Questioning why a person did or did not do something in self-defence while being murdered is just another example of blaming the victim.
Because they arrest murderers?
The media isn’t helping with their inflammatory headlines. This little gem comes from CNN.
Charleston shooting terrifies black America
We’ve had a lot of horrific mass murders. Beginning back in the 1960’s, Aug. 1, 1966, Charles Whitmen climbed a tower with a sniper rifle at the University of Texas. We had school shootings March 24, 1998, Westside Middle School, Columbine April 20, 1999. Virginia Tech April 16, 2007, Sandy Hook, December 18, 2012. Plus 9/11 and the Boston Marathon Bombing. *All of these horrific incidents were crimes against humanity. * Their personal backgrounds and race are irrelevant. I wouldn’t even want to know the statistics. It would demean all the victims.
Dead is dead. A bullet could care less if you’re young,old, white, black, yellow, or Vulcan Green. Anybody in that South Carolina church was a potential target. Dylann Roof went there to shoot blacks but the bullets wouldn’t magically veer away from any white attendees either. Churches today are usually a mix of people. Certainly the Baptist churches I’ve attended in the past twenty years always had racial diversity. My current Sunday school teacher is a wonderful middle aged pharmacist that happens to be black.
I hope we the world can see this as a terror act against humanity. The sad truth is we are all potential victims of crime and terrorism. They found several plans in the paperwork and computer drives taken after Osama bin Laden was killed. There are a lot of twisted people in this world.
This was an act of terror against black Americans, full stop. It’s in the same vein as the very long (and thankfully, waning) history of terrorism against black Americans (severe punishment of slaves, beatings and lynchings of blacks after slavery, etc.).
Luckily, today (unlike much of our past), few people support terrorism against black Americans. But there are still a handful of these assholes out there, even after this guy is caught – and many of them are probably known and tolerated racists in their community (like this guy, according to some of his peers that were interviewed). In my view, the absolute first step that needs to be taken is for the Confederate flag to be taken down from any state government property, permanently, and for public opinion to turn against the Confederate flag such that it would be no more welcome in any community then a swastika flag. Not that I expect any of this to happen in the near future, unfortunately.
The Black guys shooting White Americans on the street was, too, but I don’t recall such anger about it.
How is it different?
Because this guy was trying to send a message to black people (and white people) in America. He wanted to start a race war, and he wanted to cause fear in the black community. He admitted these things.
You know what? I’ve seen enough terrorist attacks in my life to know one when I see one. What happened here was a terrorist attack.
I also know exactly what type of people claim that terrorist attacks aren’t fucking terrorist attacks.
When there is a plane crash, or a car crash involving the same type of car, there is usually intense study to find root causes. Then, there are guidelines created to make sure this situation never happens again. You have a tragedy like this, but there is no interest in doing the hard work to help ensure it doesn’t happen again (and again, and again, etc).
Mass shootings are simply the cost of being alive here in America. Yes, mass shootings are rare and yes, the vast majority of gun owners are responsible people, but I hate throwing up my hands in any situation and being forced to admit our collective helplessness.
We have to be able to do something to make incremental progress so we don’t keep having the same issues time and time again. I don’t know what the solutions are but we aren’t even asking the right questions. And we sure as hell aren’t ready to accept the answers. I’m just disgusted by the whole thing.
This is really bizarre:
S.C. judge urges support for Dylann Roof’s family.
Yes, because we know they are the true victims in all of this.
Link goes to a picture of Chad Pennington.
Yikes!
A black drinking buddy of the white man accused of killing nine people at a Charleston church says the suspect told him a week earlier that he planned to shoot up a college campus in the city.
…
They described him as a troubled and confused young man who alternated between** partying with black friends **and ranting against blacks to his white friends.
…
“One night we all got drunk together and since then, me and Dylann were just homeboys,” Scriven [the "black drinking buddy - Terr] said. “We would just chill every day.”
…
“I don’t think his parents liked his decisions, the choices that he made to have black friends,” Scriven recounted
… bizarre
What the hell is wrong with these people? If I heard someone I knew talking about plans to do this sort of thing I would tell the police for chrissakes! :smack:
I think these sorts of discussions are still quite common with some portion of people in the US. There’s still a lot of prejudice under the surface (or above the surface!) in many communities, and I think many people in these communities think it’s no big deal. It should be a big deal, in my view, and decent people shouldn’t tolerate it (meaning that it should be as anathema in conversation as the idea of raping children would be).
NRA leader blames one of the victims for the shooting.
Well, that took a bit longer than I thought.
Which makes it all the more galling that the judge is portraying Roof’s family as victims in all of this. Even calling them out by name so we might start including them in our prayers. Please. We don’t see this kind of appeal made when we’re dealing with other mass shooters.
I don’t take it on faith that the shooter came through his ideology in a vacuum. Like many racists, it’s a good chance he absorbed much of his beliefs from her parents and close relatives. So it is inappropriate for this judge to treat his glowing assumptions about them as fact and publically defend them, when for all we know they gave him the goddamn gun along with his other paraphernalia.
South Carolina is so disgusting to me right now.
Huh. I wonder what that Tower’s dude has sewn on his jacket.
It’s horrific to think he’ll get a welcome from those of his ilk in jail. That there are those who would approve of what he’s done.
The judge who called Roof’s family “victims” has also used the N word in court.
With all due respect, can we get a cite for that?