Church massacre

[wesw]

man, I ve tried to talk to people about how their stars and bars just causes trouble, they don t want to hear it. some of them are racist, most aren t. most are just libertarians at heart tho they don t realize it, or even know what a libertarian is.

[Lord Jim]

I'm just interested in how we have such different perspectives on this one.

I wasn't going to say anything else on this subject, (because frankly it's pointless) but I will respond specifically to that.

As I have mentioned before, my great-great grandfather fought for North Carolina with Lee's Army of Northern Virginia. We have letters he sent home during the war, and reading those letters when I was young is a large part of what kindled my initial interest in history; (which became a lifelong passion) it gave me a sense of personal connection to an important historical event. It also gave me a sense of somewhat "knowing" this ancestor of mine who obviously I had never met and died many, many years before I was born.

He never owned a single slave; he fought bravely and honorably for a cause in which he deeply believed, which was the right of his state to determine its own future.

That cause may have been wrong headed, (as I've said before I'm very glad The Southern effort to break away from The Union failed; the world would be a much worse place today had there not been a strong, united US) but that does not diminish his bravery, honor or integrity. He is deserving of respect.

So when I see people referring to those who fought for the Confederacy as "traitors" or likening them to "Nazis", I think of him, and I take it very personally. And I find that view to be extremely ignorant of the historical facts and complexities of the war and those who fought in it.

And when I think of the Confederate Battle Flag, I think of him and hundreds of thousands of young men of his generation like him. That's what it represents to me.

I don't think of a bunch of tattooed ignorant ying yangs running around in Casper costumes.

[Sue U]

As a long-time student of the War of the Rebellion, I have long managed to divorce the flag issue from current social context and defended it in much the same way LJ has done. I was struck by his use of the words "to me" - "to me" this flag represents.... "to me" this flag doesn't represent. Who gives a shit what the Confederate battle flag represents "to me" - white guys at the upper end of the life expectancy range?

I know the stupid flag didn't "cause" this mentally disturbed racist kid to do what he did. But I also know that it stands for racism to an enormous number of people who because of the colour of their skin have the right to that opinion - a right that cannot be denied by older white guys secure in their own privilege. Chattel slavery was the entire cause of the Rebellion and the symbols of the Confederate government and military are symbols of racism, slavery and the degradation of human beings by official policy. They are not "to me" but they are "to those" whose very recent ancestors were held in bondage and who to this day experience the downstream consequences of institutional racism, bigotry and disregard.

When I saw the US flag and the flag of SC at half staff but the rebel battle flag on the lawn padlocked at full staff; when I learned that SC state law requires a 2/3 majority in the state congress to even lower the damn thing.... I changed my mind from vague indifference and waffling about "brave soldiers" and "historic associations". That flag should be gone from any form of governmental display. Like all history, it belongs in books and in museums to be studied for what it was - not used as a weapon of continued defiance of what is the decent and right thing to do.

Take it down - fold it up and put it away, for God's sake and for the sake of all those to whom it is an insult.

Just liked how that was said, and thought it should be said again. Thanks, Meade.

[BoSoxGal]

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/arc ... ow/396290/

[rubato]

From the Atlantic article. ( I got an online subscription after Coates' excellent article about reparations)

Ta-Nehisi Coates:

"... The Confederate flag’s defenders often claim it represents “heritage not hate.” I agree—the heritage of White Supremacy was not so much birthed by hate as by the impulse toward plunder. Dylann Roof plundered nine different bodies last night, plundered nine different families of an original member, plundered nine different communities of a singular member. An entire people are poorer for his action. The flag that Roof embraced, which many South Carolinians embrace, does not stand in opposition to this act—it endorses it. That the Confederate flag is the symbol of of white supremacists is evidenced by the very words of those who birthed it:
ADVERTISING

Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner-stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth...

This moral truth—“that the negro is not equal to the white man”—is exactly what animated Dylann Roof. More than any individual actor, in recent history, Roof honored his flag in exactly the manner it always demanded—with human sacrifice. ..."

"... Moral cowardice requires choice and action. It demands that its adherents repeatedly look away, that they favor the fanciful over the plain, myth over history, the dream over the real. Here is another choice.

Take down the flag. Take it down now.

Put it in a museum. Inscribe beneath it the years 1861-2015. Move forward. Abandon this charlatanism. Drive out this cult of death and chains. Save your lovely souls. Move forward. Do it now. "

[Lord Jim]

This is yet another sad, (but understandable) consequence of this:

Pastors rethink security in wake of church shooting

Pastors across the country are re-evaluating the safety of their churches after Wednesday night's fatal shooting of nine people at a Bible study at a historic black church in Charleston, S.C.

On Thursday, police in North Carolina captured Dylann Storm Roof, 21, who was suspected in the shootings at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church. By many accounts, he was at the church for a while before opening fire on the group Wednesday night.

Roof returned to South Carolina on Thursday night after waiving extradition. He spent the night at a jail in Charleston. A bond hearing is scheduled to take place Friday afternoon.

"This is a different season," said Mark Griffin, pastor of Wyman Chapel AME in Jacksonville, Fla. "Every church leader has to take a look at their security protocol. We are seeing more violence in the church."

Churches are inherently easy targets for violence — some are open late, they have no fee to enter and they are open to strangers.

Griffin leads two churches in two different locations and has said security already exists, but now he wondered whether it is adequate.

"This situation will cause us to reassess what it is we have in place and make sure it is adequate for these type of situations," he said.

The words "church" and "security" may seem like an oxymoron; Ken Jefferson said it is not.

"There are lot of critics that feel that pastors or even parishioners don't need to have certain protection in places," said Jefferson. "That is totally wrong."

The former Jacksonville Sheriff's officer is a member of the security detail at Impact church. He said he has served in that capacity 13 years.

"You have to have eyes that are watching people as the come in," he said. "Watching their body language, watching what they're carrying."

Jefferson said it's called preparing for the worse. He said in some churches security members may be in uniform, some may not. But as long as churchgoers know that they are there so they can worship without worry.

He said the Charleston tragedy will bring changes to some churches and heighten security at others.

"Even though we are a house of worship and we welcome all, they are going to be very watchful now as to who comes into the congregation," he said.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nati ... /28970407/

[rubato]

A lot of good writing has come out about this in the past day:


http://www.vox.com/2015/6/20/8818093/co ... n-shooting

The Confederate flag symbolizes white supremacy — and it always has

Updated by Libby Nelson on June 20, 2015, 10:10 a.m. ET @libbyanelson libby@vox.com

A pro-Confederate flag protest on the South Carolina Capitol grounds in 2000. Erik Perel/AFP via Getty Images

The American flag and the South Carolina state flag are flying at half-staff at the state's capitol after a gunman murdered nine people at a Bible study at the historic Emanuel AME church Wednesday night.

The Confederate flag on the capitol grounds, on the other hand, is still flying at its usual height, 30 feet in the air, lighted at night. And it isn't going anywhere. A compromise that took the flag down from over the statehouse in 2000 did all it could to make sure it didn't budge any further from the seat of state government. Moving it requires a two-thirds vote from the state's general assembly.

A mass murder apparently motivated by white supremacy has sparked yet another debate about what the Confederate flag really symbolizes. Yet the facts of the matter are clear: from the Civil War through the Civil Rights Movement, the flag has always been about white supremacy. It's always been embraced hardest when white Southerners felt most threatened. Fights over the South Carolina Capitol's Confederate flag have been going on for more than 40 years.

But the flag's meaning hasn't really changed since the Civil War. The only thing that has is how the rest of the country sees the cause it represents.
The Confederate flag has always been about white supremacy

The Confederate battle flag was one of several flags used during the Civil War. The first was discarded because it looked too much like the American flag. The third was discarded because the white got dirty easily and could resemble a flag of surrender. (Kean Collection via Getty Images)

The Confederacy itself was founded to preserve slavery and promote white supremacy (see, for example, Mississippi's declaration of secession: "Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery — the greatest material interest of the world," or the speech from the Confederacy's vice president that declared the Confederacy's cornerstone "rests upon the great truth that the Negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery — subordination to the superior race — is his natural and normal condition").

And from the moment the design of its best-known flag was proposed, some Southerners began imbuing it with the symbolism of their cause.

The flag was based on the saltire, a common flag symbol sometimes called the Southern Cross. As historian John Coski writes in The Confederate Battle Flag: America's Most Embattled Emblem, Southerners weren't shy about enlisting the design in the cause of white supremacy. In 1863, the editor of the Southern Literary Messenger wrote that the flag's Southern Cross pointed to "the destiny of the Southern master and his African slave" — the Confederacy's hoped-for expansion of slavery into Latin America.

Like other vestiges of the Confederacy, the flag outlived the Civil War. At first, white Southerners mostly displayed it at Civil War cemeteries and at memorials and veterans' reunions. That use of the flag is the crux of the "heritage, not hate" argument: that the Confederate flag is simply about honoring the South's past, its dead, and its culture. As a white woman who still flies the flag in a historically black South Carolina neighborhood put it, it's about "family history." .... "

[wesw]

I agree that the confederate flag stokes resentment and distrust, and to be honest very few people on the eastern shore have flown it in my memory. mostly young farmboys who hate em some niggers and and the bikers in the 70 s. you rarely see it at all around here now.

many around here are proud to be rebels. my dad grew up on his grand dads skipjack drudging orsters, I know Michener wrote arsters but I always said and heard orsters or orster s.

he left the island after, high school and joined the navy, mainly because of his father, who was a piece of crap. he was in the china sea during the missile crisis in cuba, he told me. locked into his gun on an aircraft carrier. he loved his country and the freedom it stood for.
but he always told me that we were rebels. not the confederate kind of rebels, I never saw him with anyone waving confederate flags, but rebels in the sense of what birthed America. he never cared for the police, they were all crooked down there and probably had confederate flags themselves. all the rules and regulations meant nothing to him. he believed in honesty and trustworthiness tho. if you didn t lie cheat or steal, or hurt anyone, the govt ought to leave you the hell alone.

just tryin to splain

[MajGenl.Meade]

And when I think of the Confederate Battle Flag, I think of him and hundreds of thousands of young men of his generation like him. That's what it represents to me

LJ - I quite understand. I don't believe the ordinary Southern soldier was equivalent to a Nazi and I find it ridiculous that anyone would make that assertion about dear old great-great-great-grandpa.

But then, the ordinary Wehrmacht infantryman or tanker was almost surely not a Nazi. That does not alter the fact that to many people, to Poles and Jews in particular and the descendants of those who suffered, the Swastika is a symbol of Nazism - the policies and practices of the leaders of the German state 1932-1945.

So the association you make with the CBF - the "what it means to me" - is not at all the same as what it means to the victims and descendants of victims of the racist regimes of the Southern Confederacy. To say otherwise is a denial of history.

What I cannot understand is why "the meaning to LJ" is at all enhanced by an insistence that it should be flown in the government grounds of South Carolina. Your argument seems to consist of that. Because the Confederate battle flag for you is associated with an ancestor, everyone else is wrong. South Carolina should fly that flag because LJ's ancestor was a brave man. Is that your position?

The hurtful flag for all its victims and their descendants must be kept flying high because LJ is proud of his ancestor? I see nothing wrong with your pride but everything wrong with wilfully ignoring those for whom that flag is indeed a symbol comparable to the swastika - a symbol of a racist set of governments for whom brave men laid down their lives in a mistaken cause.

Why not keep your pride, fly the flag in your yard if you must but please join with those who call for Confederate flags to be removed from flagpoles on government properties - NPS excepted of course.

[Lord Jim]

Another twisted fuck:

East Texas firefighter fired after Charleston shooting post

MABANK, Texas — A volunteer firefighter from East Texas was terminated Friday after a post the man allegedly made in response to the deadly Charleston, S.C. shooting.

On their Facebook page early Friday afternoon, the Mabank Fire Department said Kurtis Cook was "terminated" and "trespassed from all Mabank Fire Department property" after an investigation into allegations against the volunteer firefighter.

According to a KLTV.com report, Cook was accused of making a post on a South Carolina newspaper's Facebook page that said Dylann Roof "needs to be praised for the good deed he has done."

http://www.wfaa.com/story/news/local/te ... /29017427/

[Lord Jim]

What I cannot understand is why "the meaning to LJ" is at all enhanced by an insistence that it should be flown in the government grounds of South Carolina.

Wait a second...

I haven't expressed any opinion about the flag being flown at the state capitol...(let alone express "an insistence that it should be flown in the government grounds of South Carolina".)

Beyond stating that I think it's absurd to believe that its presence there somehow played a role in what scumbag did at that church.

I stand by that. I don't think that flag had any more to do with what he did than his bowl haircut. Anyone who thinks that if the Confederate Battle Flag hadn't been flying at the South Carolina capitol that the nine people murdered Wednesday would still be alive needs to do some serious re-thinking.

As for the flag at the capitol itself, I personally do not care whether it stays up or comes down. I stated earlier that I supported removing the Battle Flag emblem from the state flags after I learned that it had been added to the flags in the 50's with deliberate racist intent.

Apparently the flag at the state capitol originally flew over the capitol, (along with the US and state flags) but was moved in 2000 (as a compromise that was reached) to a spot that associates it with a Confederate war memorial:

The flag issue has been much more divisive and has convulsed the state's political culture for years, as black and white residents argued over whether the Confederate battle flag is a symbol of slavery and oppression, or of a noble Southern heritage.

Under the compromise, which leaders of both sides acknowledged they found distasteful, the rectangular battle flag would be removed from the dome and from the two legislative chambers. A square version of the flag, which was used by the Army of Northern Virginia in the Civil War, would fly on a 20-foot pole next to a 30-foot monument honoring the Confederate dead that stands in front of the Statehouse.

http://partners.nytimes.com/library/nat ... ce-ra.html

As far as I'm concerned whether it should be removed entirely from government grounds is a matter for the people of South Carolina, through their elected representatives, to decide.

[Lord Jim]

Geez, even the white supremacists want nothing to do with this guy:

White Supremacists Worried Charleston Shooting Makes Them Look Bad

WASHINGTON -- White supremacists on Thursday quickly tried to distance themselves from the suspect in the mass shooting at a historically black church in Charleston, worried that a white man killing nine people in a black church in South Carolina looked bad for their movement.

"This is going to be really bad, I'm afraid," wrote WhiteNationhood in a discussion thread on the white nationalist site Stormfront. "Condolences to the families."

"The media and the left will use this to support their narrative that whites are slaughtering blacks," added MattwhiteAmerica. "It will not matter what the truth is."

The gunman opened fire during a weekly Bible study meeting at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston. Police have identified the shooter as 21-year-old Dylann Roof, who is now in police custody. Roof reportedly told churchgoers before the shooting, "I have to do it. You rape our women and you're taking over our country. And you have to go."

Stormfront commenters continued to hold out hope Thursday morning that perhaps Roof wasn't motivated by racism -- maybe it was anti-Christian hatred instead -- and their movement could keep what they think of as their good name.

"Lets not jump to conclusions and call him a WN [white nationalist] until there is an indication as such... The fact that he targeted a church gives me an inkling that it was religion-related," wrote WhiteVirginian.

"Yep, bad news for gun rights advocates as well," wrote maththeorylover2008. "Another nail in the coffin for the 2nd Amendment."

Time and again, many Stormfront members emphasized that their online community is one inclined to peace and racial harmony -- albeit segregated.

More here:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/06/1 ... 13540.html

Yeah I can understand why these types would be worried that something like this could ruin their "good name"...

[Lord Jim]

Apparently scumbag has a "manifesto":

It appears my hunch about him self-radicalizing through hate sites on the web was accurate:

Dylann Roof's Racist Manifesto Website Appears To Have Surfaced

A manifesto appearing to belong to Dylann Roof -- the 21-year-old suspect charged in connection with the deadly church shooting in South Carolina's Charleston Wednesday -- has surfaced online. A site detailing the writer's racist stances, especially toward African-Americans, was created by somebody with Roof's name, and media reports about it were published Saturday morning after Twitter users @HenryKrinkle and @EMQuangel discovered it.

The site also features a ZIP file containing photographs that appear to show Roof. Toward the end of the site's rambling rants, there is a section titled, "An Explanation." It reads, in part:

"I have no choice. I am not in the position to, alone, go into the ghetto and fight. I chose Charleston because it is most historic city in my state, and at one time had the highest ratio of blacks to Whites in the country. We have no skinheads, no real KKK, no one doing anything but talking on the internet. Well someone has to have the bravery to take it to the real world, and I guess that has to be me."

Employing racial epithets, the manifesto of about 2,400 words is broken up into sections detailing the writer's feelings about different races. Toward the beginning, it reads, "The event that truly awakened me was the Trayvon Martin case," It later says:

"Black people are racially aware almost from birth, but White people on average dont think about race in their daily lives. And this is our problem. We need to and have to."

The manifesto (Warning: Very offensive content) was discovered on the site, and a Whois search indicates it was created in February. A reverse Whois search found that the site was registered to somebody using Roof's name. The ZIP file includes pictures of Roof alone in front of wax slaves, at a plantation and holding weapons, according to media reports. The manifesto's text lays out a disturbing racist ideology of white supremacy and touches on the subjects of segregation and slavery.

http://www.ibtimes.com/dylann-roofs-rac ... ed-1976179

Here's a link to the "manifesto":

http://lastrhodesian.com/data/documents/rtf88.txt

ETA:

Here's another excerpt that shows the path he took to become what he became:

The event that truly awakened me was the Trayvon Martin case. I kept hearing and seeing his name, and eventually I decided to look him up. I read the Wikipedia article and right away I was unable to understand what the big deal was. It was obvious that Zimmerman was in the right. But more importantly this prompted me to type in the words “black on White crime” into Google, and I have never been the same since that day. The first website I came to was the Council of Conservative Citizens. There were pages upon pages of these brutal black on White murders. I was in disbelief. At this moment I realized that something was very wrong. How could the news be blowing up the Trayvon Martin case while hundreds of these black on White murders got ignored?

From this point I researched deeper and found out what was happening in Europe. I saw that the same things were happening in England and France, and in all the other Western European countries. Again I found myself in disbelief. As an American we are taught to accept living in the melting pot, and black and other minorities have just as much right to be here as we do, since we are all immigrants. But Europe is the homeland of White people, and in many ways the situation is even worse there. From here I found out about the Jewish problem and other issues facing our race, and I can say today that I am completely racially aware.

He went from hate site, to hate site, to hate site, absorbing it all like a sponge...

[Econoline]

Oh wow, man...if *THIS* isn't enough to stop you from ever again defending someone who is displaying the Confederate battle flag...jeez, I give up, you're hopeless!

[Lord Jim]

What part of this:

In some cases it's been co-opted by racists, but so has the Christian Cross

or

I supported removing the Battle Flag emblem from the state flags after I learned that it had been added to the flags in the 50's with deliberate racist intent.

Did you not understand?

I'll tell you one thing, after seeing that photo, I'll never defend bowl haircuts again...

Maybe we should ban the internet, since that had a helluvalot more to do with what happened than the CBF....

Just out of curiosity, is there anyone here who cares to discuss anything about this other than the Confederate Battle Flag?

Should I just start ignoring this thread because it's gone hopelessly off the rails, and maybe start a new one?

Or should I start a thread about the CBF where everyone can wax self-righteous, (that I can ignore) and then we can talk about things actually relevant to this case again in this thread?

[MajGenl.Meade]

It is a bit odd that the lunatic understands the meaning of the flag so well. And rather sad that LJ does not understand in the slightest that racism is at the root of this evil and racism is at the root of the Confederate flags.

Racists have not co-opted the flag; racists created it to symbolize their racial superiority to black people and perpetuate their enslaved position.

Racism is to be condemned, out of hand, and especially when racism has brought us to nine dead in a prayer meeting. But no - let "those people" be insulted - it's got nothing to do with anything - let's put it in a corner where it can be ignored.

Let's dispose of this "the flag made him do it" rubbish. It didn't. I've only seen that in LJ's posts - set up in order to deny it. I don't think its a claim made in any responsible journal or commentary or anyone here (did I miss it?).

I find it interesting that LJ is happy to condemn the adoption of the Stars 'n Bars in state flags - that was done for racist reasons (yes, it was) but LJ doesn't suggest THAT doesn't concern him and leave it to the states involved. He's forthright in condemning it.

But South Carolina? No, although the flag flies as a symbol of the racist government of 1861-65 - the material creation of that government - LJ will not condemn it but says it doesn't bother him and it's up to the SC legislature (the people of SC). What it symbolizes to black people is of no consequence at all. They don't count.

It's difficult to understand the simultaneous contradiction. LJ's no racist but he's determined to see no evil. And I think I know why. It leaves him free to support the racist designation "Redskins" whereas acknowledging that the rebel flag is an insult everywhere all the time leads to an inexorable application of logic to another much-loved icon. This must be avoided. I've done the same thing - but Wahoo must go.

[Lord Jim]

Let's dispose of this "the flag made him do it" rubbish. It didn't. I've only seen that in LJ's posts - set up in order to deny it.

Apparently you didn't see that moronic cartoon; (which is surprising given the fact that it was posted twice)

I made the mistake of breaking my pledge not to say anything further on the subject to respond to one question, and now I'm being made the object of pitying, condescending, psycho babble...

My mistake; I wont make it again...

Just out of curiosity, is there anyone here who cares to discuss anything about this other than the Confederate Battle Flag?

Okay, I guess the answer to that question is "no"...

I just started a thread for those who want to vent about the CBF (feel free to dump on me relentlessly about it if you so choose):

viewtopic.php?f=4&t=13644

I have done so in the hope that perhaps we can restore some meaningful dialog about this tragedy, its implications and causes, in this thread...

I don't have much hope that this will work, but I thought I'd give it a shot....

Anyone have any thoughts on the role that the internet played in this tragedy, based on scumbag's own admissions?

[MajGenl.Meade]

I'm not sure I like the tone of my last - sorry about that. Supposed to be cold hard facts like Spock while Captain Jim gives him that look.

Cartoon - it's too large for me to see the right hand side and I didn't bother copying it to my Pictures file to take a look. Judging by the left side, it was a crock.

No, I'm not going to some corner to discuss what you want to avoid - the feelings of black people who get that racist flag pushed into their faces day after day and are supposed to keep quiet because that's their place. That flag, as you admit, has racist connotations - but in South Carolina you aren't interested. So be it

[BoSoxGal]

Overheard at the bar last night, out of the mouth of one of the local yokel redecks: "It's about time a white person fought back."

[Lord Jim]

are supposed to keep quiet because that's their place.

Oh for the love of fucking God...

Where the hell did you see me say anything like that?

That's the kind of baseless smear I would expect from rube....