Charleston church shootings - why is everyone only talking about race?

[HootsMon]

Obviously there was a racial motivation to this outrage - the shooter has confessed as much - and god knows I have no idea what is must be like to be black in parts of the US. I'm sure they get the shitty end of the baton on many occasions.

But AIBU for being really angry that on news and social media, people seem only to be talking about the race issue - tying it in with recent police beatings, etc.- instead of the real issue, which is IMO - GUNS!

You get racist dicks in every country - America is one of the few countries that you can give one a gun for his 21st birthday.

The 21st Amendment repealed the 18th Amendment, there is a precedent for repealing an Amendment.

But never have any of the first 10 Amendments (the Bill of Rights) been considered valid for repeal. To challenge anything in the BoR would horrify most people.

Beautiful post, Northernlurker.

a black person could never sit in a white church. the black person would be invited to leave before he or she got to sit down.

creighton, I wish I had the energy to respond to some of your other massive over-generalizations but I do feel the need to address this one. You are very wrong on this point. There are predominately black churches and predominately white churches in the US, especially in the South, for historical reasons, but you will have to go far and wide to find any church that enforces segregation. And often it's the fully racially integrated interfaith councils in US cities and towns that are in the forefront of advancing race relations. Many predominately white churches actively and mindfully work to create a welcoming atmosphere to support and encourage the creation of a more diverse congregation.

I don't think most black Christians in the US would want their churches to disappear and all churches be fully integrated. Black churches formed a major part of the political and organizational locus for the Civil Rights Movement and continue today to be an important influence on civil rights issues.

But Seneca aren't intergrated churches the exception rather than the rule in and especially in the south. Creighton does have a point when it comes to racism a lot of white peoples first reaction is to minimise and act like its not something that is the daily life.
Your anecdotal evidence might convince you that it does not occur but statistics don't agree with you.
www.phil.vt.edu/JKlagge/ConductorChurch.htm

I was addressing this remark "a black person could never sit in a white church. the black person would be invited to leave before he or she got to sit down."

It's just patently false.

Also, Awadebumbo, nothing in my post contradicts anything in the article you linked to.

Another point, just as black churches were the locus of much of the activism in the Civil Rights Movement, many of the white activists and allies came from organized movements within predominately white churches and synagogues.

people who would later say that he often made racist jokes/comments but no one thought much of it

So this young man lived in a culture where racist jokes/comments were normal and there are people trying to claim that it was his own particular insanity and not a manfestation of racism?

That's not exactly what they meant, Atenco. They meant that they heard the things he said, but didn't think it meant he would go and kill anyone. They are not saying he lived 'in a culture where racist jokes/comments were normal' - they're saying he lived in a culture where killing other people is not normal. You are twisting what they've said.

No, I meant he lived in a culture where saying racist things did not raise an eyebrow from anyone, it went unchallenged

This man drifted through life being exactly what he was, a hateful racist, and no one around him thought it remarkable in any way.

That's what I meant.

In that context, to disingenuously suggest that he was mentally ill or somehow anomalous in his convictions is offensive, ahistorical and just wrong

Tougher gun laws in USA would prevent toddler accidents, home murders and neighbour killings , maybe even prevent school teens having such apparently easy access to their parents' weapons and so on but sadly are unlikely to prevent a hell-bent sociopath like this.

The Breivik case: a country with one of the strictest gun controls in the world. Bought a farm, ordered the necessary chemicals to make bombs, ordered firearms over time.
www.theguardian.com/world/2011/jul/24/norway-strict-gun-laws-circumvented

I think we are making massive assumptions about whether or not his remarks went unchallenged. They haven't said whether they challenged him or not, whether they went out of their way to avoid him having heard his remarks, whether they raised their eyebrows or not. They are just saying that they didn't think it meant he would kill anyone. You'd need to make a detailed enquiry to make sure that what you are assuming is in fact correct.

momb if Dylann Roof had been armed with a knife instead of a gun most or all of the nine would still be alive. I don't think he can be compared to someone like Anders Brevik. Maybe his intent was similar but I doubt the level of planning was anywhere near the same level.

'The 21-year-old accused of killing nine black churchgoers in Charleston, South Carolina, had been “planning something like that for six months”, his roommate has revealed, as friends recalled Dylann Roof’s tirades against African Americans “taking over the world” and his desire to ignite “a civil war”.'

This is from an article in the Guardian.

I don't think this case can be compared with Brievik. The level of determination, planning, foresight doesn't (from what we know) seem anywhere similar. It is far more likely he'd have tried to do what he did with a knife. Or that the knowledge of being likely to be overpowered when armed with one would have been enough to put him off.

It's also notable the devastating regularity with which these cases happen in the US compared to other countries.

No Senca but you did call Creightons statement a massive over generalisation but it's not because only 8 percent of churches are intergrated in America.

as a whole racism/homophobia are 'trendy' things to be outraged by a lot more so than say sexism,ageism,classism etc you only have to look at tumblr/twitter. so crimes in this regard the focus will intensify.

Is mass murder also a trendy thing to be outraged by?

Agree with Momb. The arguments for gun control are so compelling that there is no need to say that things like this wouldn't happen if there were greater gun controls- unfortunately they still do and they still would but in a different way.

I found 'we need to talk about Kevin' really interesting on this.

yes Fuji people are outraged by racism and homophobia because it's trendy not because black and gay do actually live in terror.

They're talking about race because the killer chose to massacre Africans in a church founded by Denmark Vesey, leader of a slave rebellion. He was eventually hanged, suspected of being a freedom-fighter. Later in the 1800s the Rev. Jackson of that church, was assasinated on June 17th. The date this latest killer, who is described as "softly spoken" - no murdering thug label for him if you please, as a white male; lets get the image we want into the consciousness of the masses - is very telling.

He also said:
"I have to do it. ‘You rape our women, and you’re taking over our country, and you have to go,’”.

He had a history of racism and drug use.

He was captured alive (amazingly....) in a country where a black man would have been executed without trial the moment he was found, as is the norm for misdemeanours

He seems to have been diagnosed with "mental illness" extremely quickly...just like that?!

As a white male, the press are tripping over themselves not to call him a terrorist.

& you REALLY think that race isn't a primary issue, OP? You are astoundingly ignorant.

Whilst I wholly disagree with guns and think it is mad that gun ownership is so rife in America, the vast majority of people don't use those guns to go into a gathering of black people and shoot them dead, do they?

& there has been a lot of of coverage re. the guns issue, Obama covered it at length but Im sure you already know that

Awadebumbo I was responding to Creighton's statement was that if black people showed up at a white church, they would be asked to leave. Just not true. Anywhere.

It's not even in the category of mass generalization; it's just not true. And to say that it is insults many people of faith in the US who are working to bridge racial divides.

Have a look at the link for Jim Jeffries. Very funny and about the best description of the situation with guns in America I’ve heard.

Seneca-
I think that creigton was trying to say that a black person entering a white church in that area would have been viewed with deep suspicion. However, despite the suffering of black people at the hands of white racist; these people welcomed this individual into the church.

That's not what creighton said.

And I have been to church in Charleston many times. White churches. And sat next to black people.

OP - it's about guns and racism. Are you coming back to discuss?

I also found the confession that he nearly didn't do it because the congregation were so nice to him heartbreaking.