Call it Racism
Ben Carson – USA Today
Let’s call this sickness what it is, so we can get on with the healing. If this were a medical disease, and all the doctors recognized the symptoms but refused to make the diagnosis for fear of offending the patient, we could call it madness. But there are people who are claiming that they can lead this country who dare not call this tragedy an act of racism, a hate crime, for fear of offending a particular segment of the electorate.
I understand the sensitivities. To some, calling the events in Charleston, S.C., a hate crime reinforces a stigma, which they have fought hard to put behind them. But refusing to call it what it is — racism — is a far more dangerous proposition….
If we do not do something as a people to directly address the divisions caused by this sickness, we risk losing all of the ground we have made as a country over the past 50 years. And certainly the youth will take cues from their leaders. If we teach them it is OK to deny racism exists, even when it’s plainly staring them in the face, then we will perpetuate this sickness into the next generation and the next.
Demonstrators take part in the “March for Black Lives” in Charleston, South Carolina, June 20, 2015. (Reuters)
We Have a Name for This Problem, And It Is Racism
Mary Sanchez – The Kansas City Star
America is in denial — “post-racial” denial.
You could hear it in the words of lament that followed news of the shooting massacre at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, S.C. Commenter after commenter, be they elected officials, presidential hopefuls, talking heads or members of the public posting on social media, used a peculiar term: “incomprehensible.” …
South Carolina Gov. Nikki R. Haley statement was all too typical of Republican leaders: “We’ll never understand what motivates anyone to enter one of our places of worship and take the life of another.”
Let me explain it to you, governor. It’s white supremacy, a concept whose symbol, the Confederate flag, was flying at full staff at the state capitol of South Carolina as the blood in a church that once sheltered runaway slaves was still damp…. It’s about dealing honestly with America greatest weakness: its unresolved, unhealed history of racism. It persists, and it’s past time we dealt with it.
The Race Hustlers Rush In to Exploit the Evil that Devastated Charleston
Tammy Bruce – The Washington Times
With the nation still reeling, President Obama had an opportunity to do something remarkable with his press conference addressing the horror — he could bring the country together, use the faith that unites the people of Charleston and the faithful at Emanuel AME, reminding us of who we are, beyond the ravings and craven act of one individual.
But he didn’t. Instead he chose, again, to politicize a tragic situation by bringing up gun control, complaining about Congress, and then remarkably asserting that, “Once again, innocent people were killed in part because someone who wanted to inflict harm had no trouble getting their hands on a gun….” …
Politicians often seem to enjoy making things worse for this nation. Many rely on stoking fear as a motivator for their own political gain. It is time to reject their craven implications that, as Sen. Rand Paul asserted after the shooting, “There is a sickness in the country.” No there isn’t. There are individual lunatics who act on evil as average, courageous Americans come together to heal and rise above.
The confederate battle flag flies on the grounds of the South Carolina State House in Columbia, SC, June 20, 2015. (Reuters)
In Charleston, a Millennial Race Terrorist
Charles M. Blow – The New York Times
There are so many threads to pull on this story that one hardly knows where to begin, but let’s begin here: Roof was only 21 years old. He is a millennial race terrorist. Roof was born in 1994, 30 years after President Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act into law.
Who radicalized Roof? Who passed along the poison? We must never be lulled into a false belief that racism is dying off with older people. As I’ve written in this space before, Spencer Piston, an assistant professor of political science at Syracuse University, has found that “younger (under-30) whites are just as likely as older ones to view whites as more intelligent and harder-working than African-Americans.” …
On Fox News’s “Fox and Friends,” one host called the killings “a horrifying attack on faith.”
Roof was a member of a Lutheran church in Columbia, S.C. As Rev. Tony Metze of St. Paul’s Lutheran Church confirmed to the Huffington Post, “He was on the roll of our congregation.” Lutheranism is one of the branches of Protestant Christianity….
This wasn’t a war on Christianity, but a war on black people.