You can explain it here: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Justice-for-Dylann-Roof/1624000034485288 Rocket River
At the time the media released it, we knew he had light skin. That doesn't mean he was "white" (Caucasian). White means a lot of things. There's only 4 recognized races (sometimes 5). White, Black, Asian, Indian and sometimes Pacific Islander. Ethnicity is another story. And what is a "black church?" Is that like a Jim Crow church? Are whites not welcomes there? I would have liked to see the media report "Crazy gunman kills 9 people at a church." As more details come out, report him as a racist, hate crime assailant. That's an embarrassing comparison. There's a lot of issues with this case, but disgusting that you'd use it to compare it to this terrorist.
The Church is part of the African Methodist Episcopal Denomination (AME) which was founded for the 19th C. for blacks who were excluded from attending other churches. All people are welcome to the church as they obviously let Dylann Roof in.
Here you go clown. Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church The church was founded in 1816 by African American former members of the Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston,[3] who left the church because of a dispute over burial grounds. The white churches, particularly the Methodist Episcopal Church, had increasingly discriminated against them in the prior years, and "capped the insult when they built a hearse house on the black burial ground."[4] In 1818 a church leader, Morris Brown, left a white church in protest, and more than four thousand Black members followed him to this new church.[5] In 1822, Denmark Vesey, one of the church's founders, was implicated in an alleged slave revolt plot. Vesey and five other alleged organizers were executed on July 2[6] after a secret trial, and the original church was burned down by white supremacists.[7] The church was rebuilt, but in 1834 all-black churches were outlawed in Charleston, and the congregation met in secret until the end of the Civil War in 1865.[8][9] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emanuel_African_Methodist_Episcopal_Church
No, that isn't the point at all. 1) Hate crime would be a crime committed against a specific subset of people born out of your hatred for that group. Crimes against a black person, a Christian, a Muslim, etc. specifically out of racism/hatred/bigotry/etc. 2) Terrorism is a crime where you are trying to make a political statement or achieve a political goal. Example, you are against the United States interfering in Muslim Affairs so you blow up Americans in order to send a message of political meaning. Basically get out of the Middle East. If you can't see a difference than that is on you, not on the words.
The denials in this thread sound rather similar to those offered here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/06/18/charleston-church-shootin_n_7613540.html?1434649275
Well, he could have been trying to make a racist political statement.....but we don't know that. Either way it's sort of irrelevant, he's a mass-murderer one way or the other. Being a mass-murdering terrorist is no better or worse than a mass-murdering racist. The punishment is the same for both.
Sure, and that would change the classification of the crime. It's not irrelevant to classify motives for crimes. But your greater point about one not being worse than the other is true, which I already stated. If it somehow makes Rocket River feel better to call him a terrorist then by all means, go for it. This is just a BBS after all, so if someone wants to be wrong in order to have their victimhood glorified in some way, that's their right.
But do his own alleged words - "You're raping our women... You're taking over our country" - and actions (wearing the flags of defunct apartheid states) not convey a political bent to his actions?
I'm surprised that people are seriously debating whether this was a racist act or terrorism. Clearly, it was both. They are far from being mutually exclusive.
I don't see why anyone is debating if he's a terrorist. Of course he's a terrorist. He clearly was using terror to further his particular agenda.
Okay, then we'll classify it as a terrorist act instead of a hate crime.....and he'll still get the death penalty. Whatever makes people happy. I honestly don't see why we're arguing over the minutia of this.
Another issue here that I haven't seen discussed is that according to some reports the gun he used was given to him by an uncle. I don't know what his uncle knew about him but if he had known that Dylann had been in trouble with the law before and was also considered troubled in other ways this seems like a very irresponsible gift. In the Newtown shooting Adam Lanza's mother gave him a gun and also taught him to shoot. She knew that he was very very troubled and ended up being his first victim. We hear a lot about responsible gun owners but how responsible is it to give a gun to some one who you know is troubled or even to someone who you don't know that much about them?
