Photo by eyeliam
Some tried to chide me on issuing a call of sorts to white people about the environment that creates a Dylann Roof.
Well, I'm from South Carolina. This state is the ideological home of white supremacy in this country.
Tthe Confederate flag—a flag of white supremacy—flies on the South Carolina Statehouse grounds along with a statute of white supremacist "Pitchfork Ben" Tillman. Countless streets and buildings are named after Confederate heroes. The president of the College of Charleston routinely dresses up as a Confederate general and fights mock battles. And this is the same man who blocked putting a statue of Denmark Vesey [the former slave who planned a slave rebellion in the African Methodist Episcopal Church where Dylann Roof committed his murders] and on the Statehouse grounds, calling him a murderer of white people.
This is where we live and what is ingrained everyday in our psyche without apology. I'm against white supremacy and I apologize to nobody for being against it.
White people in the United States of America need to think long and hard about why a twenty-something-year-old white man would go into a black church and kill people that never did him harm. They need to think about the poison that's filling the souls of their children. They need to ask themselves how a person so young could be filled with so much hate. They need to ask themselves, "How much more unbearable do they want it to be and where do we think it will take us as a nation?"
My heart goes out to all the victims, those who died and those that have to carry on. Clementa Pinkney was a good brother. A solid brother who was always reachable. In fact he most often reached out first.
His being at Mother Emmanuel AME, Denmark Vesey's church, was no accident, it was a merger of spirits. I'm just glad I knew him. He'll be missed as will the other victims. And we shall overcome