Scapegoating Fury

As the Ebola epidemic unspools, one of the phenomena that reliably rears its head among humans terrified for their own skins is scapegoating. Whether it is foolish Liberian bishops blaming the plague on homosexuals or demagogic FOX news talking hairdos seeking to drive all victims from our soil in mindless panic, the pattern is the…

…how a winner of two NAACP Lifetime Achievement Awards can suddenly find himself demonized as the Worst Person Ever by the people who gave him the awards. The answer, of course, is that sin-shifting, scapegoating fury can only be unleashed against insiders, not outsiders.