(my term,) so I expect the facts will be in dispute here (as usual.)

any modification, so it may be difficult.

When the standard bearer of any party is a man who says "sure, go ahead and hate them. I do, too."

end of discussion

As far as the alleged racial comments by the victims, you can't take his claims at face value given his background. Unless there were witnesses, I'm putting that in the bullshit folder. And even if they did make the remarks, it's no excuse for killing them.

He had some kind of psychotic break. He had to have fixated on one or both to be there before 7am, as he had to know they would be doing the story.

His family is also hurting. There are just victims all around.

Black separatism, was he? I think the guy was fired, had serious problems coping, and was fixated on his female ex-coworker and then confabulated some other stuff on top of that.

Trolls on Yahoo are trying to make this out like there are now going to be a rash of "Kill Whitey" slayings because of this one guy and what he said.

Dylann Roof was steeped in the the pathology of an existing system of white supremacy that has been lethal before, is lethal now, and will go on being lethal until deep structural issues are addressed in this country.

I am quite certain there are many racists who don't wear flags from racist countries or post on such websites.

being triggered by very real or perceived acts of racism.

But we don't really know much about the mental health issues at this point.

Unfortunately.

I confess to only be drawing conclusions based on what I am reading about the case. I have no background in these issues and am just making layman's observations.

But I wouldn't want to get in the way of thread #45782 on DU about how there isn't any system of white supremacy, just white racist assholes who randomly do racist shit, one after another, because one Black dude said something.

I have no idea what you are talking about in your comment.

in the face of slavery, Jim Crow, redlining, and now all these killings by police.

The restraint shown in Ferguson, my god.

That kid Brown was executed for daring to give lip to a white cop, period.

Only one store burned to the ground?


Reverse all this and the white folk would have burned the entire country down a long time ago.

if the roles were reversed.

necessary.

Be careful around here though, confronting racists and homophobes and misogynists is risky business

They are welcome to give it their best shot. heheh

Apparently he even wrote something to that effect.

Horrible, but all over the map with rage and feelings. I agree with you too.

The PRIMARY motivation for Dylan Roof was race.

In this case, we don't know if race was the primary motivating factor.

non-racial decision. His choice to kill 2 white people with the gun he bought after Dylan Roof killed black people was not racial. Lets keep this repeating this. "Bryce" wasn't racist, he was responding to racism in a non-violent way. He just happened to kill two people in his non-racist-response-to-a-racist-act

I never said Bryce wasn't racist.

I said that we don't know if his primary motivating factor was race. He lists out a bunch of grievances in his manifesto. Dylan Roof's primary reason for killing was race.

Nice try though.

I always give it the old college effort. Now I'm sure if we try hard enough we can find a way to make it not about race.

Lets brain storm

I don't like wasting my time.

But you seem to have bunch of time on your hands.

Have at it. Let me know what you come up with.

he was an angry guy with some racist components. I was hoping you'd help me fill out my thesis so I can go on to national fame

says that the shooter approached him when he was an intern about banding together because of racism, but that he himself never was aware of any racism. He said that all the people who worked at the station were great and he really liked him.

He also said that by the time the shooter was escorted out of the building, staff members were actually afraid of him. Apparently, this wasn't the only job where he exhibited serious anger issues.

In a country where racism is very real, it is certainly not surprising that a troubled black man would blame all of his problems on racism. Everyone tends to look for a scapegoat, instead of facing their own problems.

And he never worked with Alison, so if he believes she made racist comments, he must have "heard" them on her news segments.

Is there any more information about that interview online? Or was it just on tv?

We can do a search.

a week or so without her medication.

What am I saying. It's just really, really sad. I can't imagine being any of their family members. And the shooter's family is going through hell right now.

had been fired from a Tallahassee station several years ago where they had to empty the offices and have the police in while he cleaned out his desk.

It sounded like a similar situation played out in Roanoke in 2013 when he was dismissed there.
He had claimed the female reporter had made racist comments and the photographer had reported him to HR.

Peace

Some conservatives tried to dismiss the racial dimension in the Dylann Roof case.

Some liberials will try to dismiss the racial dimension in this case.

Bottom line both were mentally unstable and racists. I don't care if that makes some conservatives uncomfortable or some liberals uncomfortable.

I won't make excuses for their of them.

If you as a white person was a victim of endless discrimination from the day you were born till the day you died, as Black people are TODAY in America, you would have MUCH more than a chip

My honest question: Is racism merely a way of transferring their deeper issues onto a different group? In others words, they have Problem X but rather than working through Problem X they transfer the blame onto Group Y as an explanation and thus fixate on Group Y.

Some of the most outward racists I've run into (Black and White) always seems to think they are victims and the "other" group is the cause of all their problems.

It may be the racists tendency to blame all their ills on another race spirals into dangerous behavior when combined with mental illness.

everything and have all the power, not where they dont

Go peddle your murder apologizing tripe somewhere else.

it took me almost no time at all to figure out exactly who you are.

But I am not the only one.



It is situations like this one, this story, that you LIVE for


BTW, you will notice I NEVER respond to you, you make disgusting comments all the time, but so I wont be banned I hold my tongue constantly, this time I could NOT

make his crimes appear as something they aren't. It's no different than someone attempting to claim Dylan Roof wasn't motivated by racism.

As for your complaint about my posts: Whatever. You make a great public display of being a friend of minorities so anything that challenges you will be labeled-away to avoid having to intellectually cope but I can't help but wonder if/when the rubber meets the road.

Don't waste your energy.

This guy had no power whatsoever.

Granted, he had the power of life and death, but he didn't have the Almighty Power of a Symbol, nor the Awesome Greatness of a Racist History. So what's the power of life and death, compared to the grief a teen has over what happened 160 years ago or the ultimate power of a bumpersticker?

Personally, I think he had power. You know, all the "power comes from the barrel of a gun" crap spouted by a prominent neo-fascist neo-con. Who was that? Reagan? Or Nixon?

It's like a group of people who gang together and beat up on somebody. They may not "own" Wall Street, but they're certainly expressing power. Let's not dehumanize them, an ultimately racist thing, by denying them this.

This is racist as it gets.

:large

happens to THIS DAY, yet when one goes nuts and shoots somebody, all of a sudden lots, not all, white people react in all kinds of ways, proving their privilege is as healthy as ever.

That this does not happen DAILY, dozens of times a DAY, given the treatment, THAT is what you should be thankful for.

If the situation were reversed, dear god this country would be gone by now.

and 5 black kids beat up a white kid, is that racist?

What if 5 white kids beat up a black kid?

Creating a paradigm where all racism is institutional and not person denies the reality of racism in this country.

although the motives are different depending on the race of the perpetrators.
In both instances there can also be an element of personal bigotry.
And there's also a remote chance that bigotry and racism aren't a part of the motive behind the attack.

One way or the other though institutional racism provides the backbone for individual bigotry IMHO.

being perpetuated in RWnut land has fed into the man's already vulnerable condition.

I have a schizophrenic sister and all the talk from the RW nuts she surrounds herself with has her convinced that there really IS a 'war on Christians' going on. She has been found in churches screaming warnings and readying herself for these battles.

Hot rhetoric from all sides reaches volcanic levels in those with existing vulnerabilities in regard to their mental health issues. There just certainly seems to be far more of it from the RWers.

Especially your last sentence. I wholeheartedly agree with that observation.

Why are you so focused on pushing the notion that it did? Apparently he identified mostly with other delusional mass shooters and believed Dylann Roof was part of the RW push towards a 'race war' or did you skip over all that in your rush to pin this on BLM?

You are confusing unrest with civil rights. At this point, I'm pretty sure it's done purposefully by you rather than merely being ignorant of BLM stated goals and means of achieving them. Your Freudian slip is showing.

However, should it assist your self-validation. by all means-- continue pointing your fingers at the irrelevant and maintaining the pretense of righteousness as you continue advertising an obvious bias.

I'm guessing you go by either Tom, Bert or William.

And the poster was right.

He pretty much outed himself on this thread.

It's a mess

This guy was a walking cornucopia of mental pathologies, and that seems to be the only pertinent fact as of right now.

paranoid schizo http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3211529/WDBJ7-reporter-Alison-Parker-Adam-Ward-shot-live-TV-Moneta-gunman.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3211803/Vester-Lee-Flanagan-AKA-Bryce-Williams-WDBJ7-shooter-sued-employer-2000-alleging-racism.html

I repeat, a walking cornucopia of mental pathologies.

And sadly fitting for so many it seems.

Like thinking what happened is just like the church shooting in Charleston, for example.

Since very little is known about the circumstances in this case.

To know that whites are not victims of racism and racial violence equally.

But race could have certainly played a role in this even though your statement is definitely true.

But not in a It's just the same, racism is racism! It goes both ways! way. Whatever the role, it can't be that, because racism doesn't go both ways.

Within 60 seconds of the shooting, the resident armchair psychologists had the perp profiled: He was obviously the reporter/victim's overweight white male gun fetishist stalker wearing a confederate flag and/or her rejected love interest.

That's a whole heap of stereotypes to dig a reasonable conversation out of.

At risk of taking up amateur psychology myself, what he wrote, combined with his bodybuilding selfies suggests someone who experienced bullying and reacted badly to it.

I mean, we all are. But him, extra extra so, with a cherry on top.

Makes it hard to evaluate his claims.

He was gay and black. What do you think?

No. If there is an alert it was not me.

Discussion doesn't happen. Blame game, circular arguments, shout downs reign.

Dylan Roof blamed blacks for the fact he was a loser. Vester or whomever blamed his co-workers for his anger and work failure (who he portrayed as racist) and used Charleston as his tipping point to justify it.

Deep down, these people never look at THEMSELVES. They are defective.

at a routine job. in his fax, he praises the columbine & virginia tech loonies. Clearly not the kind of person with whom you'd want to share an office.

He was no one's victim but his own.

... like he had an issue with the reporter and was unstable

Thx

At least that is what his tweets/manifesto indicate.

He also wrote that he was motivated by the Charleston shootings.

... mark this as a hate crime but if he mentioned the Charleston shooter this guy might be just as unstable.

If he was accusing her of racism, then it was something he must have heard her say on air.

The 24-year-old white reporter, who was murdered on live TV along with her cameraman, used the phrases as an intern at ­WDBJ TV in Roanoke in 2012, according to an internal complaint filed by Flanagan, who was black.

Who profited from it? Or will? Who gets the go fund me account?

... and "Who gets the go fund me account?"

Maybe you could elaborate on intent, because your comment seems a little crass.

But, to answer your question: The families of the deceased will most likely scrape together enough for a burial. I would be surprised to see a gofundme in the wake of this senseless murder but I wouldn't shame the families if they need help.

Seriously,

TYY

You warm my heart. I fully expected someone to say it was going to BLM since they are hateful agitators. iE the one MIRT zapped for blaming this on BLM.

And the op - on time and in time. Only shows up when he can zing black people. Never shows up when it's racist white folks. That makes the op - typical.

...would make as much sense as blaming 'teh gays.' He was a disgruntled worker, gone 'postal.' Period.

TYY

searching for a justification.

.

actions is NOT apologizing for murder, moron.

YOU want to insist it's a hate crime by a racist because it fits YOUR agenda, while I am seeing most signs, so far, are pointing to serious mental health issues that were going untreated.

In my opinion you are doing this because you want people to see racism as the exact same 2-way street you and 99% of GOP voters do……which AIN'T GONNA HAPPEN on this board.

He had problems, and was looking for a scapegoat (or scapegoats) for his problems.

A lot of people have personality problems. His began causing him problems at work, then the problems at work exacerbated them, then he spiraled in, and adopted a truly vicious mindset, because he was apparently unwilling to accept any responsibility for his own problems.

To describe this as racial just seems to be missing the pattern, IMO.

Was there anyone this guy didn't have a problem with? Oh, I'm forgetting, he fully approved of the Korean college mass murderer. Well, that tells you something.

nt

Ironic.

The guy couldn't keep a job and blamed all of his problems on other people.

In his case, he was a black man who could blame a lot of his problems on racism. Yeah, he made it about racism.

Another black man who was there at the same time never experienced racism. Maybe the shooter was just an asshole, ya' know?

Scapegoats often are selected to give a ring of legitimacy and justification. Maybe he saw the two he murdered as easily-dismissed in terms of sympathetic characters; just a couple more racists who should be dead. Most of the CelebroPunks, I believe, are looking for a piece of history and recognition in a culture which not only denies any value in such, but which has ample tools to dismantle Anyone's self-worth. What to do? Stage an outrageous, murderous event, and juice up the social technology and media-savvy components to get the supercharged presence he wants. He did that. The scapegoat quality is secondary, paste-on efforts to put himself into a socially-acceptable (or at least mildly sympathetic ) place in history, but it's the Gee Wizz aspect of the shooting, so akin to the phenomenon of "swatting," that is the main goal. After all, shooting up schools is getting passe, and increasingly dangerous, given the (hopefully) increased security.

The usual suicide is secondary as well; he and others before him knew knew full-well that everyone would be talking about them, writing books about them, referencing the innertubes and photos of slaughter, saying his name ad nauseum, and having the event waved like a bloody flag forn whatever cause or social analysis one chooses, Years down the road. He will be remembered long after any of us here pass away, so what does he care if he never views the block-buster film he just made. He wrote the script and knows the ending.

A LOT of problems. Yet he could get his hands on a gun with little to no effort. Whatta country,

Another mentally unstable person was allowed to purchase a gun.

Any nut without a criminal record can buy enough gunz-n-ammo to hold off a platoon if the credit card clears.

williams and roof

two birds of a feather

twins in their desire to kill


too bad roof didn't off himself like williams did though, he needs to be gone just like todays loser is

In reality, his former employers have come out of the woodwork today to say that he was fired for being an extreme asshole to his coworkers. One report out of CBS Miami notes that he went on air and used a drowning man as a prop during a weather event and filmed while the man drowned while calling for help (what got him fired). He sued (and lost) over discrimination. Film is, however; forever.

Race no doubt (as well as orientation) played a part in his pathetic head, but one can't claim racism/sexism/patriarchy or any other canard every time one loses a dime in a payphone or people will stop listening.

IMO.

To wit: "one can't claim racism/sexism/patriarchy or any other canard every time one loses a dime in a payphone or people will stop listening."

That is the only schtick some of the loudest, most obnoxious people on DU have, particularly the latter two "justifications."

What little that has come out about this guy suggests he had some very, very serious mental problems. People who are on the beam do not fax out lengthy manifestos and suicide notes to TV stations, as this guy is said to have done. That's Ted Kacyzinski nutsarama territory.

and it felt great. Wonder what my jury results were?

Though I think to compare this loser to that other loser Roof would be pushing it. Roof was motivated by racial hatred whereas Bryce/Vester seemed to be motived by paranoia he perceived to be as racism.

racism is an excuse for killing people. Seriously, that's what racists do. We are better than that. We have endured white hatred for 400 years while taking care of their children, washing their clothes, cleaning their homes and suffering every indignity imaginable at their hands. But I'm so much better than them. So killing them because they meangirl us? Hell no. If the shooter had lived I would have wanted him prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law because we don't kill people when they call us names or deprive us of opportunity or kill us. We vote, we promote policies that keep us safe and give us access to resources and opportunities. We pursue academic excellence and do it better than them. We run for office, establish businesses, buy land, become doctors, lawyers, engineers, mathematicians, computer scientists, senators, representatives, TV stars, musicians, poets and rappers, sit on the Supreme Court, become President, First Lady. We push them to the side and out, not through violence but through excellence.

Hatred seems to be like on of those "build your own special" menus. When the shooters leave behind their rambling manifestos, as they often do, we see racism, sexism, xenophobia, and every other sort of resentment, all interwoven. From the little we know about Flanagan, it appears he thought the people at the TV station discriminated against him because of his race, when it's far more likely they wanted to get rid of him because he was nutty. (I assume he was fired.) There's nothing unusual in his explanation about the Charleston shootings. They vaguely correspond to the ravings of white supremacists who go on shooting sprees. In the unstable mind, there is a logical connection between the Charleston shootings and losing a job at a TV station.

It is reasonable to ask where to draw the line between racial hatred and insanity, or if such a line can be drawn at all. It is interesting to note these shooting sprees don't bear much resemblance to cross burnings and lynchings of the past. The violence we saw in the civil rights struggle was pretty straightforward racial hatred, and we can probably agree the people who perpetrated those acts were not crazy, even though they allowed their emotions to drive them to violence, including murder. They were no more crazy than the man who kills his wife in a violent rage, for example.

But some recent incidents appear to involve shooters who are generally paranoid, with persecution complexes, delusions of grandeur, messiah things going on, and who knows what else. What we need to know is not so much how much racial hatred played a part in their decision to go on a rampage, but the way in which racial hatred is promoted, advertised, made available for public consumption, and offered up for crazy people to seize on. I see some similarity between an incident like this and the fear that inspires police officers to shoot at young black men. By pretending we live in a post-racial society, we ignore the monster under the bed.

with all of these gun-happy loons, whatever else they may be, is a raging, rampaging Absolute Total Paranoia. The kind of paranoia that would refuse medication because the meds would make them less paranoid because they like being totally paranoid. There is a certain kind of total paranoia that thrives on and feeds itself. What can be done with these people, short of locking them up behind secure and high walls, remains a genuine question.

I know two people who are bi-polar, what we used to call manic-depressive. They both tell me they're tempted to go off their meds sometimes, because the feeling of being on a manic high is so great. I expect it's the same with paranoid people. It just feels good.

and they probably crave it when they are feeling more normal.

medication. After 4 decades of her exploits, some of which came damn close to fatal endings for those around her, she is finally in a safe facility and on the medication she needs.

Once in a while, this guy shows up at McDonalds and goes through his "court case." He has everybody from the president, to the secretary of defense, to the local sheriff, on the stand and his is grilling them. And, boy, is he letting them have it! He's got them boxed in, dumfounded by his brilliance, stupefied by his commanding presence. It's kind of fun to listen for a few minutes, but, as you would expect, it goes on for hours.

to the teeth to 'defend their faith'. 'war on patriotism' so GOP voter base arms itself to the teeth to 'defend their country'.

It sells.

but yes, there is a very distinctive paranoia that is Faux's stock in trade and they hard-sell it 24/7/365. And damn right it sells.

how many people react angrily - it's those who have existing problems with reality that are even more susceptible to that type of propaganda. They become even greater dangers to those around them.

....was what he saw when he looked in the mirror.

I've yet to see anybody condone the actions of this murderous nutcase, but there are a lot of people ready to attribute his actions to the racism he allegedly faced.

He apparently had a lot of issues for a long time, and racism is a convenient scapegoat for his inability to deal with the pressures of living and working in 21st century America. I think the fact that he prepared a 23 page document to attempt to explain/excuse his actions says all you need to know about his frame of mind.

Mr Flanagan was nutty as a squirrel turd and it is ridiculous to blame his paranoia on racism.

There ain't no shuffling of any feet to excuse this shit ...

Was he racially discriminated against ? Of course, he was a black man.

Was he racially discriminated against in his employment ? Maybe, but people of color who are mentally healthy don't resort to violence to resolve those issues. He had problems at two different stations, and I haven't researched enough to have an opinion of how much racial bias played into that.

Was he angry about the Charleston shootings ? Yes, of course. However, he is the only PoC I know of who resorted to violence in response to this and his other grievances.

This is, sadly to say, a mental health issue and a too-many-damn-handguns-around issue. I don't see race being the primary or even a secondary issue here.

.

....as the Dylan Roofs of the world.

everyone at Breitbart is saying the same as you.

Apparently your mind is incapable of comprehending the difference between a person with a serious personality disorder issue and one whose only mental health issue IS racism.

We get all tangled up in our shoes when someone does something terrible like this, and it sure happens a lot.

And we're weird about it. If it was sufficiently awful, no one wants to acknowledge mental illness could be a factor, because that's seen as wiping away responsibility. Which is ridiculous. Mentally ill people have jobs, drive cars, live in houses. Legally purchase firearms. They may be racist or religious or misogynistic, but whatever poisonous rationale they pick, it's one we've left lying about somewhere.

And we tangle race and religion up in that as well. Are Muslim terrorists ever regarded as mentally ill, or is that giving them a "pass?" If a child does something particularly heinous, do they become an adult, because we need proper vengeance?

Do we allow that black spree killers like Michael Dorner and Bryce Williams might be mentally ill, or do we only afford that label to white killers like James Holmes?

And is that really the point of anything? We ask a million questions and push a million agendas, but in the end do virtually nothing to make the world any safer.

Does it ever occur to us that mental illness and extreme ideologies and racial strife and the ongoing cult of empowerment via firearms are inextricably entwined?

No one picks up a gun and sets out to murder people without something wrong with them. It could momentary or ongoing or exacerbated by drugs or religious extremism or racial animus.

But we're all swimming around in a culture where the very first thing that occurs to anyone with any kind of extreme mental upset is to grab a weapon and get famous. I'm not a psychiatrist, but I'd be willing to be there is a spectrum of mental health along which people can have diagnosable problems or personality disorders which might find a better outlet than extreme violence, if we would afford it to them.

Maybe at some point we can stop arguing over whether our unending stream of disturbed mass murderers are evil when they're brown or crazy when they're white or adults when they appear to be children, and what any of that is supposed to prove, and decide to something about our toxic culture of violence and personal firepower and our complete nonchalance about mental health services.

That would be a discussion I'd like to see.