NBC Reporter Skewered for Saying Racist Buffalo Mass Shooting Was Rooted in Killer’s Toothache

thewrap.com:

Twitter thread on the matter Friday, where he drew a correlation between suspected killer Payton Gendron’s attack that killed 10 people grocery shopping in a Black community and a dentist’s inability to fix his tooth.

Collins said he “blamed the Jews” instead of insurance problems and carried out the massacre “because he thought he would finally get help for his tooth from the healthcare in prison.”It didn’t take long for Collins’ thread to elicit outrage and corrections from thousands of people on social media.

Many pointed out that his attempt to seemingly add context or motive to what was a racist act was racist in and of itself. “Retweet if you’ve had a toothache and didn’t massacre a bunch of innocent people,” wrote “Game Theory with Bomani Jones” writer Rod Morrow on Twitter.“I know people are rightfully upset about this hot mess of a thread,” added “Hood Feminism: Notes from the Women That a Movement Forgot” author Mikki Kendall. “I just want to point out the lengths people are going to explain away the decision to murder 10 people.

The toothache was an excuse to do what he wanted to do which was massacre unarmed elders.”Gendron, who is 18, posted a 180-page white supremacist Discord manifesto where he said he was inspired by a racist conspiracy called “replacement theory,” which arch-conservative figures like Tucker Carlson have espoused.