Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Balloon Juice has never been a refuge for the linguistically delicate.

“I was told there would be no fact checking.”

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

People really shouldn’t expect the government to help after they watched the GOP drown it in a bathtub.

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

Today in our ongoing national embarrassment…

Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

I like political parties that aren’t owned by foreign adversaries.

Hey hey, RFK, how many kids did you kill today?

My right to basic bodily autonomy is not on the table. that’s the new deal.

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

Republicans do not pay their debts.

Democracy cannot function without a free press.

Balloon Juice, where there is always someone who will say you’re doing it wrong.

There are some who say that there are too many strawmen arguments on this blog.

Let’s show the world that autocracy can be defeated.

Everyone is in a bubble, but some bubbles model reality far better than others!

There are no moderate republicans – only extremists and cowards.

The line between political reporting and fan fiction continues to blur.

We need to vote them all out and restore sane Democratic government.

Wow, I can’t imagine what it was like to comment in morse code.

The current Supreme Court is a dangerous, rogue court.

They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.

You are here: Home / Politics / An Unexamined Scandal / A Legacy Of Hatred

A Legacy Of Hatred

by | 78 Comments

This post is in: , , , ,

Meet our suspect in last night’s terrorist attack in Charleston, Dylann Roof of Columbia, SC.

A guy with white-rule Rhodesian and apartheid-era South African flags on his jacket, that certainly seems like something you’d pick up at any mall, right?

I’m sure that doesn’t point to his motivations at all.

Here’s a concept: in a state that still flies the Confederacy’s battle flag over public buildings, pointing out that there was an organized effort to teach a young white kid about those two lovely countries when he’s the prime suspect in the murder of nine would kind of be a tacit admission that we still have a gigantic problem with race and racism in America. And maybe, just maybe the folks who gave young Dylann here his history lesson on Africa under colonial rule are the same folks who may be helping to hide him now during this manhunt.

Just throwing that out there.

Of course, as I said above that would be a tacit admission that we also have quite the domestic terrorism issue in this country, and that we’ve had such a problem for a very, very long time.

[UPDATE] Unconfirmed reports are that Roof has been caught by police in Shelby, NC.   That’s in my old neck of the woods in western NC and my parents still live near there.

[UPDATE 2] Roof’s capture has been confirmed by police officials in Charleston at a press conference and by AG Loretta Lynch.

Reader Interactions

78Comments

  4. 4.

    rikyrah

    I think this hits home for so many reasons that are obvious. But, bottom line, this could have been our mother, our Grandmother, our Uncles, Grandfathers, Daddys. How many of us have dropped off family members or friends at Bible Study, told them, ‘I have to run an errand, but I’ll be back to get you.’ How many of us would think twice if Mama or Grandma told you, ‘ Oh, I’ll just take the baby with me to Bible Study’. It would never occur to us that this would happen. Not only that, but not one of us is surprised that they welcomed this young man into Bible Study with them, because we know that’s what they would do.

    I just can’t with the phuckery today. I have no patience for it.

  6. 6.

    Elie

    The Republican Party (what remains of it anyway), has a strong role in supporting hate speech and veiled encouragements to act on that hate. While they can’t be directly blame for this person’s actions, they must share responsibility for setting up an atmosphere among white people to feel entitled to their hatred and desire for separation.

    Seems to me also that the news outlets should be talking about the white supremacists as much as they would be talking about al Qaeda and ISIS, were this a muslim terrorist act. Lets get some names on some of THOSE organizations who are every bit as organized and evil as ISIS. Call it out for what it is — domestic terrorism until proven different. He is probably being sheltered by some person or persons. That moves it out of the act of one crazed individual.

  8. 8.

    JPL

    @rikyrah: Earlier a friend and I were discussing the new parenting guidelines. Now at a young age children need to be taught to play dead, if there is a gunman in church or school or anywhere.

    They caught him

  10. 10.

    srv

    He reloaded five times even as victims pleaded with him to stop, a relative of Pinckney’s said. Sylvia Johnson, a cousin, told MSNBC that a survivor told her the gunman reloaded five times during the attack. Pinckney tried to talk him out of it, she said.

    “He just said, ‘I have to do it. You rape our women and you’re taking over our country,” Johnson said.

  12. 12.

    Kryptik

    @Percysowner:

    But that just mean Santorum doesn’t see color, he fully supports a color-blind view of society! It couldn’t POSSIBLY be based on race because racism doesn’t exist! It can’t exist, so, you know, QED, it must be hatred of Christians that caused this! Don’t you see?!

    Bleh.

  13. 13.

    scav

    @rikyrah: I’d imagine there’s a bit of the 16th Street Church bombing too underlying things for another generation too. Not a lot of sustained progress.

  14. 14.

    JPL

    If the report is correct, that he was caught, the story won’t be mentioned on Fox news again.

  15. 15.

    Punchy

    And Santorum is first out of the box, agreeing it’s a hate crime. Against Christians and bible-thumping liberty (of course). I shit you not.

    Equating 9 murders to gay marriage, albeit indirectly. That’s some Santorum….

  17. 17.

    Cacti

    Now, raise your hand if you believe there is any chance Dylan Roof would have been captured alive had he been a black suspect accused of shooting up a white church.

  19. 19.

    Big ole hound

    Fox news said it was an anti-christian crime, not racist. ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME.

  20. 20.

    JPL

    Just f..k all this. Rather than more guns, we need to hire more FBI agents to infiltrate these groups.

  21. 21.

    Elizabelle

    Fox News on in background: male commenter is not surprised white shooter was captured quickly, because “he is not a hardened criminal.”

    Unlike Trayvon Martin.

    Anyone remember if Trayvon’s parents gave him the sidewalk he carried out his attack with?

  22. 22.

    Mark B.

    I hope they investigate this guy’s connections to terrorist groups, but I expect they’ll just declare him a lone nut and be done with it.

  23. 23.

    Cacti

    Governor Nikki Haley “will never understand” how such a thing could happen in the same fair state where white cops shoot black men in the back and a confederate flag flies on the state Capitol grounds.

  24. 24.

    Roger Moore

    @Big ole hound:

    Fox news said it was an anti-christian crime, not racist.

    They’re going to have a hard time maintaining that stance. The gunman has apparently been captured, and has reportedly stated that he was at the church to kill black people. Of course we can’t expect him to know his own motivations nearly as well as Fox does, so we’re just going to have to disregard that.

  25. 25.

    Elizabelle

    @JPL: Great place to insert this, again, in event links within are useful.

    The Other Terror Threat. Op ed published this week in the NY Times.

    Authors: Charles Kurzman teaches sociology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. David Schanzer is director of the Triangle Center on Terrorism and Homeland Security at Duke University.

    … headlines can mislead. The main terrorist threat in the United States is not from violent Muslim extremists, but from right-wing extremists. Just ask the police.

    …. An officer from a large metropolitan area said that “militias, neo-Nazis and sovereign citizens” are the biggest threat we face in regard to extremism. One officer explained that he ranked the right-wing threat higher because “it is an emerging threat that we don’t have as good of a grip on, even with our intelligence unit, as we do with the Al Shabab/Al Qaeda issue, which we have been dealing with for some time.” An officer on the West Coast explained that the “sovereign citizen” anti-government threat has “really taken off,” whereas terrorism by American Muslim is something “we just haven’t experienced yet.”

    And, I guess, garden variety homegrown racists.

  27. 27.

    Mnemosyne (tablet)

    How to make a domestic terrorist: hardcore racist (who gives a shit about “Rhodesia” these days other than hardcore racists?), easy access to guns, and mentally unstable. Add in a 24/7 diet of “news” claiming that white people are the REAL victims of racism and just wait.

  29. 29.

    Face

    Am I the only one hoping that when this prick bastard does end up with life in the pookie, that he’s locked up in the section that has….well…excessive diversity? I’m sure his viewpoints on AAs will go over there quite well.

  30. 30.

    Elizabelle

    @Big ole hound:

    Fox news said it was an anti-christian crime, not racist.

    That dead horse told Fox to stop beating it. They have kind of tailed off in recent hours.

    But it was the talking point this morning. Unquestionably.

    I suspect the white shooter guy will be Fox-depicted as “evil, the devil” and not so much racist. I could be wrong …

  31. 31.

    CONGRATULATIONS!

    Meet our suspect in last night’s terrorist attack in Charleston, Dylann Roof of Columbia, SC.

    No thanks.

    And for holding those people for hours while shooting them one by one, they can gas the son of a bitch for all I care.

  34. 34.

    CONGRATULATIONS!

    who gives a shit about “Rhodesia” these days other than hardcore racists?

    @Mnemosyne (tablet): An interesting question. The answer would be “white people who used to live there”, with this little shitbucket isn’t.

    But I know two who did, and to put it nicely, they have some legitimate gripes. Put mildly. They are quite grateful to have gotten out with their lives.

  35. 35.

    Napoleon

    @srv:

    He reloaded five times even as victims pleaded with him to stop, a relative of Pinckney’s said. Sylvia Johnson, a cousin, told MSNBC that a survivor told her the gunman reloaded five times during the attack. Pinckney tried to talk him out of it, she said.

    Where did you get that from? How could he reload and not get taken out by someone who tackles him or hits him with a chair or something (or for that matter run out of the room)?

  37. 37.

    Napoleon

    And the NY Times has a picture of him sitting on the hood of his car and the front plate has confederate flags on it.

  39. 39.

    Elizabelle

    Gonna say this up front: I don’t believe in a federal death penalty for this guy either, as I opposed it for Dz. Tsarnaev. Let Roof spend the rest of his days in prison.

    And, in the event either mass killer actually and demonstrably repents and is no longer a danger to society: at some date, long after they’ve served dozens upon dozens of years, both killers might be granted parole, late in life. Very late in life. Maybe not to complete freedom. But they are humans, awful as their acts were, and even though they deprived better, more humane people of their lives.

    Punishment, yes, but not torture.

  41. 41.

    Mike in NC

    @CONGRATULATIONS!: Little creep identified as a resident of Columbia, SC. A place I visited one time and vowed to never return. The scene of the crime, on the other hand, is about the only non-terrible city in the entire state.

  43. 43.

    CONGRATULATIONS!

    Little creep identified as a resident of Columbia, SC. A place I visited one time and vowed to never return. The scene of the crime, on the other hand, is about the only non-terrible city in the entire state.

    @Mike in NC: Been to both and a few others besides. I actually like the state, although their climate…whooo boy. Maybe it’s nice in winter. But it gave me the creeps to see the shooting scene and realize I walked right by there a few months ago.

  44. 44.

    Elizabelle

    Today is a sad, sad day. Yesterday, Clementa Pinckney and others in the bible study group still drew breath. Today they are gone. I did not know of C Pinckney in life (maybe saw his name as a politician in a few stories; did ring a bell), but did not know about him. And the world was better with him in it.

  46. 46.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Mike in NC: Little creep identified as a resident of Columbia, SC

    I used to have to go there fairly regularly on business, and hated it. I’ll always remember one meeting in the office of a VP of a prominent local company – one wall of his office held a Confederate flag the size of a tapestry. Really, the damn thing had to be 10-12 feet wide.

  47. 47.

    D58826

    Quoted from Wonkeete and a clip[ from Fox

    So while Christians of all races must be on high alert for this kind of hate crime, is there anything they can do to protect themselves from anti-Christian violence like this? Glad you asked! Pastor Jackson has an idea:

    And I would mention one other thing very quickly, and that is I would urge pastors and men in these churches to prepare to defend themselves. It’s sad, but I think that we’ve got to arm ourselves, at least have some people in the church who are prepared to defend the church when women and children are attacked. […]
    Being a Christian means taking a risk, because it means loving the unloveable, it means helping people who maybe want to hurt you, and we have to keep doing that. But on the other hand, we also have to be prepared to defend those innocent people against these kinds of vicious attacks.

    What have we come to that people can seriously talk about people carrying guns to church to defend ther women and children. ? beyond sad

  48. 48.

    Knowbody

    So this is at least a dozen times that Obama will have spoken about a mass shooting and nothing he says or does will stop the next fucking mass shooting.

  49. 49.

    Brachiator

    @Elizabelle:

    And, in the event either mass killer actually and demonstrably repents and is no longer a danger to society: at some date, long after they’ve served dozens upon dozens of years, both killers might be granted parole, late in life. Very late in life. Maybe not to complete freedom. But they are humans, awful as their acts were, and even though they deprived better, more humane people of their lives.

    I would consider releasing them when they bring their victims back from the dead.

  52. 52.

    Paul in KY

    @raven: I already know he was, but he seems to be the kind that’s ‘proud’ about it. Like McVeigh was.

  54. 54.

    different-church-lady

    @JPL:

    If the report is correct, that he was caught, the story won’t be mentioned on Fox news again.

    Not until Obama comments on it.

  56. 56.

    different-church-lady

    @Cacti:

    Now, raise your hand if you believe there is any chance Dylan Roof would have been captured alive had he been a black suspect accused of shooting up parking a car with an expired registration in front of a white church.

  57. 57.

    Paul in KY

    @Face: Dylann, meet your new roommate, ex-NFL linebacker Rakeemm Jones. Well, we’re gonna go watch the football game now & will leave you two alone to get aquainted. Ta ta…

  58. 58.

    different-church-lady

    @Mark B.:

    I expect they’ll just declare him a lone nut and be done with it.

    That’s the problem with white people: no sense of community.

    (What, too soon?)

    (Yeah, too soon…)

  61. 61.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    @raven: I know it’s wrong to have hoped you’d be correct. But of course since he was a white guy, he was “captured.”

    But Chief Asshole Justice Roberts has ruled there’s no racism now.

  63. 63.

    PurpleGirl

    @Percysowner: Can Santorum tell us what Dylann Storm Roof’s religion affliation is? What was he raised as? Most North Americans, and southerners in particular, were raised in some Protestant/evangelical church, so what evidence is there that Roof formally broke from any church and declared himself unchurched? Can you tell us Santorum, can you?

    (For the record, I was a Roman Catholic, broke away and then in my mid-20s joined a Lutheran congregation. I broke with that church about a decade later and have ID as having no religious affiliation at this time.)

  64. 64.

    Paul in KY

    @a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): I certainly wanted him taken alive. Now his pathetic loser existence can be displayed for all in a trial & everyone can see what a paragon of the ‘master race’ looks & acts like.

    Too much chance for some form of martyrdom (for racist kooks) if he was killed in police operation.

  65. 65.

    boatboy_srq

    @D58826: So the solution to racist terrorism is a) pretend the terrorism is religious/sectarian and not racist and b) moar gunz.

    Wow. just wow.

    One wonders whether, if the churchgoers at Emanuel A.M.E. had been packing, and had “defended themselves” in this instance, the Reichwing would have been at all sympathetic – or would instead have thrown hissyfits about Those People shooting a Real Patriotic Ahmurrcan who merely dared cross their threshold. Because arming an A.M.E parish gets awfully close to “moar gunz because we need good guyz with gunz to take out all the bad guyz with gunz” garbage on both counts: first, that the Reichwingnuts push Moar Gunz™ largely due to Scary Armed ni-CLANGs Bad Other People; and second because if that group really did arm to protect itself, the reaction from the Reichwing would be nothing beyond handwringing about the poor white guy innocent who got shot up, and even more pressure on white folks to pack heat, thus generating a self-fulfilling prophecy.

  67. 67.

    boatboy_srq

    @Paul in KY: Jefferson Davis Roof or John Caldwell Calhoun Roof, more like. Got to have the Confederatist cred in there to give the racism historical meaning.

  68. 68.

    boatboy_srq

    @Knowbody: Of course it won’t. TABMITWH. That’s reason enough for racist bigoted scumbags Real Patriotic Ahmurrcans™ to take up arms to defend their liberties and exact Second Amendment Remedies™ for their perceived slights.

  69. 69.

    LAC

    @Knowbody: how many times do you to be told to SHUT THE FUCK UP before you do? Did you fall out of your mom’s womb ass first? Shut …up

  70. 70.

    ruemara

    We don’t walk about with weapons because we’ll be killed if we even carry a toy gun, cosplay with a bokken, or have a wallet. And the whole, I hope he meets a big black bubba in prison, derder stuff. You’re kinda not helping. It’s the innate fear of violent black people that’s being used to indoctrinate these people.

  71. 71.

    PurpleGirl

    @Paul in KY: Ah, but if he ends in protective custody and in a cell by himself, someone will claim he’s being tortured without other human contact.

  72. 72.

    PurpleGirl

    @ruemara: Love your reference to “a wallet”. Yes, Amadou Diallo was reaching for his wallet when he was shot over two dozen times (total of 49 shots taken).

  73. 73.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    @Paul in KY: Your point is a good one. And not only martyrdom, but a quick death would be going too easy on him.

    @The Thin Black Duke: I don’t doubt he’ll be segregated for his protection, but I can hope that he’ll be protected by correctional officers of color.

  74. 74.

    Bobby Thomson

    @Knowbody: and you s-t-r-e-t-c-h to blame it on the black guy. Somehow. Anyhow. Just couldn’t keep your mouth shut, could you?

  75. 75.

    Mnemosyne (iPhone)

    @ruemara:

    A few years ago, a guy at a Halloween party was shot and killed by an LAPD officer while the guy was inside the house and the officer was outside looking through the window. The guy had a toy gun as part of his costume. He probably never even knew what happened, because he was shot through the window and may not have even known the cops were there. But the mere presence of a black man with a (toy) gun was justification enough to kill him.

  76. 76.

    Paul in KY

    @ruemara: Just thinking that any self respecting black person in prison who found themselves with this shitstain would probably be most motivated to whomp him. In a perfect world, any inmate who had a chance would/should whomp him, but you know the Stormfront types will want his autograph, etc.

  78. 78.

    Elizabelle

    My Fox-watching concluded when they deployed Neil Cavuto at 4 p.

    Was never planning to watch the big guns of evening. But Cavuto brought on guest Bobby (“Pious”) Jindal, they heaved a lot of disrespect at President Obama and — it’s too early to politick and talk about guns.

    So I fled.

Comments are closed.