I hope the NYTimes will report on tonight's unity march across the Ravenel Bridge. It is powerful and moving, with thousands of walkers of all races.
1
Consider the attention mass killers receive via the press feeding frenzy. Is it not part of their motivation? How about we leave the perpetrators out of the news coverage. I don't read the articles detailing their depravity and doubt I'm missing anything. I've placed this comment here as there was not an opportunity elsewhere.
1
To forgive is Divine, but to properly mourn is respectful. The victims deserve a period of grieving by Charleston, and the entire nation. Oertherwise, our children will become oblivious to this horrific act of hatred and racism. It is not a case of business as usual; it is a national disgrace. It is cold-blooded mass murder of the innocent. History repeats itself. Why? Our children remain confused, which is dangerous. There must be no confusion about this crime. It is a recurrent American nightmare. It is now past the midnight hour; these terrors must end.
10
Nikki Haley has supported the state's flying the Confederate flag, saying that no CEO had complained. A CEO of any sort must be far more important in South Carolina than the thousands of African-Americans who not only complained but protested.
One man said, "It's hard to be more polite than we already are." As a Southerner, who has spent much time in Charleston, I can tell you that Southerners are so superficially nice that they will give you directions to anywhere....but their house. Until my early 20s, I bought into the myth of Southern hospitality and the belief that we were not just the nicest people, but the ONLY nice people, in America. Yankees were meddling thugs, who didn't "understand" our way of life and had destroyed our society. The chip on the Southern shoulder has never been dislodged.
Our way of life was, of course, being covert racists. As long as your kin weren't members of the Klan, you could say with a clear conscience that you weren't a racist, all the while pointing with pride at the extra $15 you once gave Essie Mae or Pearl or the bag of old clothes or how you always drove them to the bus stop instead of making them walk or how you always praised them because no one could make a fluffier biscuit.
I'm certain that the good people of Charleston were relieved when the families of the victims expressed forgiveness, rather than calling for violence. It would be such a shame if the tourists didn't have a good time.
One man said, "It's hard to be more polite than we already are." As a Southerner, who has spent much time in Charleston, I can tell you that Southerners are so superficially nice that they will give you directions to anywhere....but their house. Until my early 20s, I bought into the myth of Southern hospitality and the belief that we were not just the nicest people, but the ONLY nice people, in America. Yankees were meddling thugs, who didn't "understand" our way of life and had destroyed our society. The chip on the Southern shoulder has never been dislodged.
Our way of life was, of course, being covert racists. As long as your kin weren't members of the Klan, you could say with a clear conscience that you weren't a racist, all the while pointing with pride at the extra $15 you once gave Essie Mae or Pearl or the bag of old clothes or how you always drove them to the bus stop instead of making them walk or how you always praised them because no one could make a fluffier biscuit.
I'm certain that the good people of Charleston were relieved when the families of the victims expressed forgiveness, rather than calling for violence. It would be such a shame if the tourists didn't have a good time.
41
Genteel Charleston is a ruse propped up by old Southern White families that were planters and slave masters. The Gullah culture is a barrier island phenomenon that evolved over centuries of isolation on the coasts of Georgia and South Carolina where rice and Sea Island Cotton was a brutal form of slavery (irrigation in swamps and tidal basins). By the time Union General Sherman reached Charleston he promised liberation and land to the slaves only to be overturned in Washington, DC. There are not bronze statues of Sherman in Charleston even though his efforts specifically liberated bonded humans and technically was a decisive element of ending the war. The Governor of South Carolina protects the Confederate Battle flag flying proudly at the SC Capitiol and Charleston is now a tourism replica of antebellum South that deserves preservation? Maybe, if Sherman's promise might be fulfilled. South Carolina is a snake pit of racism and hatred and should be shuttered otherwise. The Tourism product memorializes a horrific period of American life and symbolically disenfranchises African American who are making baskets and selling pickeled preserves barely living at the poverty line because they cannot afford city property. Charleston needs urban renewal and every symbol of that antebellum lifestyle was based on the worst examples of inhumanity. Charleston, and that Coastal hotbed of plantation wealth was the hotbed of Southern wealth and religious rationalization for slavery.
24
What does that young man from NYC mean when he says that in NYC it's always about retaliation? What part of NY is he talking about? He sounds like he's been in the southern sun too long.
14
He means he hates black people. And he is not young. The story says he is 50 years old. He thinks his comments are benign. They are a mirror of the racism that pervades South Carolina and most of the sentiments expressed by whites in this story are hypocrisy.
17
I find it unsettling, quite frankly, that the public reaction to this hateful killing is for all to join hands and sing kumbaya. Charleston folks need to close the bars and the tourist markets for a period of mourning, however brief, that says that life doesn't just go on after an incident like this and that proclamations of racial harmony must be supplemented with heartfelt mourning honoring the 9 city residents who were shot in cold blood.
42
In 2011 Gabrielle Giffords survived an assassination attempt, eighteen others were shot, and six people were left dead. Did the bars or the gun shops in Tucson shut down for a period of mourning? Yet, you hypocritically disparage the way Charleston chooses to mourn and heal itself. AZ too is not a state known for its tolerance.
13
MICHJAS: I agree .
Horrific, premeditated murders were committed by a deranged boy living in a deranged society.
Close down the city for a day of Silence and Morning for the people murdered and the people who aided this boy by putting symbols of a war they lost and the tourists who visit just to SEE ALL that.
IT IS NOT BUSINESS AS USUAL.
The misbegotten murderer and his white enablers changed that.
Horrific, premeditated murders were committed by a deranged boy living in a deranged society.
Close down the city for a day of Silence and Morning for the people murdered and the people who aided this boy by putting symbols of a war they lost and the tourists who visit just to SEE ALL that.
IT IS NOT BUSINESS AS USUAL.
The misbegotten murderer and his white enablers changed that.
3
There is nothing respectful about a state that refuses to remove a symbol of hate and prejudice. The confederate flag represents slavery, lunchings, the klan. It is an outright symbol of hate. TAKE IT DOWN. Begin to really address racism in America. It is so terribly long overdue.
43
The North Charleston, SC police officer who shot an unarmed black man in the back as he was fleeing is now IN JAIL, charged with murder of Walter Scott.
Y
et the Staten Island, NY police officer who strangled an unarmed black man by chokehold and pushed his head down hard on the cement sidewalk for selling cigarettes remains free and uncharged with the death of Eric Garner, even after Garner's death was ruled a homicide by the coroner. Why is that?
Northeastern and midwestern cities: Heal thy selves!
Y
et the Staten Island, NY police officer who strangled an unarmed black man by chokehold and pushed his head down hard on the cement sidewalk for selling cigarettes remains free and uncharged with the death of Eric Garner, even after Garner's death was ruled a homicide by the coroner. Why is that?
Northeastern and midwestern cities: Heal thy selves!
13
The officer who shot Walter Scott is in jail precisely because of previous incidents like Eric Garner's death. Some are finally getting the message. The country, including the South, needs to heal. Pointing your finger at the north ignores your own history and failings, like raising son like Roof.
10
Terrible time for South Carolina and my heart goes to all of its people. Charleston used to be my family's preferred fall destination, but... we intent to take our tourist dollars elsewhere until the Confederate flag flies no more. We will not be supporting bigotry.
54
Charleston has voted Democrat in the last two elections. If you want to make a statement about right wing extremism, you would be wiser to stop visiting Myrtle Beach, which overwhelmingly votes Republican.
22
Yes Charleston has had the same Democratic mayor, Joseph P. Riley Jr., for seemingly decades now but it is only one piece in the puzzle that is South Carolina. That horrible flag flies over the Capitol of the entire state and should have come down long ago. Charleston is the most backward looking city of any southern city today....they celebrate the past that included a live slave market in its midst.
13
They are not,"celebrating" the past anymore than the Holocaust Museum is "celebrating" the death camps. History is history and should be on display for all to see. I just wish the history of Jim Crow and the Civil Rights movement were on display more and that people understood the horrors of that time. I grew up in the South and saw the separate water fountains and restrooms, the separate waiting rooms at the bus and train stations, the whites only first floor of the movie theaters. I saw the television reports of Bull Connor turning the fire hoses on African Americans, of the bombing of the church in Birmingham that killed three little African American girls, of,the murder of three Civil Rights workers slain because they were trying to register African American voters. It was a violent time and those of us who didn't live it seem to have little knowledge of the time and definitely don't know the emotions tied to it. Would you wish that the African Americans turn to anger rather than forgiveness? If so, you don't understand MLK Jr and all that he sacrificed for civil rights.
5
I know it is a distinction that is lost on many people, but the Confederate flag has not flown over the capitol building of South Carolina for several years, contrary to what has been reported in New York Times articles and written by several readers. It was previously removed by legislative action from atop the State House and a smaller banner flies over a memorial to Confederate soldiers on the State House grounds. I'm not defending the flag or what it symbolizes. I'm merely pointing out that there has already been extensive debate in South Carolina regarding the Confederate flag. As a result, where it now flies is not where it historically flew, and its current location is less prominent than its previous location.
15
In a way the confederate flag is more prominent in its new location: It's on a pole down at street level at the entrance to the capitol grounds, right in visitors' faces.
"Where it historically flew" is an interesting phrase. "Historically" was not really all that long. The confederate flag did not fly over the capitol (at least on any regular basis) for nearly a century after the end of the Civil War. It was only in the early 1960s, in response to the civil rights movement, that the state began flying the flag over the capitol every day.
So we have a flag that was conceived in the struggle to preserve slavery, then revived and given official status nearly a century later as the state struggled to preserve segregation, subjugation and terror as a way of life. That's some heritage.
"Where it historically flew" is an interesting phrase. "Historically" was not really all that long. The confederate flag did not fly over the capitol (at least on any regular basis) for nearly a century after the end of the Civil War. It was only in the early 1960s, in response to the civil rights movement, that the state began flying the flag over the capitol every day.
So we have a flag that was conceived in the struggle to preserve slavery, then revived and given official status nearly a century later as the state struggled to preserve segregation, subjugation and terror as a way of life. That's some heritage.
39
IT SHOULD FLY AT NO PUBLIC BUILDING ANYWHERE. EVERY AGAIN.
IT IS A VESTIGE OF A PAST WHICH MUST BE EXORCIZED.
ERACISM.
My family has lived in Louisiana since the late 1700s.
WE ARE ALL AFRICANS.
IT IS A VESTIGE OF A PAST WHICH MUST BE EXORCIZED.
ERACISM.
My family has lived in Louisiana since the late 1700s.
WE ARE ALL AFRICANS.
11
Oh, there you go inserting those pesky facts into this discussion.
6
Prejudice is always destructive and small-minded. There is no reason to paint Charleston residents with the same brush as for Dylann Roof. Racism, institutional and individual, most unfortunately exists nationally, not only in this region, so boycotting local businesses in South Carolina will not help foster inclusive thinking. I saw so much beauty from Charleston citizens in the wake of the mass murder - black and white hands interlocked, affirming that hate will not win. We all need more room for affinity and less knee-jerk rejection of a place and its people.
13
I wish the kind of people from Emmanuel AME Church who had such a dignified response to this heinous crime had had the upper hand after 9/11. I think we would be living a different story right now in America. The unbelievable response to forgive this young hater is mind-boggling. I could not do that after a crime like that. But it shows a tremendous faith in their faith itself. Amazing people there.
58
As a message of peace, I would recommend that the citizens of South Carolina permanently remove the Confederate flag from state and local government property That flag sends the wrong message. I speak as a white Southerner.
53