One common thread in the apparently disconnected series of killings in widely scattered places over the last 18 months is that the assailant is young, white, male, and from a suburban or small town background. Pacific News Service asked four contributors to YO! (Youth Outlook), themselves white, to give their views on this situation. Lance Bon 21 is a stained glass apprentice. Third of four parts.

Hate. White supremacy. Neo-Nazis. Skinheads. Hate. Power. Power through hate.

What the hell is this all about? I'm as white as they come. I grew up with no security. I also grew up being teased, beaten, robbed, bullied by black kids. I have always been poor, and have always lived in neighborhoods where I was often the only white kid on the block.

Does this, should this, justify hate and violence? Some people, it seems, would answer "yes," and at points in my life I have played with fantasies of mass murder, white dominance, savage revenge. However I have killed no one, seek no revenge, and my close friends are everything but white.

But I do have a sense of what may be driving others. I know a lot of angry young whites from my time in different juvenile halls.

White is a plain boring thing to be these days. It seems we are seen as bland, rhythmless, timid, uncoordinated humans who live in fear of being uncool. Who is worshipped in the sports industry? Who is portrayed as the suave, cool, sexually secure and GQ in television commercials and shows? Not whites.

Another ingredient could be the social flavor of the areas that seem to be breeding grounds for white supremacy and hate crimes in this country -- a lot of the towns and cities are boring places with very little cultural diversity. A lot of them have very deeply rooted racial beliefs that go back generations.

My mother grew up in such an area, and the very racist belief system instilled in her remains to this day. However, she raised me in San Francisco, where you constantly rub shoulders with just about every type of ethnicity there is. San Francisco is a non stop lesson in cultural flavor -- food, music, facial features, clothing style of every variety flood the city's streets. All these things overpowered the racist attitudes of my mother, and allowed me to see through versatile eyes.

I believe boredom makes people vulnerable, easily distracted by anything presented to them in a convincing way, including white supremacist doctrine. Feelings of racial inferiority, racial intimidation, insecurity, a desperate desire for cultural power, the violent influences we are all force-fed while growing up, our society's obsessive blood lust and the suffocating intensity with which the media reflect this lust -- as well as ignorance and lack of worldliness in these young white males is a large part of the problem.