Since Dylann Roof, a 20-something white male, committed the race-motivated massacre of 9 black members at the Emanuel African Methodist Church, there has been a fury of blogs addressing the media's portrayal of this tragedy.  An article in Salon expressed it perfectly:

Well, “mental illness” never created any idea, motivation or belief system. “Mental illness” refers to the way our minds can distort the ideas we get from the world, but the ideas still come from somewhere...We love to talk about individuals’ mental illness so we can avoid talking about the biggest, scariest problem of all–societal illness. That the danger isn’t any one person’s madness, but that the world we live in is mad.

In reviewing mass homicides committed from 1980-2013 in the United States of America:

• 98% were committed by males
• 73% were between the ages of 21 and 50
• 67% were white
• 62% had a documented history of mental illness
• 53% had a toxic childhood experience of some sort

Yesterday, I joined KQRS morning show for a frank discussion about race in America, the media's portrayal of this tragic crime, mental illness and our collective responsibility to reduce the societal ills that contribute to acts such as these.   You'll have to do a little navigating to get to it, but I really enjoyed the discussion and think it's worth the effort.  You can click the logo below to listen.  Go to 6/22/15 Part 3 and drag the cursor to 29:46 which is when the interview begins.