By now most of you reading this know what happened in Charleston, NC on Wednesday night June 17, 2015.
A gunman, 21-year-old Dylan Roof walked into Emanuel African Episcopal Church during a weekly bible study meeting, sat down for approximately one hour, then stood up and started shooting.
The group consisted of 12 members, 9 of which were killed, including the church's leader, Reverend Clementa Pinckney.
I checked out his Facebook profile, his pic has him sporting a jacket with patches of apartheid-era South Africa and the unrecognized, white state of Rhodesia. These are both symbols of white supremacy...
He has many friends on his Facebook page, some of which are black. Some of them are posting what they know about the shooting and I saw 2 people talking about recognizing his car.
Some of his Facebook friends appear to be classmates.
The only reason I know, in his own words, for why he did this was, "I want to shoot black people".
Cornell William Brooks, the president and CEO of the NAACP as well as an African Methodist Episcopal minister, released a statement on Thursday in which he expressed outrage about the "mass hate crime."
http://www.naacp.org/press/entry/naacp-statement-on-charleston-church-mass-shooting-incident1
The senseless, cold-blooded killings and the outrage have not brought any violence to Charleston. The opposite is occurring right now. I thought I would be seeing images of angry people, protests, and violent uprisings and I didn't want to turn on the news for that reason.
Mainstream media sometimes paints another picture. I'm glad I watch it, though. There is nothing but peace, mourning, and even understanding.
One woman said she hated the act, but could not hate the young man.
To me, that's a woman who truly has faith and is smart enough to know that a violent reaction does nothing but make the suffering, suffer more.
This is a misguided individual who couldn't be reached. It takes a while for someone who has been brought up to hate anyone for race, to understand the fact that this is a horrifically ignorant way of thinking.
Sometimes no matter how old one gets, wisdom never comes.
Soon we will start to see talking heads discussing race, hatred and gun violence.
The timing of this shooting bothers me, but at the same time hateful acts don't follow a schedule.
I can't help but think that maybe the attention has to be taken away from the issue of law enforcement and people of color. I'm not saying that the government rewired this kid's brain with an MK Ultra technique and sent him in to kill. But, I can see something close to that happening.
It doesn't take much to manipulate an already hateful kid into committing a gross act of violence.
This is an issue that has many theories on what needs to change in this country so that it doesn't happen anymore. One of these ideas is taking away guns from the innocent and allowing only law enforcement and by default, criminals to carry firearms.
This cannot be the result of this tragedy. That, in no way will solve the issue of hate, racism and education, which I believe is a major factor in this issue.
Please, view this violence as a chance to rise up peacefully against hatred.
The only way this war will be won, is by showing the nation that good people will not resort to violence. Despite the attacks, we the people, with kind hearts and good souls, will show the world how violence is not the answer.
Think of the violent and peaceful movements in this country and around the world. After that calculate who's won more battles.
Thanks for reading faithfully...
Blog by T. Clavero for Freedom Pop RadiO
