Less than 24 hours after an apparent white supremacist murdered nine black churchgoers in cold blood during a prayer meeting in a historic black church in Charleston, South Carolina, one prominent MRA is trying to put the blame on feminism, because of a remark the killer reportedly made about rape.
One of the survivors of the church killings reported that, before he began shooting, the killer told those in the prayer group that “you rape our women and you’re taking over our country. And you have to go.”
Dylann Storm Roof, the accused killer, wore his racism on his sleeve, almost literally: a former classmate tells the press that Roof “made a lot of racist jokes”; his license plate featured the Confederate flag; his Facebook profile picture shows him in a jacket with patches representing the flags of Rhodesia and apartheid-era South Africa.
But Dean Esmay, the second-in-command at A Voice for Men, probably the most influential Men’s Rights site, thinks that Roof’s killing spree may be the result of too much feminism. Earlier today, he posted a link to an article on the shooting to the Men’s Rights subreddit with this headline:
To their credit, the Men’s Rights subreddit regulars voted his comment down; one told him “[n]ot everything is about us, man. This is distasteful.”
Two hours later, apparently undaunted by the criticism and oblivious to irony, Esmay returned to the Men’s Rights subreddit to make another accusation:
No one has declared the shooter to be an MRA. The little we know about Roof right now suggests that he was a garden-variety old-school racist. The paranoid notion of black men raping “our” white women is one of the oldest racist tropes out there; as Jessica Valenti noted on Twitter, Roof’s language is “the language of white supremacist patriarchy.”
The alleged threat to “our women” was used for generations as an excuse to lynch black men and terrorize the black community as a whole. In the case of Roof’s shootings, it’s an even more transparent ruse. As Rebecca Carroll notes in The Guardian, it’s hard to argue that these killings had anything to do with real fears or even paranoid fantasies about the rape of white women when most of the victims were not black men — the symbolic “rapists” in the equation — but black women:
There is something inconsistent with the Charleston shooter’s alleged evocation of the historical myth of black man as beast and rapist of white women, and the fact that he killed mostly black women. Did he only shoot black women because there were no more black men to kill? Because black women birth, care for and love black men? Or because he didn’t see black women as women at all …
The idea that white women’s bodies represent that which is inviolable while black women’s are disposable hasn’t changed enough since it was first articulated by white men; but again, aimed at black men on Wednesday night, it was predominately black women who suffered by their invocation.
We will find out more about Root’s twisted beliefs in days to come. But it is clear already that they had nothing whatsoever to do with feminism.
H/T — r/againstmensrights
EDIT: I’m making this a NO TROLL, no-derailing-with-idiotic-MRA-or-incel-talking-points thread.
Pussypowertamntrum,
Can we not make this thread about you’re distaste for anti-theism?
Sorry, It was Katz who compared anti-theists to Stalin.
@PussyPowerTantrum:
I’ve said that I’m going to step back from the discussion on religion and I should keep my word. I don’t want to derail the thread any further and I’m leery about getting compared to mass murderers.
I’m happy to fill you in, but I don’t want to cause an internet fight.
@ Paradoxical Intention
Whilst it’s true that a lot of Christmas traditions are pagan in origin, the choice of 25th December isn’t one of them.
There was an old belief that ‘righteous men’ always died on the date of their conception.
They had a traditional date for Jesus’s death, so working 9 months backwards….
[No I know it doesn’t add up, but hey ho, that’s religion]
It would go way to far to outlaw raising one’s children in their religion. But I think whether or not it’s ethical to do so is a fair point to debate.
I look at as similar to the debate over circumcising boys. Dawkins was an asshole for comparing taking your kid to Sunday school to sexual or physical abuse. Anti-circ people and MRAs are assholes for comparing snipping off foreskin to FGM.
But just as one can argue that circumcision is wrong because it’s a violation of a boy’s bodily autonomy (unlike a parent making a child take medicine and get shots which is necessary for the child’s health) since it’s more of a cosmetic procedure. You can also argue that it’s a violation of a child’s autonomy to socialize them into one belief system rather than allowing them to look at the options and decide for themselves when they’re old enough to understand.
I’m not planning on having kids, but if I did, I wouldn’t raise them to be atheists. I’d raise them to think for themselves. I’d openly discuss why I’m an atheist but, if they decided they wanted to check out church, they would be free to do so. Although I’d be sure to pick out a progressive one.
When I was in court trying to adopt my kids, my atheism was used as a wedge to stop me adopting. It failed.
But a young woman who raised her statutory rapists baby til the age of 8 (statute of limitations) had her child removed from her home because the father could afford to send the girl to a Christian school and therefore provide her with a more stable home. She was cohabiting with the father of her second child. The biofather was married. Because he fit the ideal Christian bill, the judge handed over the kid. (The girls age, 14, upon getting pregnant and the absence of a father was also used to show she was the less capable parent.)You wanna know the “funniest” part of her ruling to remove the girl? I know the father. He’s an atheist and a swinger. His parents are drug dealers and lived with him at the time. He faked it all to get custody. The judge was snowed.
We had the same judge. The difference? The DA was in court next to me and the biomother in my case was on her last nerve.
By the girl’s age, I mean the mother’s age. The judge actually said she had relied to much on her own mother and …well, you get the picture.
This is a shitty place.
Lea, hugs. That’s awful. That biofather is a terrible person. I’m glad you got your kid.
WWTH,
The thing is, you don’t have to raise children to be atheists just like you don’t have to raise them not to believe in Santa or ghosts. If you don’t tell them to, they likely won’t. That is unless societal pressure or Grandma tells them to.
I’m joining EJ in stepping back from this thread.
@Alan
December 25th was the date of the birth of Mithras in Roman Mithraism. Are you honestly arguing that that’s a coincidence, and that early Christianity was using the 9 month rule and somehow coming up with a date about 5 months prior to Easter?
Thanks, EJ. Me too.
Their biomom married a child molester while they were in foster care. She argued that he was a good Christian man and thus was clearly framed by those kids and the police. She judged my home as too sinful for her children to grow up in.
Welcome to my nightmare.
OK, really going now. Sorry.
Dean Esmay, Dean Esmay. What a fucking asshole with this bullshit. Dean Esmay can fuck off with this bullshit.
Pearl agrees with me that Dean Esmay is full of bullshit:
http://33.media.tumblr.com/6479b34cd02899c6cab3700b5c83d3dc/tumblr_inline_ndk2eqXBRX1ssfkce.gif
@ Lea,
Part of my response is just despair. It makes my heart ache and I feel helpless to stop the next one.
I know I got started here very badly, but my next question is sincere.
There a recent story about a man wearing a “F##K Muslims” T-shirt as part of intimidating a mosque in California. He was invited in to pray with them, came out, said he was wrong about Muslims and said he’d never wear the shirt again.
The shooter went to a church service, got to know them at least on some level, and shot nine of them dead.
He may be “one of them who decided to act instead of talk” Wouldn’t it be good to know why one of them walks out a mosque changed and the other walks out of a church a murderer?
Because they’re two different people. Next question.
Lea: I’m sorry you had to go through that. That is bullshit. The woman who had her child taken away from her? That’s also some awful bullshit right there.
The world is so full of awful bullshit.
Hi POM
Yup, Mithras, Sol Invictus, Odin, Osiris, all share the same birthday. Maybe there is something in Astrology after all.
“Capricorn – take care today as you’ll probably get nailed to a tree. The outlook improves later in the week”
I always though it was too bizarre to be a coincidence but apparently it genuinely is the case.
One of them was armed and planning a murder and the other was just there to harrass people he didn’t understand?
And exactly what leads you to that conclusion?
That guys wasn’t the only one at that demonstration, and he wasn’t the only one wearing a “Fuck Islam” shirt. Why are you equating the two? In one instance, there were about 100 people there and 1 of them changed his mind. 99 of them didn’t. In the other instance, there was 1 person there and he didn’t change his mind. What is equivalent about these situations?
The history of the early church is reasonable well documented. It’s full of fascinating things about how doctrine was agreed on and the arguments of fixing dates etc. The weird thing is, considering this is all mean to be divinely inspired revelation, it’s amazing how much of it reads like a trade negotiation.
Just check out the Nicean Creed and compare it to a modern agreed statement that might arise from a legal dispute.
@WWTH, EJ Well, I think it’s fair to point out some of y’all seem to have similar tastes in shoes to Stalin, specifically the anti-religious boots.
Also, I find it interesting that atheists insist that nothing unites them when atheist shenanigans are brought up (Stalin et al.) but evidently think there’s more than enough to unite them when it comes to representation.
@Lea I happen to agree with Katz so feel free. This is a bit surreal actually, how a thread about mass murder in a church became all about the evils of organized religion. I mean, the murders are evil and all, but the late Rev. Pinckney really shouldn’t have been allowed to instruct his two children in religion.
I seem to have opened an unexpectedly raw vein when I complained about atheists. I’d love to have a full discussion, maybe a future open thread?
Then you shouldn’t have a problem producing some documentation?
@PPT
Yeah, atheists are kind of always the scapegoats and we’re maybe a little tired of members of the local majority religion with all the power talking shit about us and firing us from our jobs and treating us like we’re not protected by the law. That might make nerves a little raw.
Oh, it’s a long time since my RE ‘A’ level. I’ll have to have a trawl next time I’m near a decent library though. Something to do with Pope Julius; he of calendar fame, That guy loved dates.
Hmm, the thread’s moved on since I started typing, it seems. I’d remove my last post if I could. And Lea, I’m sorry about the crap you (and others) went through, that is unimaginable where I live and I had no idea.