http://m.dailykos.com/stories/1394604
Great read...
Connecting the dots: Charleston shooter, Trayvon Martin, Freddie Gray, and the American Confederacy
Jun 19, 2015 9:47am PDT by Shaun King
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Dylann Roof
is a terrorist. All terrorists have inspiration. Daily, we are learning more and more about the motivating factors that caused this man to walk into a Charleston church and brutally murder nine African Americans. Here is where we will discuss those factors and how much like millions of Americans Dylann Roof truly is.
Roof did not come out of nowhere. His worldview, driven by racism, white supremacy and an outrageous fear of African Americans, is actually a very particular, popular and dangerous somewhere. Right now, in America, if you say the name
Trayvon Martin in a crowd, you will likely get dozens of wildly different perspectives. If you say the word
Baltimore, not even Freddie Gray, but just Baltimore, you will get just as many conflicting viewpoints.
Those viewpoints hinge particularly on race, political party and geographic location. Ask a white conservative in Florida what he thinks about Baltimore and Trayvon Martin and the response is likely going to be very different than if you ask an African American progressive in New York City. But it's deeper than just "Oh, America is a diverse melting pot."
One group of people in America, by the millions, so devalue and dehumanize Trayvon Martin that they truly believe he got what he deserved when he was killed by George Zimmerman while walking home from the convenience store in his own neighborhood. Zimmerman, believing him to be a criminal, and going against the wishes of the 911 dispatch, got out of his car and chased Trayvon on foot throughout the neighborhood until a confrontation finally ensued. Zimmerman shot and killed Trayvon during this confrontation. Later, Zimmerman would raise hundreds of thousands of dollars of support online and would even appear for autographs and photos at gun shows. Hell, he was a hero. What did he do to warrant an autograph or a photo or a donation?
George Zimmerman, seen above in his many mugshots, tracked an innocent young man down in his neighborhood and killed him. This is horrible. What does it mean to adore George Zimmerman? What does it mean when he is a hero, an icon, to you? What does it mean when he inspires you so much that you donate your own money to support him?
We now know that Dylann Roof,
according to his close friend Joey Meek, was "obsessed" with the killing of Martin. This isn't strange. Hundreds of conservative blogs were written that blast Martin, blast President Obama for speaking about him, blast his mother and father, show pictures of him dead, joke about how awesome it is, etc. Tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands, of combined comments on these blogs co-sign just how much people think the young Martin got what he deserved. Be brave and go to ***** and search on "Trayvon." You will end up in a cesspool of racism and sickness.
But it's not just rogue conservatives. Zimmerman appeared on Fox News, the most popular cable news channel in America, and received a warm audience. You'd be hard pressed to find a single sympathetic voice to Trayvon on Fox.
Reverse the roles though, and imagine what Fox would say, what conservative blogs would say, if a black man with six mugshots chased a white teen through his own neighborhood and killed him.
I want to suggest to you that George Zimmerman was celebrated for one single solitary reason. Trayvon represents for a portion of conservative white America everything they hate about African Americans. When Zimmerman killed this young man, he became a hero because he did what many racist whites would like to do themselves. He did it for them.
Freddie Gray
Joey Meek also stated that Roof was "obsessed" with the death of Freddie Gray and the unrest in Baltimore. This is an obsession I have seen and experienced first hand. After the death of Gray, I came face to face with the conservative white obsession over him and received thousands of hateful messages from all over the country.
Respected
conservatives began flat-out lying about Gray.
One conservative reporter claims that Gray severed his own spine jumping from a three-story window eluding police and then running full force into a wall. Except that even the Baltimore police have claimed they
simply spotted Gray on the street.
Other conservatives
literally doctored a lead-paint exposure settlement that Gray and his sister received and claimed that it was for a severe spinal injury he received in a car accident.
Perhaps no lie is more disturbing
than the one the Baltimore police have leaked to The Washington Post—that Gray
injured himself in the van. It is irresponsible for the
Post to advance this lie, and it's corrupt for the Baltimore police to be leaking it to advance a false narrative to protect their officers.
In America, far too many of us live in strange bubbles where we hardly ever hear viewpoints that conflict with our own. And, if we hear them, we immediately discount them as lacking credibility. It's likely that Roof lived in such a dangerous bubble where conservative lies about Gray and Martin caused him to think that these two young men not only got what they deserved, but also that people like them pose a real threat.
This isn't a guess.
He told survivors of his terrorist attack his racist intentions. He told others
he wanted to start a civil war.
But here's the thing—this is not some off-the-wall conclusion that Roof arrived at on his own. If he truly believed that six officers were railroaded in Baltimore, if he truly believed that Martin got what he deserved, if he truly believed that Mike Brown fractured the face of Darren Wilson (he didn't),
as was reported in The Washington Post, then it all makes sense that this man, or any man or woman for that matter, could conclude that some white anger is in order.
But here's what pulls it all together more than Freddie Gray, more than Mike Brown or Trayvon Martin ...
The Confederate flag, in spite of decades of African Americans in South Carolina stating that it is an offensive symbol of intimidation and pain, flies freely and boldly on the grounds of the South Carolina capitol. By flying this flag, the white powers of the state are saying, in no uncertain terms, that their pride and power means way more than black pain and frustration.
In what world is this over OK? Don't be shallow about it. What does flying this flag in South Carolina really mean when so many African Americans have said so clearly that it hurts them to see it. What does it mean in any context when someone does something that is knowingly offensive to others?
Now, let's dig deeper. Symbols matter.
Here is Dylann Roof, in a photo he posted to Facebook this past May, possibly taken by a friend, in which he poses wearing a jacket with two patches on it. One is from the racist apartheid regime of South Africa and the other is from the racist colonial regime of Rhodesia—now Zimbabwe.
Roof wasn't celebrating his heritage. He's not from there. He's never been there. Those flags, long since discarded when black Africans came to power in those countries, stand for violent oppression. These resonated with Roof because he, quite obviously now, also believed in the violent use of force against Africans in America.
The Confederate flag means something to Roof as well. See him below posing in front of his car with it on the license plate. At its very best, this is a symbol of the Confederacy. Logically, tease this out. Is it truly outrageous for a young man to want a civil war now when the flag from the actual Civil War is displayed so boldly at the state capitol? Is the state not celebrating the Confederacy? Did the Confederacy not want to maintain slavery and subjugate African Americans to a sub-human status?
We're not even getting into the reality that the Confederate flag wasn't reintroduced in South Carolina until nearly 90 years after the Civil War as a tool to intimidate people during the Civil Rights movement.
We need to be honest. The murders of Trayvon Martin and Freddie Gray fundamentally degraded the value of black lives in the eyes of many Americans. The coverage of those murders doubled down on that degradation and presence of the Confederate flag, at the insistence of the state government of South Carolina, makes official that the humiliation and intimidation of African Americans is acceptable.
The truth is this. Dylann Roof is a uniquely and particularly American man. Birthed and hewn out of our violent culture. America made this man and many, many more like him. He is not the first and won't be the last.
