents the rage felt by many angry white men in America.

During his cross-examination on the stand, Dunn admitted to feeling “disrespected by a mouthy teenager” who ignored his request to turn down the “rap crap” blasting from a red SUV occupied by Jordan and his friends. In Dunn’s version of events, Jordan taunted him with racial and gender slurs like “cracker” and “bitch.”

Dunn was pushed over the edge by insults and window-rattling music, and what allegedly followed eerily mirrored the 1993 film Falling Down, in which a white-collar worker-turned-vigilante snaps under the pressure of white, middle-class life and strikes back against Latino gangbangers.

Dunn yelled, “You’re not going to talk to me that way,” according to witness testimony. He grabbed his gun from the glove compartment and fired nine rounds into the side of the teenagers’ vehicle, killing Jordan. According to Dunn, he fled the scene and spent a sleepless night at a hotel, expecting “more gangsters” to retaliate against him and his fiancee.

For angry white men like Dunn, Jordan Davis’ “gangsta rap” music and Trayvon Martin’s “hoodie” symbolize a larger culture war in which putatively wholesome American culture is under siege by blackness.....

[TigersEye]

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