Unfathomable: Church Massacre

[delyrium]

Other than opposing integration, none of those acts can be attributed to "average racists". If that's the kind of thing "average racists" did, the black race would have been wiped out decades ago.

Average racists stand around and silently approve while the more violent/proactive/mentally ill racists do the dirty work.

 

[lauradis]

Two words: Gun control.

Two words: MENTAL HEALTH

 

[Gumbo4x4]

Average racists stand around and silently approve while the more violent/proactive/mentally ill racists do the dirty work.

That, unfortunately is quite true - again, not of all, but of a very significant #.

 

[MarcW]

You don't have to frequent white supremacist sites. Read the comments under any article about him online. They are hateful and racist.

Not agreeing with someone's policies and calling them a donkey's behind is not racist.

I'm a libertarian, I used to have black friends that were Republican. They thought I was too liberal. Until Obama and then they switched parties and stopped talking to me. My views didn't change. Everything I disliked about his policies I had disliked about the policies of white politicians. Who was blinded by race?

 

[delyrium]

Or average racists are more likely to do things like give less consideration to a resume with an ethnic sounding name, versus burning a cross on someone's lawn. Average racists aren't part of an organization, I don't think.

 

[delyrium]

Not agreeing with someone's policies and calling them a donkey's behind is not racist.

I'm a libertarian, I used to have black friends that were Republican. They thought I was too liberal. Until Obama and then they switched parties and stopped talking to me. My views didn't change. Everything I disliked about his policies I had disliked about the policies of white politicians. Who was blinded by race?

What on earth does this have to do with anything? how does implying that your (former) black friends are racist advance the conversation?

 

[Gumbo4x4]

What on earth does this have to do with anything? how does implying that your (former) black friends are racist advance the conversation?

If we're going to discuss racism, shouldn't we discuss it in ALL its forms?


And directly on topic, when black republicans jump ship to support a liberal democrat - apparently for no reason other than skin color - could it be that such an act would rub white people the wrong way? Do such acts by blacks contribute to racist ideas among whites?

 

[MarcW]

Average racists stand around and silently approve while the more violent/proactive/mentally ill racists do the dirty work.

I agree with this to a point but if there were many standing around silently approving there would have been much more violence and death and, this is the important bit, it wouldn't have stopped. There would have been no integration, no freedom marches. Just death.

You know there is a type of person who likes to think everyone else is secretly a horrible person so they can feel better about themselves. Just saying. There are also people who make a very good living pandering to these people without actually helping the supposedly sinned against.

 

[delyrium]

I think I'm out. At least for the night. Peace, everyone.

 

[Pea-n-Me]

What on earth does this have to do with anything? how does implying that your (former) black friends are racist advance the conversation?

It's made as much sense as anything else posted so far.

 

[MarcW]

What on earth does this have to do with anything? how does implying that your (former) black friends are racist advance the conversation?

Wow. You totally misunderstood that. My point was that my views did not change, they knew my views from years before, views that completely disagreed with Obama's platform years before I'd ever heard of him, but since I didn't jump on the Obama bandwagon they decided I was a racist.

Disageeeing with a person that happens to be black does not make me a racist. Thinking that makes me a racist makes you a bigot.

 

[MarcW]

Truth.
Go to just about any article on any subject on Washington Post on-line edition and read the comments. Most likely more than one commenter will chime in with something hateful and often blatantly racist about the president, even if the article is totally unrelated to politics or policies. It happens day in, day out. I truly don't recall comments like this when Clinton or the Bushes were president. Why do you think that is?

Reading hateful, even racists comments after a news article doesn't mean the poster is a "right wing". As I pointed out earlier most white supremacists are SOCIALISTS because they are such losers they think the government should be set up to take care of them and theirs. I read a lot of "right wing" blogs and forums, you rarely see anyone post something racist and when you do they get their teeth handed to them. They are often left wing trolls trying to create the hate they wish to see in the world.

I also read left wing forums like Democratic Underground and if you think faceless commenters say ugly things about Obama you should see what Democrats (some known political operatives!) say about Bush, Palin (hate rape!?!?) the Koch brothers, ANYONE in the oil industry, and Reagan. I've read posts where they talk about digging him up and defiling his corpse. Classy. Remember when people were burning Bush in effigy and the media was egging them on?

So does that hatefulness bother you or only when it's directed at your politician of choice?

 

[TLSnell1981]

Sorry. I accidentally posted, before I completed my comments.

 

[TLSnell1981]

Has it been reported, WHY he chose a church to massacre 9 people? I suspect, it's because they were vulnerable and trusting, even welcoming. This takes a particularly sick and evil mind to commit such a horrendous act.

 

[Pea-n-Me]

Does anyone know, why he chose a church to massacre 9 people?

I suspected he targeted the pastor who was also a state senator and had recently come out in favor of legislation for body cameras for police officers after the recent shooting by police of an unarmed black man. So I just went looking around to see if there was any more information coming out and sure enough, it looks as if he was targeted...

"Mr. Pinckney was holding a Bible study session with a small group on Wednesday when, surveillance video shows, the suspect arrived after 8 p.m. — a slight, blond man with a bowl haircut and a gray sweatshirt. He sat down with the others for a while and listened, then began to disagree with others as they spoke about Scripture, said Kristen Washington, who heard the harrowing story from her family members who were at the meeting and survived.

Witnesses to the killings said the gunman asked for the pastor when he entered the church, and sat next to Mr. Pinckney during the Bible study.

They said that almost an hour after he arrived, the gunman suddenly stood and pulled a gun, and Ms. Washington’s cousin Tywanza Sanders, 26, known as the peacemaker of the family, tried to calmly talk the man out of violence.

“You don’t have to do this,” he told the gunman, Ms. Washington recounted.

The gunman replied, “Yes. You are raping our women and taking over the country.”

The gunman took aim at the oldest person present, Susie Jackson, 87, Mr. Sanders’s aunt, Ms. Washington said. Mr. Sanders told the man to point the gun at him instead, she said, but the man said, “It doesn’t matter. I’m going to shoot all of you.”

Mr. Sanders dived in front of his aunt and the first shot struck him, Ms. Washington said, and then the gunman began shooting others. She said Mr. Sanders’s mother, Felicia, and his niece, lay motionless on the floor, playing dead, and were not shot.

The gunman looked at one woman and told her “that she was going to live so that she can tell the story of what happened,” said City Councilman William Dudley Gregorie, a friend of the woman and a trustee of the church.

“She is still in shock, the carnage was just unbelievable is my understanding,” he said. “One of the younger kids in the church literally had to play dead, and it’s my understanding that my friend might have also laid down on top of him to protect him as well.”

The gunman left six women and three men dead or dying, including a library manager, a former county administrator, a speech therapist who also worked for the church, and two ministers. Greg Mullen, the Charleston police chief, called it a hate crime, and Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch said the Justice Department was investigating that possibility."

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/19/us/charleston-church-shooting.html?_r=0

 

[TLSnell1981]

Pea, thanks for the article. My heart breaks for the victims and their loved ones. It has to be horrible for the entire community.

 

[Planogirl]

I wonder about trying to make sense out of an act like this. The shooter is clearly mentally disturbed so how can there be any sense?

My thoughts are with the wounded and the families.

 

[disneyjunkie]

All those things happened before I was born. The people who did those things and the people who condoned them at the time are all in rest homes or dead. Is there a new generation of racists who would carry out or applaud those kinds of acts? I'm sure, but it is terribly small. In fact despite the widespread prejudice of the time only a small minority of the populace actually condoned violence. Let me say that again, even people who supported separate water fountains didn't think you should bomb churches.

And yes, many of the people who perpetrated such acts were attracted to violence in and of itself. (This is unfortunately part of human nature. It is the strongest in young males as any crime statistics could show you.) If most Americans were as prejudiced back in the day as you seem to think AND willing to harm and kill in their hatred there wouldn't be any black Americans left today.

We need to stop attributing the sins of the fathers to the sons. Or the grandfathers to the grandsons. We're told we should not judge the rioters harshly for their own behaviour but we can slyly imply bigotry to all white Americans by what a few did fifty years ago? What a majority in power did a two hundred years ago?

I only judge someone on their own actions. Content of their character as one great American said. I don't need to pick every action apart looking for micro aggressions. I'm sorry for people who do. It must be awful living in their heads always thinking someone is out to slight them. We used to consider that a form of mental illness, now we teach it in college. Sigh.

In regards to Roof and his actions I am glad South Carolina has the death penalty.

I wasn't born during that time either. But I still know those act were committed by Average Joe racists.

Sorry, I'm not willing to sit back and pretend that racism is a thing of the past. Just because it isn't in your face as it once was, doesn't mean it isn't there.

All of this pearl clutching and hand wringing trying to label this piece garbage anything besides the racists thug that he is is just sick.

 

[disneyjunkie]

Other than opposing integration, none of those acts can be attributed to "average racists". If that's the kind of thing "average racists" did, the black race would have been wiped out decades ago.

THE ONLY reason they voted for Obama was because of the color of his skin?????? Of course McCain and Palin had nothing to do with that decision.

 

[NHdisneylover]

I am actually a rather stunned to see as many posts as there are denying racism was at play in this horrific act and that racism is still far too prevalent in the US at large. I cannot imagine people can look around America today and spend time there and NOT see it happening.

I guess that is all I can safely say at this point--I am just too upset over the continuing violence and hatred and refusal to see it or do anything about it or admit there is a widespread problem, to generate calm and polite comments.