Sometimes life imitates art in all its absurdity, violence, and comical nature.

America witnessed what might be one of the most violent, yet darkly humorous events in its recent history on Sunday. A three-way biker gang battle erupted at Hooters rip-off (named after a David Lynch creation to top it off) in Waco, Texas that left nine people dead and several more injured. In a scene that could’ve come straight from a Lynch film, the bikers started their brawl over a parking spot, and it quickly escalated from fists and feet to chains and knives and then naturally to guns.

Did I also mention that this happen in a suburban strip-mall where most of the inhabitants were families enjoying a nice after-church lunch?

The violent conflict resulted in hundreds rounds of gunfire being exchanged—with some of it directed at SWAT teams who quickly swarmed the area—and over 100 weapons were confiscated. The most interesting part is that it appears that the majority of individuals involved were White, which, of course, prompted leftists to sneer at just how violent White people are and how they are just a bunch of thugs. (And, yes the Bandidos MC, despite its name, is a White gang.)

The Left had a field day pointing to Black riots and Muslim terrorism as unreflective of Blacks and Muslims in the same way that this biker shoot out is unreflective of White people. . .or proves that White people are worse because more people died in this incident. That is an easily dismissed line of reasoning because very few White communities support outlaw MCs, unlike Black communities with rioters and Muslim communities (excepting most American ones) with jihadis. This event also claimed no innocent lives and was strictly an internal battle among bikers. The same thing can’t be said of Muslim terrorism and Black rioting. Also, this is once-in-a-blue-moon type of incident, unlike Black criminality and jihadi acts.

Thus, that argument ultimately falls apart.

But there is something interesting in the whole idea of White people as thugs. Granted, this was an event that so incredibly stupid that it became farcical. Three gangs slash, stab, pound, and shoot each other over a parking spot at a restaurant called Twin Peaks. The Battle of Hastings this wasn’t. In addition, biker gangs sell poison into blue-collar White communities and engage in idiotic violence. . . like the great Twin Peaks Shoot Out of 2015.

But their “White thug” reputation is what drives the interest in a show like Sons of Anarchy and the fascination surrounding this midday shooting. White people sometimes want to relate with the bad guy, the outlaw of society, in a way he can’t with Black gangbangers and Hispanic drug lords. Bikers show White people as individuals you fear, not as potential victims of non-white crime. They’re modern-day barbarians—living outside the confines of the System and the law it imposes.

There’s a natural appeal there for the average law-abiding White guy. It goes against the cultural stereotype that Whites are just a bunch of goofy losers and it is a completely different lifestyle from that of the bourgeois norm. That’s why it’s not entirely a bad thing that the media is going wild with a story about White thugs—it’s a welcome respite from the normal reporting on domicile Whites.

While the shooting is definitely contemptible and insanely idiotic, certain media figures playing up the meme that White people pose a serious threat to public order is peculiar. It’s almost like they want us to become the new barbarians. . .