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.
I hit the link to TheKnot.com but it takes me to an Australian offshoot of the site and I can’t see how to get to the US version. Perhaps an American could try the link in the Raw Story article — http://www.rawstory.com/2015/06/dylann-roofs-family-says-charleston-shooting-suspect-is-introverted/ — and see where it gets them.
However, I’d think that anyone with a profile on a wedding site has been planning for some reasonable time at least. Though I’d expect that she may have taken her page down by now.
@mildlymagnificent
Well, if they’ve been planning for around 6 months, well, that could be his main motivation, especially if her fiance isn’t white, ya know? But instead of hurting his sister, he targeted other people and tried to fuck over the wedding that way. He probably chose it because he learned it was holding bible study close to the wedding date. Maybe it was even the church they thought of holding the wedding at? (I have no idea.)
It just seems too coincidental to make it so close to their wedding to have to not be intentional, ya know? I’m just pulling theories out of my ass, but, goddamn, I mean, why would some asshole shoot-up a church a week before his sister’s wedding if he didn’t want to fuck shit up for her?
I’m not okay with this.
http://img3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20130901172413/mlp/images/b/b7/FANMADE_Rainbow_Dash_table_flip.gif
Could just be extreme entitlement and indifference to the feelings of other people. These mass shooters don’t often seem to care much about the emotional trauma they’ll cause to their own family when they inevitably die/get arrested after their murder spree.
Perhaps claiming the limelight for himself? Who knows. All I’m sure of is that he’s a shitty person all the way to his core. If he’s so worried about protecting “our women”, you’d think his sister would have been a prime candidate for protection from the wicked world.
But no. He has to wreck the most important day in her life so far. As well as wrecking a standout day for all the people who should be the most important in his own life generally, his family.
Selfish. Self-absorbed. Narcissistic. Nasty. Violent. Every other adjective you can think of for someone so horrible.
I am so sick of this shit. I am so sick of innocent people being killed just because of the colour of their skin. I am so sick of racism, I am so sick of sexism, I am so sick of entitlement, I am so sick o bigotry and I am so sick of innocent people dying because of these things. I am also sick of the ableism that often gets attached to the perpetrators of these horrific events. White male perpetrators are often excused as being ‘mentally ill’ while people of colour are vilified in the extreme. Thankfully that has not happened yet in this case, but I fear that it is only a matter of time. Phil Seidle is already being excused as ‘mentally disturbed’ for killing his ex-wife in front of his 7 year old daughter. I am sick to death of it. Not only does this increase the already huge stigma attached to mental illness, it enables people to ignore the pattern of racism and entitlement that claims innocent people their lives, even though it happens again and again and again and again and again and again. When are these people going to wake the hell up?!
Mass murderer makes racist jokes, talks about killing black people, and those around him don’t object because they don’t think it’s wrong to hate black people and wish them dead. Murderer shoots woman dead and minutes later his colleagues hug him, because they don’t think killing a woman who pisses you off is that bad.
Also, getting angry about the fact that he ruined his sister’s wedding seems callous to me, given how many people he actually killed. It’s just a party, big deal.
Callous. That’s exactly what he is.
In small things as in large. Willing to fuck up an important family event in the worst possible way. Willing to kill harmless people in a callous, measured, considered way — pretend to pray with them for an hour, then willing to keep shooting and reloading five times. Deliberately leaving survivors with a “message”.
Callous. Cold-blooded. Vile. All the way to the bone.
Personal rant ahead:
Yesterday was my husband’s birthday. His mom called and sang “Happy Birthday” to his voicemail. He didn’t call her back. He just can’t stand to. The last time she was in our house only our eldest daughter was here and her grandmother made a comment about how the cops wouldn’t shoot black people if black people acted more like white people. My daughter sternly set her straight. She left shortly after, sort of stunned. She has not been back.
Outside of our home we have no non-racist, non-sexist, non-Christian supremacist, non-anti-LGBTQ family* and for months now we haven’t been able to force ourselves to spend any time with them. As a result, holidays are much nicer. I feel guilty about it, but in their presence I want to puke. We come from horrible people. My kids don’t need those influences in their lives. Even when they keep their hate to themselves, I know it’s there. It’s right under the surface and it might come out at any time. No more. We can’t take any more.
I’m not judging anyone else’s choices because we tried for the sake of family for 20 years (Early on we thought they’d change. Then we thought our daughter would be sad without them. Now she’s a young, proud, queer person and we feel like assholes.), but when white people joke about there bigot uncle who ruins Thanksgiving every year, I can’t help but wonder why those families keep having him back? Why is he funny? Why does that asshole have a place to go spout his hate? When are we going to stop being complicit?
*Except one grandmother. She left these parts and all this bullshit years ago and thinks we should too. If only it were that easy.
This fills me with rage and deep. deep despair.
*their*
I know the difference. So why do I keep typing out the wrong one?
*Shakes fist at sky*
DYSLEXIAAAA!
Not about hate, my ass. I’m going to start spitting on every confederate flag I see.
If Roof’s friends had been Muslim, they’d all be in custody right now as co-conspirators and they’d never see the light of day again.
^THIS
It’s not just the racist friend that’s at fault for tolerating this, but the entire culture of the US. We aggressively tolerate neonazis. The KKK can march where it pleases with police escort. If feminists speak up, however, people aggressively try to silence us with threats of rape and violence. Tells you something.
The “front page of the Internet,” reddit, allows fascists, MRAs, etc. to recruit and spread propaganda. The whole idea of freedom of speech in this country is predicated on a gigantic even playing field fallacy. We allow the KKK to speak at the expense of the voices of others.
America will continue to see hate-motivated violence. It isn’t about guns or insanity, it’s about this country celebrating hatred and violence to an extreme. America is an evil, fucked up country, and there’s no stopping it. I know I’m leaving as soon as I can get enough money together. I suggest the same to any other minority people if you’re able. This place is fucked.
True dat. In Germany, nobody is allowed to fly the swastika just because they’re “proud of their heritage”, or nostalgic for an era when they made the trains run on time.
In the South, they shove the confederate flag in everybody’s faces. It’s on license plates, T-shirts, jackets, decals, lunch boxes, and the goddam state capitol. People flaunt it as a belligerent “F.U.” (Tangentially, I don’t understand why Southern rightwingers have been allowed to hijack American culture, hold the electoral college hostage, and declare themselves “the real Americans”, when not only are they the one region that rejected Americanness, they still plaster their traitor symbol all over their houses and trucks. How does that work?)
The confederate flag is an abhorrent symbol of KKK terrorism and slavery that should be taken down, repudiated, and burned on live television. I have no sympathy for Governor Haley and her crocodile tears and her empty promises to “pray for the victims”. Not as long as that flag is flying in a state without hate crime laws or even the smallest whiff of gun control.
Re: the Confederate flag in SC at full-mast
That was legislated. It used to fly over the statehouse dome, but was moved in the early 2000s to a nearby Confederate memorial. The legislation authorizing the move stated that the flag needs to be flown at 30 feet at all times, and there is no power for anyone except a supermajority in the legislature to change that. The governor has no power to order it to half-mast.
That tells you just how attached to racism SC’s government is, but it’s no reflection on the governor one way or another.
I don’t believe that all. You do as you like, but please don’t imply that I don’t care, or that I am complicit in evil, if I don’t do what you do.
“I don’t believe that all. You do as you like, but please don’t imply that I don’t care, or that I am complicit in evil, if I don’t do what you do.”
Oh boy, we’ve got another free speech nazi fanboy over here.
LOLWUT
The governor probably does have the power to call a special emergency legislative session to change the law and get that flag taken down. But we all know that won’t happen.
As a WOC, Haley only gets proxy privilege if she does everything she can to uphold patriarchy and white supremacy. She’s not going to give that up. She’ll happy throw other POC under the bus to keep her own power and privilege.
Wow, you got that from what PoM said?…
I know she doesn’t have personal responsibility for the flag, but I have yet to see any Reupblican politician suggest taking any real action other than grieving.
I’m getting tired of being told that hand-wringing is all we can do.
@WWTH
That’s true. I doubt it would work – I doubt the legislature would actually pass something that would allow the flag to at least go to half-mast – but she didn’t try.
That’s a pedantic and a legalistic issue, anyway. If the governor told the person who hoists flags to put it at half mast, what would they say? “You have no authority to tell me to do that”? Hell no. Unless they were just as much of a racist, they’d do it.
Worship of the letter of the law seems to be a feature among libertarians and other racist assholes.
Uh, actually yes. Anyone who lowers that flag is breaking the law. You better believe someone who did that would be prosecuted. We’re talking about a state government that glorifies racism.
And there is nobody responsible for hoisting it. It is hoisted once and then padlocked in place. Someone would need to use a lock cutter to get it down.
So they leave the flag out at night and when it rains? Weird. Here they take the flags down at night.
Janelle Monae is calling for someone to burn it.