Jan. 25: The best thing I've read this week

This isn't a new story, but it was the first time I've read it. And... wow...

Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah won the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for her profile of Dylann Roof, the 21-year-old white supremicist who murdered eight churchgoers in Charleston, South Carolina in June 2015. The piece ran in the August 2017 edition of GQ. 

It is not just a profile of a deeply evil young man. Nor is it simply a story about the lives of the murdered. Rather, it really gets into the systems of the South, the institutional racism that plagues our society and how these processes influenced Roof. 

Yes, it delves into the gun debate, but it isn't framed in it. It discusses mental illness, but it is not a story that lets Roof off the hook. It is tinged with politics, but it painted in humanity. 

This is a long, beautifully-crafted read, but well worth the time. 

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