I admit it's more comforting to believe this to be the random act of a lunatic; someone alien to ourselves. The sad truth is, however, that the things this guy believed are shared by millions of our fellow Americans. Thankfully most of them don't express those views as murderously as this guy did; but they do share them.

Bryant

Awful OP

As if the patches on his jacket and license plate weren't enough. Believe him!

It couldn't be any plainer!

Is what the Ignore button is for.

murders were indeed about race.

A cowardly, monstrous racist.

I suppose his illness is that he's a hateful, murdering, racist, asshole.

His illness is not all that uncommon.

A distant relative went for a gun to kill off all the non-fervent-Xian males in his family. He needed to save their souls from the Devil, and once they were dead and they stopped being Satan's servants he could pray for them.

Sounds like a true fundie. Except he'd just had his psychotic break. His break was unrelated to his beliefs: stress and abuse, coupled with whatever genes he'd inherited, set him up for it, and stress in his life had peaked in the previous couple of months and skyrocketed that particular week. He snapped.

His primary problem was mental illness. His mental illness, those voices he finally listened to and obeyed, had to have something to chew on.

I don't think Roof is mentally ill in any diagnosable way. But the two, racial hated and mental illness, are distinct and shouldn't be merged.

He wanted to start a race war. Wore things that indicated his white supremacist sympathies. Drove miles to a historically significant Black Church. Denying the racial aspect of this is insulting.

He killed only others of a difference race. He told the victims it was due to race. He confessed to law enforcement it was due to race. He admitted he was and yet still is a racist.

I'm having a difficult time understanding what part of this simplistic and obvious progression is elusive...

Race had everything to do with it.

n/t

He said so in the church and also made comments about a race war after his arrest.

Think harder.

You make it about race. Or you make it about Jews. You make it about killing people you see as anti Muslim. And then you can sit back and just watch the chaos and pain you have created.

He just used the race card.

No doubts as to his motive here.

Are you saying that murdering 9 people in a church would not have been as big a deal without his obvious racism?

Murdering 9 people anywhere would have garnered a lot of attention. Stating what he did and the evidence from his roommate, his FB photo of the jacket with the flag patches....only willful ignorance or being in the employ of Fox News would lead one to conclude it wasn't about race.

How much more proof do some need?

It's unbelievable the lengths some will go to to make excuses for this horrible racist.

now about a bunch of people gunned down in Detroit.

It is not getting a lot of attention.

for it to be big news. Getting shot at random in America isn't that special.

He was a straight up racist. Why are you making crazy excuses for what he did?

are white racists who want to avoid nuanced, honest discussion of racism.

Just stop trying to contort this into ANYTHING other than what it is. He's also a misogynistic pig. That doesn't take away from the fact that he went on a killing spree killing black people because they were black. He went to a black church to do it. If this was just about him being a misogynistic pig, I doubt he'd have to have driven all the way to that church to find some women to shoot up.

Please just stop.

I'm sorry, but your whole theory is a huge pile of crap.

This person was and is dentified with racist causes; he didn't just hang a hat of convenience on racism so he could slaughter a bunch of people. There are a number of dullards who drolly do that without need for a cause. That he gets celebrity status out of his actions doesn't negate his racist terrorism. And unlike many slaughter-boys, he didn't shoot himself or wait for the cops to do it. He wants his beliefs shared by others and wants to see that.

This is a celebrity culture, and he is one now. But his is an outlook he wants promoted and shared.

Any more right-wing memes you want to bring up?

It's not a card, racism is a cultural pathology that is alive and well in America.

It kind of sounds like you do, and trying to dismiss the race angle. Sounds like you're dancing around some pretty fucked up thoughts here.

Sometimes one can speculate about whether race was a factor. In this case there is absolutely no doubt.

"He said he wanted segregation between whites and blacks. I said, 'that's not the way it should be'. But he kept talking about it."

"She was told that the gunman "reloaded five different times" and that the gunman told the victims: "I have to do it... You rape our women and you're taking over our country, and you have to go.""

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-33189325

If you think this wasn't "really about race at all", you are badly mistaken, it was all about race. He was a rabid racist, full stop.

If he wasn't the latter those nine dead African Americans would still be alive.

mental defect. I feel really uneasy about that. Are we denying that a person can kill simply because of hate and evil? Do they always have to be mentally ill? Are we ignoring the fact that hate and racism are a learned behavior?

In any case most racists aren't mass murderers, thank God!

not act the way many do as we get older. They play together without discrimination. I have seen it in my multi-racial family. But as they get older you see children emulate their parents and begin to use racist words. Later it is often peers who teach them who and how to hate.

You can see this mechanism at work in religion. If you are indoctrinated from little on up you tend to hold on to these beliefs as you get older even if you stop going to church for further indoctrination. It becomes an engrained philosophy of life that you no longer even think of as religion.

In the 60s many of us stopped using the old words and ideas to teach our children about others and our children are no longer a part of the bigoted families we once were. We rejected the racist education of our ancestors. In my particular family that means going from KKK (great grandparents) to inter-racial marriages (my children and great grandchildren).

We were not born racist we either learned not to be or we learned how to be.

---that this incident is about insanity, not racism.

Of course mass killers love the attention--duh--but this guy had a crystal clear agenda obviously reflecting the environment he grew up in. Racism and hate in all it's ugly forms, is at the root of this act of violence. If this is not a hate crime, just what IS?

*(And it's not about gun luv either, right?)...

I'm no a trained psychologist who's examined and tested him, either.

I can wait to see if he's had a psychotic break and racism was what his illness picked up on as justification; if he has some other diagnosable mental illness that requires attention-seeking and he knew this would be a really good way to get it (same for the patches, easily available for $2.95 on the Internet).


Then again, I do think he had an exaggerated self-importance and truly warped perceptions in wanting not just to start but to restart the "race war." I wonder which "race war" he was referring to? (Then again, I wonder that on DU when I read such things. 500 killed per year in a country with millions of guns and 300+ million people is hardly a worthy death count in a "race war.&quot

I'm not going so far, though, as to deflect blame from him to a general attribution of guilt to family, community, or race, ascribing guilt and beliefs to people solely on the basis of their race.

But I know that this op perpetuated a lie.


I'm not a person of the lie.


TOS be damned - I'm not going to accept lies from the Right (Santorum or Haley) and I'm sure as shit not going to accept a damn lie from someone who is SUPPOSED to be an ally.

It's not- it's dropping a turd into GD.
Fuck that.

Will get them to come forward and explain why they felt a lie - god damned lie - nothing but a lie -

Is acceptable in this discussion?

She WANTS attention - that's why she posted this farce.

So c'monnnnnnnnnnn people - give her LOTS of attention.

I've had a heavy heart the past day or so - and this made me smile.

difficult to do.

What is your agenda- move along?

The Killer told those in the church that "they" were raping all our women and "they" needed to go. You can deny reality but the facts are, this was 100% racially motivated. Denial isn't just a river.

It doesn't have to be either/or. This was racially motivated.

Life is complex.

... others

both crimes were hate crimes motivated by bias against the victims. Aurora guy went to a place with lots of people, not a place with a type of people.
This was about racism.

Just weed out those troublesome, disturbed angry white folks before they cause the kind of trouble that makes people talk about the ONGOING SYSTEMIC RACISM AND CULTURAL RACISM THAT INFECTS THIS NATION, DESTROYS LIVES AND DIVIDES US AGAINST THOSE WHO ARE REALLY KEEPING US ALL DOWN.

And I'm NOT sorry for the all caps. It was a compromise between that and telling you what I really think about your theory and what it says about YOU.

He is a racist and this was a hate crime.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]You should never stop having childhood dreams.[/center][/font][hr]

Anything else is just so much bullshit.

millimeter of daylight between our positions.

To wit, one does not casually don the flags of Rhodesia and apartheid-era South Africa. Such is the act of a 'cold and calculating' racist, someone who has actually taken the time to affiliate him- or herself with racist regimes of the past.

i think this case happens to be both.

there are a lot of racists who would never seriously think of going down the mass-murder path.

there are plenty of sociopaths and psychos who don't go out of their way to add a racial component to their inhumane actions.

there's still room for overlap.

I think it's important that we, as a society, try to answer this.

I mean it's been all over the place (and right here over and over) that he's admitted to the authorities that his crimes were race based. And even if he hadn't, it was obvious from the start.

As others have pointed out, the shooter communicated his intent. In fact he left a woman alive so she would tell people he had killed the others because they were black "rapists," supposedly, though many were women.
So the question here is what is it that compels you to feel you must ignore the evidence to deny racism?

His racist jokes?

His apartheid era patches?

His confederate car plate?

That he targeted and murdered African-Americans?

That he targeted a well known historical black church that was part of the underground railroad during slavery?

That he said, “I have to do it. You’re raping our women and taking over the country. You have to go.”?

That he confessed and said he was seeking a race war?

He SAID it was about race. Sorry, you don’t get to excuse this one as anything but a blatant racist attack.

Do you realize the amount of cognitive dissonance required to step right up and say this shit out loud?

"You have to kill a few people in a flashy way."

Or you could confess to shooting a bunch of black people because they are black. And then watch the FOX News people and people like the OP go through some crazy contortions to make this about ANYTHING other than what it is.

Fucking unbelievable.

Your hypothesis is incorrect and the continued presence of this thread is disrespectful of those who lost their lives and those that experience the racism that spawned those losses daily.

He didn't commit suicide. So, he's talking and pointing out that he meant to start a race war. Everything he has done and said says it is about race. It's about race. How you can deny that in the face of the evidence, I don't know.

To be why the US still has a huge problem with racism? The refusal of white people to accept that white people are racist is why Clementa Pickney, Ethel Lance, Cynthia Hurd, Tywanza Sanders, Depayne Middleton Doctor, Susie Jackson, Myra Thompson, Daniel Simmons, Sr, and Sharonda Coleman-Singleton are dead, and you just admitted to your part of the guilt. I hope it keeps you up at night.

The OP should reflect deeply on her own views on race.

Of course, she won't. Part of the problem indeed.

probably influenced by whoever he hung around with on the internet or in real life.

to prove to the world how special he really is, is about as racist as it gets. Even if your theory is true, that it's more about showing the world how special he is, the fact that he thought black human beings were not humans, but mere tools to propel him to his rightful place on the world stage, is exceedingly racist. He was beyond hating humans with darker skin, he did not even recognize their humanity. No matter which way you slice it, this terrorist act was driven by profound racism.

That is exactly right, and the way she slices it is racist.

He SAID it was about race. What more do you need?

How MUCH MORE about race does something have to be before you will admit it is about race? You should self-delete your OP.

He literally said as he was shooting that this was about race. What would it take to convince you?

Do you know what this murderer said to the black people that he killed?
Do you know that he SAID he wanted to kill black people. it IS about race.

Just fucking stop it already.

He would have gotten a lot of attention if he'd shot 9 random people in any random church. He chose this church for a reason.

Of course it's about race.

When someone tells you their motivation, believe it.

From the terrorist's own mouth it was about race. (The gunman replied, “Yes. You are raping our women and taking over the country.”)

How can you possibly think this isn't about race for him? And that it's not reflective of the sick racism in our culture?

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/dylann-roof-plan-charleston-shooting

Your OP is ridiculous.

But you know that.

It was about race and I take his word for it. He is the only one who truly knows.

(Which aren't even really jokes but spewing hate) and tells those who object to lighten up and how they didn't hurt anyone. And then complain about political correctness.

This OP is comically stupid.

and I'm so disgusted by it and the fact that a jury thought it was appropriate for a progressive website that I haven't even been able to think of words to respond to you.

WHY? Why do you try to minimize racism? What do you get from doing that?

I think it's good that we can see that roughly 100 people said 'Hell NO!' to this OP, and only one person agreed with the nonsense.

This one is learning nothing - she posted this bullshit then scampered off.

It's about people who think black people should still be slaves, who think the Civil War was a 'war of northern aggression', who think it's perfectly fine to fly a confederate battle flag on a state capitol, to have it on a license plate. Idiots who think that a few genes that control melanin production in the skin make some people 'real humans' and others 'subhuman'.

If it wasn't about race, he would simply have gunned people down in the streets right where he lived, walked into a restaurant, a shopping mall. Not driven 4 hours away to arguably the most historic black church in the country.

a despised "race," so his murder spree was also racial, just as the murder of Jews by Nazis was.

As it happens, though, none of his victims were Jewish, but he killed them because they were in "Jewish " locations, so he *assumed* they must be Jewish. He would not have killed them if he had known they were not.

I live where people are racist. Racism is so embedded in our culture here that you just can't get away from it. It's both black and white. Even people that hate the fact that they have a problem with racism know that it's a problem. We all know it exists.

We all live together. We work together, we go to school together, we shop at the same places. We get along. And most of the people here - both black and white - are church goers. No one would condone something so awful as this.

And the idea that someone would actually go into a church and just mow people down would be abhorrent to everyone here.

Even the most racist die hards like the KKK or the skinheads would mot do something like this. They have meetings and say stupid stuff and cause as much trouble as possible but they would not do something like this.

It's an abomination. Only a monster would do something like this.

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Now she is defending Skinheads and the KKK!

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Godzilla didn't do this, a human being did. It happens very often. One reason it happens so often is because of bigotry. One reason for the prevalence of bigotry is because people can't or won't see it. (See post 108)

How much more proof do you need that this guy was a rabid racist and white supremacist?

Way to water down and defend the KKK and skinheads too.

Not all mass murderers are racists, but some overlap, in a classic Venn diagram.

One sure way to know: the shooter says he killed because of race. Not too complicated.

KKK doesn't say "stupid stuff", they say racist stuff. Plenty of them condone what Roof did, even if they won't say it in public. You know that. When you minimize what they say and what Roof did, you are abetting racism. That makes what you are doing racist. You are helping racism thrive in America. Think about that for a while.

Wow.

I assure you that yes, racist people will mow people down in a church. KKK members are Christians, but they aren't above mowing people down in a church. They've done it before and they'll do it again.

Are you serious? What kind of blinders are you wearing that you would say something so false, that denies the violent history of the KKK and white racist skinheads in America?

The KKK has a long, long history of burning down (and bombing) black churches and murdering black people.

Have you never heard of Byron De La Beckwith? (and the White Citizens' Councils)

http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-files/ideology/ku-klux-klan

Have you never heard of Tom Metzger? Or about African-Americans, inter-racial couples, and Jewish people being murdered by skinheads in several states?

http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/publications/skinheads-in-america-racists-on-the-rampage

http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-report/browse-all-issues/2006/fall/motley-crews/racist-skinheads

You really think their hate filled meetings in no way carry over into their everyday life and how they treat people?

Yes. The KKK would commit murder because it has committed murder. Repeatedly.

Yes. White racist skinheads would commit murder because they have committed murder. Repeatedly.


Hate kills. Racism kills. Denying it only allows it to flourish.

and Christians don't do stuff like that, you know . . . /sarcasm

That burning a cross on Saturday was - somehow - mitigated by going to church on Sunday.

kill people ?

do you know the history of this country ?

No one has to condone this for it to be a fucking racist hate crime. (But the skinheads are loving it)

I can't believe that you are still pushing your ridiculous and offensive narrative.

A whole slew of people have asked you to delete your offensive posts, but maybe you are the one just looking for some attention.

I live where people are racist. Some are cheering his actions and defending them. Others, like you are giving alternate reasons for his murderous killing spree. By doing so you diminish the humanity of his victims and that is disgusting. His actions were the culmination of his racist hatred and anger, nothing less. Denying this is beyond repulsive.

You really think the KKK or skinheads would not do something like this? Are you FUCKING KIDDING ME??

http://www.splcenter.org/blog/2011/10/19/racist-skinhead-guilty-in-savage-murders-of-tampa-homeless-men/

http://www.nytimes.com/1997/02/28/us/ex-gi-at-fort-bragg-is-convicted-in-killing-of-2-blacks.html

http://blogs.riverfronttimes.com/dailyrft/2009/12/black_man_killed_at_skinhead_nazi_strip_club_in_east_st_louis.php

http://articles.philly.com/1997-12-03/news/25556881_1_oumar-dia-nathan-thill-skinhead

http://archive.adl.org/racist_skinheads/states/california.html

http://www.adl.org/combating-hate/domestic-extremism-terrorism/c/racist-skinhead-convicted-of.html

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/documents/crime/skinheads-obama-assassination-plot

http://www.news4jax.com/news/attorney-general-3-kkk-members-arrested-in-murder-plot/32150592

Nope they don't murder, except for when they do.

No most racists don't go and murder people themselves. They do however contribute to a culture where it is acceptable and excused. They may not tell you to your face how they feel about this LATEST incident, but they do say things like, well maybe he just wanted attention or any other excuse they can drum up. Leaving them free to continue on with their unbridled racism in hopes that more people like Roof will come forward for "attention"

You are besmirching the memories of those who were lynched by the KKK or "boot partied" and murdered by skinheads by relegating them to having "meetings and say stupid stuff". Wow. I think you need to learn some bloody American history.

Wow.