The news out of Charleston is horrifying: 9 people have been shot and killed at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, a historic black church in Charleston, South Carolina, including state senator Clementa Pinckney, the pastor at the church. As I write this, police are still looking for the suspected shooter, described as “a clean-shaven white male about 21-years-old with sandy blond hair.”
It seems rather likely that the shooting was a racist hate crime.
Please use this thread to discuss the news as well as to post any updates or additional information you find.
I know some commenters here have also been discussing another horrifying story in the news: On Tuesday, as NJ.com reports, “a recently divorced … police officer shot and killed his former wife in broad daylight … in front of their daughter on an Asbury Park [New Jersey] street, authorities said.” Please use this thread to discuss this story as well.
FUCK.
Fuck fuck fuck.
Fuck everything.
This news made me very sad. My thoughts and sympathy to Charleston today 🙁
@katz
This is what beer bottles were made for. Chug a fucking drink and then throw it at the wall screaming. Or just calming enjoy your drink. Whichever.
When I was a kid and I read about the bombing of that church in Birmingham that killed 4 little girls, I couldn’t imagine living in an era in which somebody would murder people in a place sacred in retaliation for them seeking basic human rights.
I guess that was some little white girl naïvete.
Because here it is, more than fifty years later and the same shit is happening.
I’m tired of mass shootings.
I’m tired of racism.
I’m especially tired of politicians expressing surprise when something like this happened considering that our gun control laws are basically non-existent and said politicians (as well as the media) are perfectly fine with the police just gunning down people for nothing other than being black. Fuck them. They created the culture that has led to this.
@WWTH
At least it’s gotten a bit better, right?
Has it gotten better? It seems like it’s getting worse.
Weirwoodtreehugger – it’s not just black churches. There was a shooting at a church in my hometown a few years ago – ‘white’ church (mainly). Yes, this probably is directly related to Black Lives Matter campaign and local campaigning around Walter Scott, but the mass shootings (or individual shootings – poor Andrea Farrington) as a ‘solution’ to disgruntlement and entitlement and rage has the potential to hit anyone in America.
My first feeling was sadness. My second feeling was hopelessness – that ‘this one’ wouldn’t ‘matter’ either in terms of finally getting a solution to the toxic political environment AND gun control. Then I thought – horribly – maybe this one will make a difference because the BlackLivesMatter campaign is currently vibrant and organised so maybe they can take up the gun control issue and make a difference. I hope so, but probably not.
I think it’s time for me to hide in my bed with wine and Degrassi (original class) DVDs and pick this conversation up tomorrow.
http://coolpcwallpapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Animal-Kitten-Under-A-Blanket-Wallpaper-1920×1200.jpg
Good to know there’s a place to discuss this stuff with the usual ableism, victim blaming, and maybe it was just a coincidence that it was a white guy shooting up a black church and had nothing to do with racism crap.
Night all.
Me too. It feels like we know exactly how this will play out and nothing will change and there’s nothing we can do about it.
…Degrassi?
http://www.reactiongifs.com/r/saywha.gif
From my understanding they were holding a prayer vigil for Walter Scott. This is a level of terrorism/hate crime that goes beyond comprehension. My well wishes go out to the Charleston community
A white man opens fire in a historically black church, murders 9 people.
This form the N.J. Article about the cop who shot his ex-wife to death in front of their 7-year-old daughter:
Unarmed black men get murdered by the police for “resisting arrest” and the police face no consequences. People fall all over themselves defending the cops. A cop waves a gun around at a pool party full of teenagers and manhandles a 15 year old black girl, and people still defend his actions as “justified.” And here’s this white cop, who just shot his ex-wife to death in front of his 7 year old daughter, waving a gun and firing it in front of the cops, and he walks away unharmed. The cops even hug him and comfort him while they’re leading him away in handcuffs, after he just shot his ex-wife to death in front of his 7 year old daughter.
But yeah, sure, we live in a post-racist society and white men face racism and sexism. Sure.
This is beyond fucked up. My thoughts and prayers are with the survivors.
Shooting up a church. Murdering a woman in front of her daughter.
Fuck this shit.
Aw, hell. I live in Denver now, but I lived in Charleston for thirty years. That church is right across the street from my middle school. Charleston obviously has a long history of racism (we started the Civil War, after all), but this still feels like a gut punch. I doubt I know anyone involved, but it’s still hard to see it come home like this. I really have no words.
RIP all nine unnamed victims. You believe in a deity that I do not, and believe that he would grant you peace in the afterlife. I hope that you are right and that I am wrong.
What the everloving shit. No, not this again. Those poor people. And their loved ones. When will it end? When the fuck will it ever end?
Welp, time to hit the vodka, I guess. If I’m conscious tomorrow, I’ve done it wrong.
I’m not American so I am not sure, but won’t the fact that one of the victims was a US Senator ensure that this particular shooting is treated as an assassination of a public figure? Of course, a famous person should not have had to have died for this to be taken seriously, but that may well be what it takes, heartbreakingly enough. My thoughts and prayers are with the victims and the families torn apart.
Remember when people thought racism was an old person’s problem and assumed generational change would solve it? That was a comforting fiction, ageism aside. All you had to do to maintain it was ignore reality: Young neo-Nazis running around, cops in their twenties and thirties killing people for existing while black. And now some shithead in his twenties shooting up a church. Fuck this shit, on days like this I don’t think we’ll ever learn and none of this will ever stop.
Make it stop. Please. *cries*
http://i.imgur.com/q7od8kN.gif
My respect and love for the families and friends of the people who were killed and the little girl..My God, I want to adopt her.
I don’t know if this will help but here’s brain bleach for everyone.
http://youtu.be/UWYMpuQ6Thc
http://youtu.be/GpxQANh_fEQ
@Jenny Clementa Pinckney, the pastor of the church, was a South Carolina state senator, a married father of two, the youngest African-American in SC history to be elected to legislature.
I don’t know if this changes things, personally. Successful black people have always been a target of terrorism in the U.S.–businesspeople, teachers, community leaders, pastors considered too “uppity” and “giving good blacks ideas.” That’s the message, really: It doesn’t matter if you’re a regular Joe or Jane or famous or a member of the clergy or educated or an elected official, you are not safe if you are black. Especially if you have the temerity to speak out against the murder of black people.
Just watch, a cult is going to grow up around this gunman once he’s identified and white supremacists are going to paint the killing as justified if the late Rev. Pinckney has so much as a parking ticket. I just can’t anymore with this fucking country.
I hate people.
No, that’s the wrong reaction to have to news like this, because it’s hate that leads to things like this, so I should say….
I don’t understand people.
Things seem to have changed so radically in recent years, last year a woman poc colleague of my wife (they shared the same desk) was stabbed to death in London because she parked too close to her white male neighbours house, he grabbed a kitchen knife and killed her in front of the house and his and her children.
This is just so horrifying.
I imagine people are already out there saying it’s insensitive to politicise this tragedy and it’s too soon to talk about gun control. And claims that it was racially motivated will be met with people saying it’s not a largescale problem and just the work of 1 lone (put ableist term here) who’s views weren’t shaped by the society he lived in. And of course people will handwave away the fact that it’s overwhelmingly men who commit these mass murders and not question why exactly that is. Same story every time, so depressing.
@jenny – State Senator – not dismissing his accomplishments at all, because local politicians are really important, but it’s simply not as big a deal as being a US Senator. Not sure where you’re at – but if it’s the UK, it would be sort of a slightly bigger deal than being a County Councillor in Cornwall (the unitary county).
Meanwhile Gabby Giffords and actual US Congressional Representative was shot, sustained life altering injuries, others, including a 9 yr old girl, were murdered and it didn’t make much difference.
Don’t assume that just because this incident (almost certainly, one can hope) won’t lead to any political change people aren’t taking this seriously or don’t see it as absolutely tragic. There will be lots of soul-searching and hand-wringing and genuine tears shed by more than just those who are directly affected, but there are those who genuinely believe that more guns and more toxicity will lead to fewer spree shootings. I don’t know how they believe it. It makes no sense. But they do.
Damn. I guess it was silly of me to hope, but I did anyway.