The day after 21-year-old Dylann Roof allegedly gunned down nine members of Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, a historic black church in Charleston, S.C., the coverage of the coverage was already piling up, much of it lamenting the apparent pass the media was giving Roof.
Despite the fact that the attack meets the textbook definition of terrorism, critics noted that the press was, by and large, not identifying Roof as a terrorist:
- “Listen to major outlets, and you won’t hear the word ‘terrorism’ used in coverage of Wednesday’s shooting” (Anthea Butler in the Washington Post);
- “When US citizens … appear to be ‘normal,’ that is white and/or Christian, terroristic violence is rarely labeled as such, even when the political roots of the killing are clear” (Robert Jensen, quoted in the International Business Times);
- “#CharlestonShooting terrorist wore an Apartheid flag on his jacket. If a Muslim man wore an ISIS flag, he wouldn’t get past mall security” (Samuel Sinyangwe on Twitter, quoted in the New York Times);
- “Few media sources use the term [terrorism] for violent actors motivated by, for example, white supremacy or anti-government rage” (Brian Phillips interviewed by the Washington Post’s Monkey Cage blog);
- “It leaves us with the question of whether or not there is a disconnect between how black and white people view violence against black bodies” (Terrell Jermaine Starr in AlterNet);
- “Don’t call this the act of a madman. It is an insult to those battling mental illness and it is also a degree of deference you never saw given to men like Osama Bin Laden” (Shaun King republished in Daily Kos).
Items in this vein have continued to crop up over the ensuing days.
Sahara Reporters‘ clear-eyed first account of the Charleston massacre (6/18/15)
Yet there was at least one news item that ran the day after the shooting that was not afraid to refer to it as a terrorist attack: “US State Senator Killed by Terrorist With White Supremacist Sympathies, 8 Others Dead,” reads the headline of a news item that appeared on Sahara Reporters, a New York City-based news website that primarily covers government corruption in Africa, with a particular focus on Nigeria.
The Sahara Reporters piece uses the word “terrorist” six times to describe Roof and his alleged action, including in the headline, the subhead and a photo caption. The words “mental illness,” “troubled” and “loner” do not appear — in fact, no speculation whatsoever is made regarding Roof’s mental state or stability. Instead, South Carolina’s “known hate groups” are mentioned to provide context for Roof’s alleged actions, and Roof’s white supremacist activities and the historic allusions made by the patches on his jacket are front and center in the piece. And the massacre is clearly contextualized as occurring at “a time where the persecution of black ethnic minorities in the United States has been making world headlines.”
The piece’s distinctiveness from typical US reports on the attack doesn’t end there. The story’s lead prominently identifies Clementa Pinckney, the church’s pastor and one of the shooting victims, as a South Carolina state senator. While it seems clear at this point that Roof targeted Emanuel AME in part because of its history as a center of black resistance to white supremacy, it is not apparent that Roof was targeting Pinckney personally or because of his office. But one might expect the highly unusual fact of an elected official being killed in a terrorist attack to feature prominently in coverage–as it likely would have, had a white politician been killed by a person of color.
The straighforwardness of the reporting in the Sahara Reporters piece makes it easy to identify what many observers have asserted is missing from the US media’s coverage. Perhaps it’s not surprising to see an outlet that frequently covers Nigeria–which, after all, has some experience with ethnically motivated violence–get it right. Sahara Reporters earned wide notice in 2009 for publishing the first photo of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the so-called “underwear bomber” of Northwest Flight 253, and again in 2011 for breaking news, reactions and photos of the car-bombing of a United Nations outpost in Abuja, Nigeria.
Journalists covering stories like Charleston, Ferguson and Baltimore–and other racial flashpoints that will undoubtedly continue to explode–would do well to take notes.
Shane Smith (Twitter: @JShaneSmith) is a freelance writer based in Jersey City, N.J.
Not to downplay racism but in history, violence tends to go down when people feel they can trust each other. Occupy Wall Street has demonstrated this effect, as did the program Cure Violence which ran in Chicago until the police got the mayor to shut it down, and we have been seeing an increase in homicides since. Preceding the 1990’s drop in US homicides was the Hunger Prevention Act, although it’s also attributable to gun control (and sometimes prisons, which are at most just displacing the violence). In the 1970’s, Kentucky saw their homicide rates drop well before other states did. Feminists in Kentucky were very organized, it was very racially integrated, and the federal government was strongly invested.
Why do white “patriot” groups have grievances? Being a good moral Christian is under attack; The Man is coming for my guns and hey if you’re upset just go see a doctor. These ideas do protect the status quo but there is a note of urgency that goes beyond hate. Look at the reasons South Carolina was being told they can’t trust each other. Their governor told them you shouldn’t join a union, otherwise the state will be poor. You shouldn’t respect someone on welfare, they’re being sneaky.
Guns and religon are “white hat” issues tied to a larger economic framework. They do need to be told this, and the fact that the lower classes aren’t really conspiring against them, that they just want to be Americans. At the same time they have valid concerns about the actual elites in both parties running the country. Pat Buchanan has even criticized NAFTA. Yet the leading liberal scholar on violence, Steven Pinker, is only telling us constantly how great the US capitalist system is. Yet the authority he cites, Rudolph Roth, prescribed stronger unions and social programs. For some reason he left that out of his 100 million page book (I think he uses the word “guild” once to cover archair forms of state power). In fact, Pinker is a favorite among some white “race realists” because he gave racism a cute metaphor. We’re just different color grapes, so racism isn’t that irrational.
So white people are both opressors and victims. With no context ont his, it creates a culture ready to be inflammed by racist fears rather than other forms of inequality. So one can also explain why young racist men feel so passionate about “protecting” their country. They need someone to blame for their discomfort and the villain has been supplied: the worker unions, the black people, the Muslims.
It’s Not Only The Flag
Just about everyone’s talking and writing about the recent South Carolina church racial shooting where nine people were killed. Media commentators are examining and analyzing the shooter’s motives. Was the Confederate flag responsible? Was it a white supremacist act? Was it extreme racism? Could it have been an anti-Christian protest? Or, was the shooter just plain “crazy?” The only thing we know for sure is that he’s not a terrorist—however that is defined these days.
What seems not to concern the talking heads is the overriding principle that allows these “crazies” to hide in plain sight as ordinary citizens. It’s only when they erupt with a heinous act that creates the headlines dominating the news that we take notice
Racism is disguised and made acceptable in many ways, not just with the Confederate Battle flag display. We have been allowing bigotry to hide under the cover of that “revered” symbol for some time. Discrimination is disguised as “Southern Pride,” or understood to be “honoring one’s ancestors.” It becomes quite easy for people like the Charleston Emanuel AME Church shooter to go unnoticed because his behavior was perceived as normal. There are other symbols and slogans under the big top of bigotry such as “tough on crime” and mandatory sentencing, Tea Party politics, the war on welfare, etc., which help racists hide their discrimination against the ghettoized poor. Whenever commentators, and the public, rush to defend police after they’ve killed an unarmed Black man, they’re most often feigning support for these “public servants who have a very tough job” in order to hide their racist feelings. They say that people (meaning Black folk) should just obey the commands the police give them, and they won’t get hurt. To these racist sympathizers, the victim is usually to blame.
There is a certain psychosis involved with people who translate their extreme racist thoughts into action and it is called Impulse Control Disorder (ICD). A psychosis refers to an abnormal condition of the mind involving “loss of contact with reality.” Racists seek reinforcement for their extreme views in the right-wing media and by associating with like-minded groups such as white supremacists. They feed on a daily dose of sound bites that reaffirm their racism until they reach a tipping point—and then they explode with rage. Ultimately they cannot control the impulse to do something about their pent up anger. The same psychosis is at work with police when they explode in anger at the sight of a Black man, even though it has been shown they would act much differently with a white person in the identical circumstance.
ICD is far more common than one might imagine. And like most maladies, it is exhibited in many ways and to varying degrees. Among those with this deficit are shoplifters, compulsive gamblers, and people who have occasional bouts of explosive anger. But, the common denominator with entrenched racists is the need for reinforcement of their views. And, unfortunately, there is no shortage of such stimuli from available sources. Right-wing radio personalities, TV “news” commentators, and racist web sites supply a steady diet of not so subtle supporting commentary. There are also many purveyors of symbols such as flags, arm bands, posters and clothing with slogans or images that are meant to inflame opinions.
When such a person goes over the edge and shoots up a church, the people who aided and abetted the perpetrator run for cover. Their indoctrination and support could not have possibly influenced a “deranged person,” they say. But in fact they are culpable and it is quite possible that without such stimulation the racist would never have reached his tipping point. But, this isn’t a subject that interests our talking heads. After all, we live in a free society and revere the notion of “free speech.”
So, it’s not just a flag that’s the problem. It’s the hearts and minds of a significant portion of our population that needs to be repaired.