Terrorism, Racism, and The Insane Reactions To Tragedy
Without a doubt, the killing of 9 people in a church is a tragedy. That it was 9 black people killed by a racist white supremacists gives it all the ugly overtones that haunt the US right now. It touches so many hot buttons that the whole deal smolders and burns. The over-reactions and over-reaching attempts to draw parallels to other situations takes away from the gravity of the situation and pushes away from remembering the victims and quickly on towards taking sides.
The first over-reaction to me came from CNN, With a piece entitled “Call it terrorism in Charleston“. Perhaps it has a nice ring to it or something, but calling it terrorism is to miss the depth of the act and it’s victims. It’s not terrorism, it’s a horrible racist act from a young man who wanted not only to kill black people, but to make sure some people survived to pass his hideous racist message along. Save the terrorism tag for when it’s appropriate.
The next ignorant shot was from Mashable, with this picture of a vigil at the shooting site. “Black Lives Matter” is perhaps the biggest piece of hooey you will ever see, because it’s the sort of self-inflicted racism that comes from the same root of the problem that leads someone to think shooting 9 innocent people is acceptable. ALL LIVES MATTER, including black, white, asian, brown… whatever you are, all lives matter. I know Mashable isn’t trying to push a racist agenda or anything, but the whole concept of Black Lives Matter is grating to me because it’s racist in it’s own way. Black Lives Matter is a statement that creates separation and difference, and almost tries to celebrate it. We are all human being. ALL LIVES MATTER. None of us wants to die.
Third is perhaps the biggest pile of ignorant crap you can ever find. Let me start with the picture, because without the picture, you can’t imagine how stupid this is.
It didn’t take more than a few minutes for the hot button agenda people to start turning these things out. Variations include Mike Brown, Eric Garner, and the like. They all show an imagine of the Charleston Shooter after he has been arrested, in custody, cuffed up, and being escorted out of a police station towards a police car to be taken I think to jail, and on the other side is the poor black person harmed or killed by police. The ignorant types are trying to say that not only did the police not kill him, but they are protecting him by giving him a bullet proof vest during the arrest. Wow. How ignorant is this? Seriously, I cannot imagine the depth of feeling and stupidity going on if you buy into this narrative. The shooter may be a mass murderer, he may be a racist slimeball, he may be white supremacist scum, but he is ALSO not stupid enough to resist arrest or to enter into a gunfight with police that almost certainly would have left him wounded or dead. The police didn’t give him special favors because he knows the secret white guy handshake, they did their jobs and he did what he was told to do. There is nothing more to it. The images on the other side (the poor harmed black people) show people who were mouthy, disrespectful, sometimes physically resisting arrest, and in another case who have just been assaulting the officer and trying to take his gun. Sorry to point it out, but if you cannot see the difference here, you need to sit down and study some more. You missed it. It takes two to tango.
I learned a long time ago (through my own mistakes and my own choices) about cause and effect. There is almost never effect without cause. If you try to fix the effect without addressing the cause, you will never succeed.
