It was Louis Pasteur who put an end to the centuries-long era of the rather fanciful idea of "spontaneous generation." Beginning with the ancient Greeks and continuing on through the Middle Ages, right up until 1859 when Mr. Pasteur's experiment disproved the theory, it was generally accepted that life could pop into existence from inanimate matter – undescended from similar living organisms.
One piece of 17th-century wisdom had it that if sweaty underwear and wheat husks were placed in an un-lidded jar, the sweat from the underwear would penetrate the wheat and in 21 days the husks would become mice.
Snakes and rats emerged from mud, according to the season, it was long said. Maggots came from meat itself – the theory somewhat echoed existing cultural beliefs.
Mr. Pasteur demonstrated that microorganisms, materializing in petri dishes and whatnot, were not created by some near-mystical force. Maggots may appear alien but they're merely the latest in a long line of larva, arriving via the atmosphere in which we live.
It's all less transcendental than we once believed. Although, we've no right to laugh at the underpants-mice-makers, when many of us have been insisting that the white man who allegedly murdered nine black people at the Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina, also came into being spontaneously.
If we, as a society, can't acknowledge the connection between an alleged killer, who reportedly told his victims "I have to do it. You rape our women and you're taking over our country and you have to go," and those who repeatedly told him that black people rape "our women," et cetera, posterity should mock us.
The alleged killer appears to have left a document explaining his reasons for killing black people, who are "stupid and violent" and "the biggest problem." Short of needle-pointing it on a sampler and getting it notarized by a lawyer, he could not have been clearer about his motivation. Still some asked, "What possessed him?"
Black suspects aren't usually granted this kind of psychological scrutiny. It's as if black men are considered to be innately violent. Whereas with white men violence is something to be teased out of them – a mystery to be solved.
The alleged killer cited a source of inspiration, "The first website I came to was the Council of Conservative Citizens. There were pages upon pages of these brutal black on White murders," he wrote of the white supremacist group's work, "I have never been the same since that day."
This is hardly a case of guy-reads-The-Catcher-in-the-Rye-and-decides-to-kill-John-Lennon. There's no mystery as to why someone perusing the work of the CCC's contributors might decide that black people are killing white people in uncountable and – due to a sinister media cover-up – uncounted numbers. That's their thesis.
In fact, a 2014 report by The Sentencing Project found that the media "over-represent racial minorities as crime suspects and whites as crime victims," and "whites are far less likely than blacks and Hispanics to be victims of crime."
To be sure, murder is never specifically prescribed as a solution to the invented problem that Kyle Rogers, the CCC's webmaster calls "the secret black on white crime wave."
Although when a scenario is presented using the hyperbolic language of war – no, scrap that, a zombie apocalypse – "murder" is a word few people would use. They might say a man has "no choice" but to "fight" "for the good of society." That's how the alleged killer put it.
Kyle Rogers says he never "intended to promote racial hatred," but his heavily-trafficked Youtube channel and his writing is very "Step right up, special deals on racial hatred!"
The CCC says they're "hardly responsible." The alleged killer "merely … gleaned accurate information from our website."
The League of the South, a Southern nationalist organization, issued a statement in support of "our friend and compatriot, Kyle Rogers" saying "that the alleged killer chose to act on this information is no fault of Mr. Rogers or anyone else who tells the hard truths about race."
"Chose to act," they said. "Act" being such an affirmative word.
"Act," they said. Like he held a bake sale.
Is Kyle Rogers directly responsible for those nine deaths? No, but he's a particle in the air. He's there with the boss I once had who said "Watch them" when low-Canadian dollar, "Hell, no, we're not 'just browsing'" black ladies from Buffalo came into the shoe store.
He's another guy telling a racist joke – just a particularly loud one. He's an extended family around the dinner table ignoring that joke.
He swirls in the miasma of Youtube commenters with opinions on "thugs" that "might not be politically correct but…"
He's equal to a few thousand road-crossers and five thousand purse-clutchers. He's in the breeze that keeps the Confederate flag flying. He's anyone who, however subtly, hints that a black person is of less value, or promise, or even interest than a white person.
Killers don't spontaneously generate in churches as our current cultural beliefs hold. They are not spawned of a sweaty Lynyrd Skynyrd T-shirt sprinkled with Cheeto dust and left on a basement floor.
They are the descendants of similar living organisms – of us – and they arrive at that place via the atmosphere in which we live.