General News 9 dead in shooting at South Carolina church

Sadly that is what will happen. Too much politics involved for any decent reforms to prevent these tragedies from happening some politicians cannot even move a inch on gun laws or they lose votes which is very sad. Even background checks are not acceptable to many politicians and their supporters.

 

Let's please heed the staff warning. I think this is a thread either for discussing the causes of this violence (ie racism and/or sexism) or for expressing our sympathies.

 

Ceiling Fan:

Did I once say that the South was morally right in seceding? What I said was that they had that right, however, misguided, to secede as outlined by the Declaration of Independence.

Did I once say I was surprised the shooter was from South Carolina?

True, the North's rallying war cry was "free the slaves," but like all wars they boil down
to economics. Paint all the lipstick you want on the North, a pig is a pig, regardless. It was money. Businesses couldn't survive without the resources coming out of the South. If those resources went to England they'd be ruined. Let's go back a few generations before the Cabots and the Lodges build their fortunes on the slave trade. Every state at the time was in some way culpable for the horrors of slavery. Lincoln's wife's family held slaves for crying out loud.

Did I once say South Carolina at this time be flying the Stars and Bars? No, I said it was in poor taste.

Why such contempt? What the South did was not traitorous, but it was morally repugnant. What's your dog in this fight? Before you even think I am less than sympathetic to the victims of this crime, I'll have you know my granddaughter is of mixed race. Some asshat could as easily justify killing her as the shooter did by killing people during a prayer meeting. I'm born and bred in Rochester with roots on one side going back to when Col. Rochester came up from Virginia. Big time abolitionist territory, Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglas, and the underground railroad. These are my roots and my heritage, but I can sympathize with the men of the South who fought for there country. Soldiers are cannon fodder. Frequently lie to and manipulated just as the public is. All we need do is look to the wars min the Middle East. Mendacity!

I do not want to get into a pissing match with you. Many heinous things have been done under the cover of that flag. The traitors are the KKK, the bigots, those that believe they have more rights than others. It still goes on today in all parts of this grand nation. The South lost and history is written by the victors. I'll not change your mind nor will you change mine, but I don't want to be misrepresented either.

 

Don't want to open a can of worms, but how is sexism relevant? Racism definitely is, though. It's really sad that people can be so evil....

 

One must wonder how racist America really is when the white people who live there even say it was not about race. This was done on the week of Juneteenth, at a historic black church and the victims were members of a Black congregation. And still it isn't enough for people.

And I am tired.

I'm tired of having the same people label the pain of black people race-baiting and fake. I am tired of having to defend myself from people who say I am pulling the race card. I'm tired of people playing the Oppression Olympics, resort to petty victim blaming, or become selfish.

And most of all, I'm tired of America sweeping these problems under the rug or dehumanizing the victims they claim to protect.

This has and will happen again, and again, and again, and we will continue to see the same people with the same ignorant opinions. I'm done.

 

Awful, just awful... I'm sorry about the victims and their families.
I love your country, don't get me wrong, but what happened it's just... Typical, I guess. You hear often from atrocities happening over there, and they all seem to have in common not just the racism, but the modus operandi : Masacre of innocents who weren't expecting it, sudden and without any logical explanation. 'The american amok guy masacre'...

 

The Oxford dictionary defines 'terrorism' as:

Now this crime, awful as it is, is not fitting to be referred to as an act of 'terrorism'. Broadening the definition of 'terrorism' to include any horrific act not only weakens the English language by making it less specific and precise, it also plays into the hands of the Government / Power Elite who could use a broadened definition to include anyone who opposes the State. Imagine if the definition was broadened to include environmental activists, for example. Those activists would then also be lawfully subject to increased surveillance and possibly detention without trial, just like people who engage in actual terrorism.

Let's call it what it clearly is: a racially motivated hate-crime. Not an act of 'terrorism'.

---------- Post added 20th Jun 2015 at 07:31 AM ----------

Well here in Australia, it is very easy for criminals and other malcontents to get hold of a gun, so laws restricting gun ownership would not have prevented the tragic shooting that just occurred in Carolina. It's only hard for ordinary law-abiding citizens who might wish to be able to defend themselves and their families, to get one. While I agree that shootings such as this one in America are all to frequent, I for one believe that, so long as one has had a thorough background / police check, one ought to be able to own a firearm for personal self-defense. This, of course, is not a simple matter in my own country.

---------- Post added 20th Jun 2015 at 07:43 AM ----------

I posted the above before I had read the request to not discuss things such as gun control. Sorry about that.

 

In this case, it didn't have anything to do with gun control. The cause of this shooting was racism. He went into that church with no other intent than to kill Black people because he felt that all Blacks are the cause of all of America's problems, and his desire to start a "race war."

These kinds of views are the result of two main factors in our society: First, the undeniable history of racism that is taught and passed down from generation to generation. Second, the Dog whistle politics that we see today, where racism is blended into more acceptable statements; painting all young Black men as thugs, criminals, and murderers, all the while telling people that we live in a "post racial society" and that there's no racism at all anywhere.

Unfortunately, this reality is lost upon so many people. They'd rather live in a bubble and pretend that a problem doesn't exist, when it ended nine lives two days ago. Something to think about.

 

Can someone guide me or otherwise help set up parts of this discussion into an appropriate section of the forums? Cause I feel that there is a discussion regarding civil rights, gun control, the dang flag, and the civil war and I think this particular case touches on all of those things. The history of all of these are intertwined and I believe that keeping them in isolation hampers and continues to hamper progress in this society towards a safer, more just society. I further think that the people here discussing this are capable of discussing this with the proper level of respect and decorum.

However, in light of the request of the mod to keep this free of such things, to keep it free to mourn the victims, I'd like to hold off on further responses.

Thanks

 

I'd prefer to confine my remarks to the event itself and the immediate motivations for the event. I'd also prefer not to discuss my reasons for only looking at the immediate motivations, as that invites a debate about why other topics are not germane, which are likely to lead to yet further discussion of topics the moderation team has already requested not be discussed.

 

When you have the number of people dying from guns in some states in the U.S equivalent to those dying from guns in countries experiencing armed conflict then you know you have a problem.

 

Austin, you raise a great and workwhile question. I'm going to offer my usual caveat when I haven't done all the research: I may not have the best reasons to articulate, but I can cite others who do feel that sexism is at issue.

My understanding of the argument broadly is that this kind of (racist) violence has a component in it about white men defending white women (who they feel like they own). This is where the sexist component enters the picture. It's not so much that the problem is defending women (after all, we should be defending all people who aren't evil). The problem is when we're defending women not because it's the right thing to do, but because black men are "defiling" them. Apparently, the history of lynching includes many examples where the perpetrators had claimed that black men raped white women. So, according to the argument many activists are now giving, this kind of mass violence is in line with that history.

Here's an example of a person advancing the argument.

Right now, many white women who are survivors of rape and sexual violence are working to point out how fucked up it is that this shitbag killed nine black people while trying steal and hide behind the experiences they suffered.

As a final aside, I think we can all pretty much agree that the murderer doesn't care about rape. We know existentially that's about as insincere as it gets.

 

Interesting Salon article about how "mental illness" is often a cop-out explanation for mass shootings like this:

It’s not about mental illness: The big lie that always follows mass shootings by white males - Salon.com

What do you all think?

 

I saw no indication that in this particular incident he did it "to protect white women from black men." Am I missing something? I haven't been following this case closely and I only skimmed the OP's article. It's possible I missed it.

 

"THU, JUN 18

Sylvia Johnson, a cousin of church shooting victim Pastor Clementa Pinckney says she spoke with one of the survivors "and she said that he had reloaded five different times... and he just said 'I have to do it. You rape our women and you're taking over our country. And you have to go.'""

Church Gunman Reportedly Said: 'I have to do it' - NBC News

There's a lot more Id like to say about it, but that might get into "gun control" and changing interpretations of the 2nd amendment and since this thread has been deemed out of bounds for that, I'll have to demure.

 

Crazy. It's hard to believe people still think that way.

 

Actually, I don't think its hard to believe at all. It's vile, evil and disgusting, but not crazy.

Again, the state of South Carolina flies a flag that is a symbol of white supremacy. They consciously look back approvingly to a time when black people were owned as property. It's anything but crazy that someone would grow from this environment and think exactly this way.

 

I love all the Faux News folks and Republican candidates scrambling to either say that we can never know what motivated this shooting or try to peg it as an anti-Christian hate crime. Like, the dude flat out confessed, saying that he did it because he wanted to shoot black people, and they still want to say it somehow wasn't about race.

 

The entire right wing in America have blamed everything but racism for this.

It's extraordinary to watch unfold.

 

I'm afraid I have to agree with BryanM when he says, "This only goes to show how commonplace these mass shootings are in and only in the United States."

As soon as I step across the border from Canada into the US, I feel unsafe. Why? Because of how its citizens tolerate guns and violence. The rest of the free world really does not understand Americans, though I suppose your history explains a lot of why you think the way you do.

When a policeman or woman gets shot in Canada, his or her funeral is televised nationally. The whole nation grieves. In the USA it's so common, I think people hardly notice.

Definitely a hate crime to go into a church and gun down 7 black people. So sad.