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I Read the El Paso Shooter’s Manifesto Out Loud, and I Was Shook
His feelings about race-mixing, in particular, really hit home for me
Days after the tragic El Paso shooting, rumors began to swirl about an alleged manifesto penned by the shooter and posted to a now-defunct 8chan chat board. Despite social media and other websites’ vain attempts to quickly remove it from public consumption, mostly legible screenshots had already circulated in group chats and text messages as curiosity regarding the shooter’s frame of mind began to mount. Like hundreds of thousands of Americans, I gave it a cursory read before taking my musings to social media.
Reading it was one thing, but reading it out loud was a whole different beast.
One of my friends, who is visually impaired, asked if anyone knew where he might read it using his assistive software. Due to the fact that there were no reliable sources of text that could be converted to audio, I offered to read it aloud to him. (After all, it seemed fair that he should have the same opportunities as those of us with 20/20 vision.)
Reading it was one thing, but reading it out loud was a whole different beast.
Going into it, I foresaw two major challenges: First, I’m not very good at reading out loud and often stumble over words or don’t properly enunciate complex sentences (of which he had many). Secondly, I had to read it through without giving my own commentary. Despite my own personal feelings, however, I felt I owed it to my friend to read it in the same basic manner that it was presented to myself and others: black and white, 12-point Times New Roman font, non-redacted, with no additional commentary or notes. My own feelings needed to take a back seat to the integrity of his listening experience.
After one false start (my husband interrupted me to ask if we had any salsa), it took me 15 minutes and 49 seconds to read the manifesto in its entirety.
For a quarter of an hour, I verbalized the shooter’s thoughts, all while experiencing a range of emotions and feelings. On one hand, the almost flawless grammar and complex style made me sad to know that this young man clearly had the potential to…
