… LOVE WON
|| By FITSNEWS || These amazing images were taken this afternoon outside of Mother Emanuel AME Church in downtown Charleston, S.C. – the site of last week’s horrific, racially motivated “Holy City Massacre.”
Nine people died inside this church … including its pastor, S.C. Senator Clementa Pinckney.
There’s been a lot of focus on race in the aftermath of this tragedy … and rightfully so. Pinckney and fellow victims – Cynthia Marie Graham Hurd, 54, Susie Jackson, 87, Depayne Middleton, 49, Myra Thompson, 59 and Tywanza Sanders, 26, Daniel Simmons, 74, Sharonda Singleton, 45, and Ethel Lee Lance, 70 – were black. And they were deliberately targeted and killed because they were black.
There’s also been a lot of focus on the symbolism of race … and rightfully so.
A “race war” was clearly the intention of the perpetrator of this premeditated, slaughter.
But 21-year-old white supremacist Dylann Storm Roof didn’t get the race war he wanted.
Instead, a state not known for being on the cutting edge of tolerance has responded with love. With unity. With color-blindness. With forgiveness (starting with the Christian forgiveness shown to Roof by the families of his victims). And yes, with change.
Look no further than the steps of Mother Emanuel AME …
(Pics: Charlestonian)
18 comments
This is what the racist posters like Squishy and Pogo hate to see.
Yeah, I am so furious I can’t see straight. How dare people litter the street with that garbage. Some black man is going to have to clean all that shit up in a day or two before it starts to stink
Willie is sure milking this story. I see he was able to sneak in a The Donald story while taking a break..
Great heart felt post but it needs less subtlety!
Great Pics!
Don’t stop now ! There is Tillmann’s statue and all the other symbols of racism. SC should be home of the biggest museum on slavery, get cracking YDC history department- use dome of USC’s endowment to get it started
Ol’Pitchfork needs to stay and be held up as a perfect example of the dangers of charismatic politicians
He was one of the most disgusting political figures in SC – and that’s a high hurdle !
And put one up of Lee Bright with the plaque reading “Lee Bright – The champion demagogue of the South Carolina Legislature”
Taking the flag down isn’t worth the nine lives it cost.
Excellent comment.
You’re right in one sense. It should have been done a long time ago, and we shouldn’t have needed to be convicted by the forgiveness poured out by the victims’ families to see that taking down a damned piece of cloth is the least that we could do to show a shred of kindness to our fellow man. But those nine, and their families, have done far more than than just take down a damned piece of cloth. They’ve shown that there is still a light in the darkness, and that the darkness shall not overcome it.
It is great to see South Carolinians behaving so well (not always the case). I’ve seen a couple of tweets and posts directed at Baltimore and Ferguson along the lines of, “This is how we do it in SC.” Not perfect analogies to be sure, but there’s a line we don’t get to use very day…nice.
There’s more here to discuss than just a flag
The flag is nothing more than a distraction and a way to
avoid dealing with aspects of a mass murder that are very troubling.
What really bothers me is how the Roof, the shooter, managed
to go undetected under the very noses of people that we have hired, trained and
pay to deal with people just like him.
We have spent a small fortune on the State Law Enforcement Division’s so
called Fusion Center. This unit,
supposedly, has as its central mission gathering information on terrorists and
terrorist groups. The Lexington County Sheriff’s Office has an Intelligence
Unit that presumably works in conjunction with the Fusion Center. If that is not enough, The Federal Bureau of
Investigation has a unit called the “JTTF” or Joint Terrorism Task Force that
operates out of the Columbia Field Office.
Out of all of this expensive manpower and God only knows what kind of
equipment, designed and funded to do nothing more important than identify and
stop foreign and domestic terrorism, none of it worked. It was a total failure
nine times over. Had Roof been a sophisticated,
well trained terrorist operative, then maybe it would be understandable. However, he was anything but shrewd.
Not only was Roof a clearly immature mental defective, he
did everything but set himself on fire in front of SLED headquarters to get
noticed. He exposed himself all over the
internet; a place you would think the counter terrorist sleuths employed by our
government might occasionally peruse. You would think that, since they are
familiar with people who think and act like Roof, that they would know how to
FIND people like Roof. How in the world did they miss this guy? He should have
been identified months ago and his friends and associates identified and
questioned. If SLED, the FBI, and
Lexington County Sheriff’s Office had been on top of things this whole tragedy
would have been averted and Roof would have been diverted (voluntarily or
involuntarily) into mental health counseling. The truth is, the apparatus the
government has assembled in South Carolina to combat terrorism can talk the
talk, but cannot walk the walk.
Regardless of their appalling incompetency, rest assured
that nobody at SLED, the FBI, or the Lexington County Sheriff’s Office is going
to get called onto the carpet. They are
confident that you are much more concerned about the flag at the statehouse
than you are about what they do. They are equally confident that you have no
idea what they are supposed to be doing in the first place. Sadly, the bottom line is that nine good
people paid a terrible price for their sorry job performance. Just remember, those folks over at the SLED
Fusion Center just got a nice $800 bonus each.
Let’s not quibble about mass murder.
Just like the TSA, it’s all “security theater”.
A select few get rich from it, the rest of us get the hassles of dealing with the blunt instruments hired to point a crooked spear in our general direction, and also enduring snooping and groping so the sheeple feel safe, while those of us that know better feel shat upon so we know “who is in charge”.
SLED is nothing but a paper tiger anyway – issue “get out of jail free” cards to SC police departments it investigates, shake down a few mid-level dope pushers, label every damn thing “under investigation so we can’t comment” then pat themselves on the back, call it a day and go home to watch NCIS reruns.
Over two damn years and NOTHING on the DOR hacking fiasco about who did it and when they will be brought in to face charges…..
That they missed Roof is no big surprise but you can bet they will shake down the legislature for more money to buy more toys that they so badly need to make South Carolina safe from turds like Roof (which will of course require increased surveillance of the citizenry to make that effective)
The day will come in this state and country when it will resemble the sci-fi flick “Gattica’ and it will all be approved by conservative law abiding citizens in the name of law and order
“That they missed Roof is no big surprise but you can bet they will shake down the legislature for more money to buy more toys that they so badly need to make South Carolina safe from turds like Roof”
More M-16’s and Iraqistan APC toss offs to protect us for gun toting 21 year old weasels, who most likely would get his ass kicked my most of our wives if he didn’t have a pistol. (and I’m not for gun control, just sayin’)
The funny thing about the APC’s, various local department always try to fend off criticism by saying, “We got it for free!”, but what no one sees in the repair/maintenance costs after they spend a few thousand dollars on black paint jobs and lettering.
“No standing armies” my ass. Posse Comitatus is dead and buried. The affiliation of the militarized police being “local” and not “army” is BS. They are given weapons and hardware from our armed forces. Now they also train together. It’s all semantics.
“approved by conservative law abiding citizens in the name of law and order”
It’s not just conservatives Sparkle, it’s “bi-partisan”. Killiary Clinton is as big a hawk as sugar britches Graham himself and big on “law & order”.
The cries of “safety” know no partisan bound, they are the whimpers of a cowardly population in general.
Good points all
Only thing is what do you do if SLED comes knocking on your door and wants to “just ask you a few questions concerning your mental state, we’ve had a report that you have been under some mental stress. Are you under a doctor’s care or seeing a mental health specialist?”
They might leave and say there is nothing to worry about but rest assured once interviewed by a law enforcement agency for ANY reason a file on you will exist for the rest of your life and beyond.
SC Senator Chumley was on CNN blaming the Charleston Nine for their own murders. Can several thousand of us call his office, and his home, (for the rest of his life) and suggest otherwise?