The Race Riot: Act I

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"How could this have happened?" is the ubiquitous response to any tragedy. But rhetoric does little more than provide news feed soundbites with throwaway content. Few people ever try to honestly answer the question and fewer novels ever tackle the subject. Raymond Lee’s, The Race Riot, written in real time over the Plague Summer of 2020 while American cities were burning, addresses the social injustice and turmoil of our modern times. The novel opens in the direct aftermath of the 2015 Charleston AME shooting. It was the shooter's stated intention to start a race war. At the time no one took him seriously, but as events unfold coming down through the years we begin to sense he may have come closer to accomplishing his goal than anyone could have realized in the tragedy’s aftermath. In Act I we are introduced to the 'Kid Genius,' Mike Robinson, a young black intellectual. Despite growing up with every disadvantage the America Street Projects had to offer, he earns a scholarship to an Ivy League university. But ever since the announcement from the AME pulpit the summer before the school term begins, his identity— and sense of identity— have been called into question. How can he be a ride or die member of the A Street Crew but also college bound? Beau Bohnfeld, a recently graduated Air Force Pilot, is ready to marry his sweetheart after earning his wings. But he gets more than he bargained for during the typical formality of asking her father's permission. Anne's family is a pillar of Charleston’s black community and her father, James Ward, doesn’t approve of Beau. First because he’s white, but more importantly because his father, Travis Bohnfeld, is the chief of police. Meredith Dubois is the heir to one of Charleston’s most prominent families. Her father is a successful businessman who has given her every advantage in life. Despite her privilege, her high salary/low demand career, and her enviable partner, Meredith feels her life is hollow. In essence, she suffers from what Betty Freidan coined in The Feminine Mystique, as ‘the problem that has no name.' With the pressure mounting she must decide to either strike out on her own, or else surrender to the opulent prison of her family birthright. Anyone who hasn’t been living under a rock for the last four years is doubtlessly aware of the growing tension in society since President Donald Trump took office. Setting aside our democracy’s incremental shift towards fascism, one can’t help but read the headlines each morning and wonder why they look closer to those from the 1960's than the 2000's. To all outward appearances, it would seem America is moving backwards as a society. The Race Riot rationalizes through fiction the process that led from every there to here. It explores how the sea shift in national politics is little more than a response to the unfolding drama in thousands of individual communities.