When I was in the 6th grade, my Social Studies class held a medieval feast to end the year. For reasons I'll never fully understand, we were allowed to sign up to be king and queen (because that's how monarchies worked back then) and our classmates voted.
I signed up to be queen, knowing full well I didn't stand a chance. Unbeknownst to me, one of my school bullies not only convinced the class to name me queen, but also to have every boy then refuse to be king. We sat in class for what felt like an eternity as my teacher refused to let me remove my name (I believe she meant well), and we were at a humiliating stalemate.
I wanted to earth to swallow me whole.
That was 30 years ago, and I remember it vividly. I'm also grateful to Charles, the boy who finally had the spine to say he'd be king.
I tell this story because a bullying narrative is now forming around the Fort Stewart shooting.
Two days ago, Army Sgt. Quornelius Radford was arrested after allegedly opening fire on fellow service members at the fort. He wounded five people before being tackled and restrained by other service members.
As far as I'm aware, authorities have not spoken about a motive at this time, and Radford remains in custody.
But two media outlets (so far) have offered up their own reason as to why Radford attacked his fellow soldiers: he was bullied for having a stutter.
Here's NBC News:
The soldier accused of opening fire at his Army base in Georgia, wounding five people, endured relentless bullying over his stutter almost as soon as he joined the military, former co-workers say. https://t.co/bCm7KIt60U
— NBC News (@NBCNews) August 8, 2025
And here's the New York Times:
Fort Stewart shooter ‘got bullied a lot’ for having stutter to the point he barely spoke, friends say https://t.co/6DIg4Vs4Pm pic.twitter.com/cQQjTm5myI
— New York Post (@nypost) August 8, 2025
We'll focus on what NBC News had to say (emphasis added):
The soldier accused of opening fire Wednesday at his Army base in Georgia, wounding five people, had endured relentless bullying over his stutter almost as soon as he joined the military, former co-workers said.
Sgt. Quornelius Radford, 28, was picked on during the roughly two months in 2018 he spent at the Army’s Advanced Individual Training (AIT) school at Fort Lee in Virginia, according to two people who served with him there.
'He got bullied a lot,' said Sgt. Cameron Barrett, 28, who became friends with Radford during that time. 'It was very bad to the point where he could barely talk.'
Barrett said people would mock Radford by also pretending to have a stutter. He said the apparent speech impediment was a 'trigger' for Radford, who endured the mocking by being silent.
We're supposed to believe that seven years after the fact and at an entirely different military base, Radford finally decided to take revenge on those who bullied him for his stutter?
Color me skeptical.
Once again, though: does bullying justify attempted murder? I wouldn't have been justified in capping a few of my Social Studies classmates for bullying me, and neither is Radford. This is the same mentality that led to the publication of a censored video of the recent Cincinnati beating, where the media not-so-subtly implied the victims might have yelled the N-word and then deserved their beating.
The Left believes words are violence. Just ask them and they'll tell you. If they're not preoccupied with 'mostly peacefully' acts of free speech like burning down cities and throwing bricks at law enforcement, that is.
More than that, this speaks to the absolute double standard the Leftist media hold. The media are more likely to label a White suspect a racist or an 'incel' who deserved to be the victim of ongoing, systemic, societal bullying than they are to offer the same sympathy they're giving guys like Radford. There's no context, no nuance, no sympathy to be found.
In fact, they go out of their way to lie about the circumstances.
Remember Kyle Rittenhouse? Ever so often, I will see Leftists argue in earnest that Rittenhouse shot and killed three Black people and faced no repercussions for it. He shot three White men, killing two of them, and only after all three attacked Rittenhouse. One of the deceased, Anthony Huber, hit Rittenhouse with a skateboard and tried to take his rifle. Gaige Grosskreutz aimed a handgun at Rittenhouse (Grosskreutz survived, minus one bicep).
George Zimmerman, a Hispanic man, was labeled a 'White Hispanic' after shooting Trayvon Martin (also in self-defense). NBC News ended up firing a Miami-based producer after that producer deceptively edited audio of Zimmerman's 911 call.
The other thing I didn't see much of in the wake of the Fort Stewart shooting? Widespread calls for gun control from Leftists. That's not a coincidence either.
When the suspect is a guy like Radford, he's also the victim. The victim of 'bullying' or the victim of 'systemic racism' or some other cause du jour meant to obscure and justify acts of violence. It doesn't matter what the actual facts of the case are, of course.
After all, why let facts get in the way of a good racial narrative?
