Dylann Storm Roof was no lone wolf.
He has millions of co-conspirators and accomplices. They fall in to three types: those active before, during and after the fact. This is not a discussion of legal culpability, but of moral shame.
Of course those with knowledge "before" the fact are the most guilty. These include every single neo-Nazi, skinhead, Klansman and avowed racist who proudly display their hate at every opportunity.
Those "during" include the State of South Carolina itself and every other state, county, city, town, village and hamlet that celebrates the nation's original sin of slavery and ongoing hatred of non WASP people. Every Battle flag on public property encourages and legitimizes the act. Every monument to Confederate "heroes" bathes him in adulation. Every street, highway and park named for slavers and rebels guided him toward his goal. Every license plate, bumper sticker and Confederate Pride day celebration directly and unequivocally told him that his actions were the correct ones.
And "after" the fact includes every single person that tries to say he was mentally deranged, crazy, an aberration, and yes, a lone wolf. It includes those who want to claim that he does not represent "Southern Pride". Those that think they can distance his actions as not part of a pattern and worse, an integral part of American history. Those who want to try and turn this into a "war on Christianity". Those who claim racism is over. Those who work for the non-think tanks that pump out misinformation and pre-packaged rationales that claim the Civil War was not about slavery. Those in the media that obfuscate, refuse to name him as a white supremacist. That will not call his action domestic terrorism and that will point at other issues, even important ones like the absolutle need for gun control. Yes, we need to address that too, but this case is NOT the poster child for it. That was Sandy Hook. This case is about one thing ONLY: racism.
ALL are Guilty as charged!
There are no extenuating circumstances other than stupidity. Ignorance will not get them out of this. The shame is not a new one, a unique one, or an obsolete one. The hate and nostalgic longing for a time when white men ruled supreme, is everywhere. We can't even say that it is only a Southern problem, as this cancer has metastasized into every corner of our country.
There is only ONE remedy that will accomplish anything constructive at this point and it is something that should have been done the day the Rebellion was put down. We must as a nation, once and for all, repudiate it ALL. We must never again allow anyone to claim the Civil War was about anything other than slavery. We must insist and enforce a ban on displaying any emblem of the Confederacy on public property. The Battle Flag must come down not only from South Carolina's State Capitol but anywhere and everywhere that is in ANY way supported by tax dollars. We must not allow one more license plate to be made with that symbol of treason on it. We must re-call every single one in circulation. We must put markers by every monument to Confederate "heroes" that include descriptions of their motivation for taking up arms against their own country, what their involvement in slavery was, and what they did after the war. We must re-name every boulevard, avenue, street and alley that bears the name of a traitor. We must ensure that every school book from kindergarten to a doctorate course make clear the only substantive cause for the war was slavery.
The time for half measures is done. The time for tolerance of intolerance is over and our allowing it after reconstruction to this very day have been repaid with a long litany of heinous crimes. When we think back to those infamous photos of lynchings in the early part of the last century, it is not the hung or burned bodies that shock as much as the fact that hundreds of people used it as an occasion to picnic. That they pose proudly with smiles on their faces and laughingly point to their work, regardless of whether they had actively been part of the murder or were accomplices after the fact. These same people or at least their progeny whether literally of figuratively, still slap each other on the back when the latest "nigger" is strung up, shot or run down. The cry of "you raped our women" still rings in the air. The apologist and faux-historians on this very day shit their propaganda on every available set of eyes and ears. ENOUGH!
The shots that rang out in Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church MUST be the LAST SHOTS of the Civil War and this time the surrender will not involve handing back swords, but must be total and unconditional.
And if anyone, ANYONE thinks that we should do any less than ALL of this, they too will be complicit the next time.
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