IS THIS REALLY HAPPENING AGAIN?
|| By FITSNEWS || A church that was burned to the ground by the Ku Klux Klan in 1995 went up in flames again this week – the seventh black church in the South to catch fire in the aftermath of a deadly church shooting in Charleston, S.C. last month.
In three of those church fires, arson is suspected.
The Mt. Zion AME Church in Greeleyville, S.C. – located in rural Williamsburg County – was completely destroyed by this week’s blaze. Law enforcement officials have yet to say whether the conflagration was intentionally set. In fact some of them suggested that a lightning storm which moved through the area earlier in the evening may have been the culprit.
Still, the timing of the blaze – along with the fact that arson is suspected in several of the other church fires – has many concerned that a 1960s-style wave of violence toward black churches is underway.
Also, Mt. Zion was featured prominently ten days ago in this Los Angeles Times story about violence against black churches – published in the aftermath of last month’s horrific, racially motivated church shooting in Charleston, S.C.
There, nine parishioners at Mother Emanuel AME Church – including the church’s pastor S.C. Senator Clementa Pinckney – were gunned down by 21-year-old white supremacist Dylann Storm Roof, who has confessed to the crime and indicated his intention in carrying out was to start a “race war.”
Roof sat with his victims for nearly an hour before slaughtering them – saying he almost didn’t go through with the attack because everyone in the church had “been so nice” to him.
Roof’s use of Confederate flags has prompted a debate over whether South Carolina should continue to fly the controversial banner on the grounds of the S.C. State House – and state lawmakers voted last week to address the issue during an extended summer session of the S.C. General Assembly.
This website has encouraged them to take the flag down … without delay. (For more on that debate, click here and here).
We condemn all of these acts of violence.
The fight for freedom and free markets knows no color, creed, gender or sexual orientation – and we are profoundly saddened and disappointed to see racial divisions rearing their ugly head again in this country. And while we must permit the free expression of disturbing – at times disgusting views – acts of violence against person or property cannot be tolerated.
UPDATE: A law enforcement source tells the Associated Press the Greeleyville church fire was “not the work of an arsonist” but added that “further investigation” was needed to confirm this finding. Let’s hope that report is accurate.
97 comments
“As yet, authorities do not know what caused it, said Williamsburg County Fire Chief Randy Swinton.”
Ever hear of lightning?
The only hope for the Democrats in 2016 is to produce mass hysteria, claiming racial attacks. Ferguson, NY and Baltimore backfired on them. You are desperate to find non-Democrats to hate.
You’re likely pulling the trigger too soon. You cannot keep this ruse up forever. And is voting for Hillary going to to stop lighting from striking churches?
Well Obama stopped the seas from rising so I would think Hillary has to be capable of some kind of “Miracle”.
He stopped the seas from rising, but global warming is just getting worse since he took over, according the the “experts.” And even if the seas are no longer a threat, look at the deficit under Obama. He has a had a severe reverse effect on our debt. (:
What happened to the Fruitland Presbyterian Church on the night of June 23 was sad — the church burned down — but it probably does not belong in news and social media reports circulating about arsons at black churches.
“That church is a white church, and it was struck by lightning,” Bryan Cathey, the Gibson County fire chief, told The Times. He said he is “98% sure” the blaze was caused by a lightning strike. “We’re just waiting on the ATF report,” he said.
Things are so divided racially in America that even white churches hit by lightning are now black churches hit by arsonists!
White racism is behind the lightening. My granny gave me a photo of Jesus and he is lilly white.
White man has the game rigged.
Anyone yet to consider this as a horrific, financially motivated church burning? It is the more likely and logical scenario. I figured this would be the next progression after Obama and brought 28 million dollars to Charleston to be thrown like candy canes at a Christmas Parade. Google fake hate crimes, it isn’t a unicorn.
Nothing good can come of burning churches. Be the culprits white or white, it is the very essence of a failed soul.
Even as a Agnostic, I can easily agree to that. I’m just saying greed is every bit as strong a motivator as hate, if not stronger and with the hysteria of the day there is a lot of cover for fraud.
I suspect you are correct.
Ou culture has lost its way. We worship men, not God. We twist even the most natural and obvious laws of nature to justify our base desires.
We will have to pay a price and the price will be know by the strife, hatred and violence of class warfare and outright rebellion. Soon, yes, sooner than you think.
Pretty deep thoughts there Bum. I appreciate your sharing them.
Most of the class warfare is from the top down.
Horseshit.How does ‘war’ been declared on you, financially? 1% in this nation pay almost 50% of the taxes.
Sitting on your ass posting on the internet 24/7 seems like a damn good gig Boz.
Cause I’m an expert of posting on Fits for 24/7!!!!
LMAO!!!!
LMAO!!!!
Will leaves me pillows and covers because I practically live here now. Just call me the FITSNews squatter! LMAO!!! LMAO!!!
Favorite BS claim of rich folk. I pay a larger percentage of my income in taxes than a corporate CEO.
What a fucking idiot.So you still only pay $1 while he pays $1,000,000.
Think of it in baseball terms. You bat ONE time in a season and get a hit-so you bat 1.000. Your team mate bats 5oo HUNDRED times and gets 250 hits-bats .500.
Your % is higher but his number of hits CONTRIBUTED 250x’s more than you.
You are welcome.The school house door is always open.
And you are a pretty little bottom
You are correct.But hey…why print the truth when you stir up racial hatred and division? The goal was never the confederate flag.Race baiters like Boz,Sybil,Rocky etc…want the American flag down and this NATION in flames.
(CNN)When six black churches in the Southeast burned in the days following the Charleston church killings, authorities and church members were immediately suspicious.
But none of those fires show evidence of being a hate crime and only two might be arson, investigators told CNN.
“We are looking at all of them along with ATF,” a federal law enforcement official told CNN. “No reason at this point to link them, but we are continuing to investigate.”
“There’s no apparent connection, nothing to say they are connected,” said Mark Potok, a senior fellow at the Southern Poverty Law Center. “It’s speculation at this point.”
The most recent hate crime attacks on religious institutions have been on Jewish synagogues and Islamic mosques, not black Christian churches, he said.
Those that want to remake America in “their image” are often the most disagreeable, self-hating of us all. They are losers financed by the corporatist fat cats that are making bank from the disruptions.
Want to change your life? Then change YOUR life and leave mine alone. I don’t want a damned thing from you, and I don’t want a damned thing to DO with you.
Back off, cultural thieves and misfits. Back off partisan hacks and race baiters or be prepared to take what is coming to you without whimpering!.
Oh. So you’re saying the people at that church had it coming.
Duly noted, pogo.
Note whatever you want you lying,racist POS.
As always, I wear your scorn as badge of honor.
Don’t be stupid. You projected that comment because it is not in mine.
“Back off partisan hacks and race baiters or be prepared to take what is coming to you without whimpering!.”
Implied threat. Anyway you slice it. In your mind, the members of all the AME churces are partisan hacks an race baiters. So to you, all of them just need to suck it up if someone reacts with gasoline and a lit match.
No.That was your gal Sybil (aka SYNTwist) that pulled a page out of your playbook and libeled the television lady the other day.
No worries,Fits issued a clarification of the original story. Doubt it helps her though.You are a bad influence Boz. :)
Project, project, project. Man, you sure can project.
You must get very tired knowing what is in everyones mind, and what they feel.
What is particularly funny is that folks like you take god like qualities to themselves while ridiculing folks that worship a traditional deity.
Can you get a restraining order? Maybe that would force pogo the troll off this website for good.
“Oh. So you’re saying the people at that church had it coming.”
I’m with Buzz on this one. Pogo suggested right after the church shooting in Charleston that the church was probably preaching hate. He was already ready to blame the victims for being the racists. He has defended Dylann’s motives and said racist things every day on here.
You’re full of shit, pogo. As usual.
And I see you’ve decided to have another of your idiotic conversations with yourself.
If that bizarre scenario has any validity, it will come out in the investigations.
Why are you so heavily invested that it IS ARSON?
Man, stop projecting your world view on every action.
Please note that the world does not revolve around you. It will make you a more agreeable person.
What would make you a more agreeable person, pogo? A rim job from GT?
Why do you always resort to fag talk when feeling threatened?
You project way, way too much
Ever seen me in a dress or drag?
Hi Flip!
no, and I hope I never do. What a sight that must be.
https://myspace.com/ballyhooburlesque
He swears it’s not him/her? You decide.
But in the mean time lets whip up some mass hysteria to provide cover for a partisan point of view? If you guys are so hellbent on me hating something then I guess I hate the way the far left and right do this hysterical sky is falling bullshit to try to push their brand on the uninformed.
I don’t think we have to go back as far as the 60’s to the last wave of black-church burnings. Wasn’t there a series in SC about two decades ago?
And look at these early comments. Blame the victims. But it is a conservative bigot’s tradition. Before it was “Jewish lightning.” And when a young black man’s chain-wrapped body was pulled from a river beneath a bridge, “Well look at that. Just like a n*****. Steals more chains than he can swim with.”
I guess these conservative bigots do have more of a sense of their heritage (tarnished as it is) than I normally credit them with. But habit is easier than thought I suppose.
They are almost as mindless as liberal nitwits that see a Southern white man behind every ill.
“A black guy did it” — Susan Smith, lily white murderer of her children.
But also the molested daughter of a big GOPer activist in the Christian Coalition (or Moral Majority?}.
That comment is off point gibberish.
You don’t get to decide what points are on or off, pogo.
Just did.
Hey Boz…are those new purple KKK robes from your old, perverted burlesque shows? :)
Nah. They’re from your cosplay/foreplay with GT.
Hey, you see a sitting president behind every ill, even those that started decades, or centuries, before he was born. So your own perspective is pretty badly skewed there, flippy pogo.
That is one of the silliest things said on any blog today.
But I am sure it made you feel ever so special, in that half assed, wimpy, I love all black man way.
“Jewish lightning.”
“Jewish Lightning” implies insurance fraud.
Wanna lay a couple shekels down that none of the three suspected arsons involved this?
The accusation is the same knee-jerk reaction though.
Ain’t it just that, though?
The accusation is the same knee-jerk reaction though.
Is it still ok to say, “That’s the pot calling the kettle black!”?
*looks around*
Please tell us what it involves, Tonto Bullshitter?
Please tell us what it involves, Tonto Bullshitter?
With pleasure.
*Clears throat…takes deep breath*
We have multiple news reports of seven southern black churches being burned in the last couple weeks. The implication is that there are one or more Dylann Roof types running around setting fires to black churches.
In none of the articles that TBG has perused has any comparison been made to the number of white churches burned in the same locales, during the same time periods; so we don’t know whether seven is an anomaly or not. We have nothing to compare it to.
Of the six that burned before Greeleyville’s Mt Zion, arson is only suspected in three of them. Unless someone is making the argument that lightning and substandard wiring are racist, the other three churches shouldn’t even be mentioned in the articles. It’s inflammatory.
Now, arsonists are not always motivated by racism. Sometimes insurance fraud is the motive behind arson. Not saying that was the case in any of these, but ol’ TBG sure as Hell wouldn’t bet any wampum against it.
All that faux Indian bullshit wore thin a long time ago, jerk.
All that faux Indian bullshit wore thin a long time ago, jerk.
“With pleasure.
*Clears throat…takes deep breath*
We have multiple news reports of seven southern black churches being burned in the last couple weeks. The implication is that there are one or more Dylann Roof types running around setting fires to black churches.
In none of the articles that TBG has perused has any comparison been made to the number of white churches burned in the same locales, during the same time periods; so we don’t know whether seven is an anomaly or not. We have nothing to compare it to.
Of the six that burned before Greeleyville’s Mt Zion, arson is onlysuspected in three of them. Unless someone is making the argument that lightning and substandard wiring are racist, the other three churches shouldn’t even be mentioned in the articles. It’s inflammatory.
Now, arsonists are not always motivated by racism. Sometimes insurance fraud is the motive behind arson. Not saying that was the case in any of these, but ol’ TBG sure as Hell wouldn’t bet any Jackson’s against it.”
Is that better, Chief El Jefe?
LMAO!!!!!
Yo oh na. Yo oh na ha. Yo ho. Yo ho. Ta tanka ho. Yo hey hey ho. Ta tanka ho
Smack these partisan A-holes over the head with Logic and Statistics 101.
You two gotta be the same guy. Another GT/Pogo deal.
Do you need medicine? I can’t have an opinion? Hover over my avatar, click and read everything I’ve ever posted on Disqus. You and this Grand tango asshole fill these pages with hysterical love/hate for each other in so many different accounts to the point a real, regular reader can’t be bothered with trying to read non-sock puppet views. You two are ruining this website.
The only one ruining this site is pogo.
Smack these partisan A-holes over the head with Logic and Statistics 101.
They literally wouldn’t know what hit ’em.
I guess that is why Common Sense 101 never even made it to the Course Catalog?
The big news about black churches is destruction of the church itself. I was told that about 70% -80% of claims by black churches (this was more than a few years back) were to get newer and better stuff for the church (pews, sound equipment, etc). This was explained to me by an insurance agent who specialized in church insurance. The black church leaders discovered that it was much easier to get their congregations to chip in more donations for insurance premiums on new improvements and new items than it was to get donations to purchase them. Within reason the insurance company went along with these incidents. They kept the church as a client, insurance premiums were higher, and the agent got more money. The churches got their improvements or whatever and most likely increased memberships and donations.
Shifty, you hateful, hood wearing, racist, SOB, how dare you talk about the real world without specialized partisan training or an Agenda?
In days of yore when troubadours roamed the lands they were welcomed into the villages and castles to relate tales related to them during their travels.
Heh Heh. Nothing like a baited article to enflame (no pun intended) the whack-a-doos to the to the point you can’t make reasoned statement w/o personal attacks.
You’re ok in my Fitsbook. I was in a hurry and wasn’t very clear about what I wanted to say. My point is that every black church fire in SC is not the result of haters.
I knew what you were saying, but the flame throwers were hot right out of the gate this morning. On occasion, I get riled up at the same ole Jacklegs screaming bigot for pointing out different, logical views. Then it is GT or Pogo vs Euwe or Buzz or some other left of center person filling the page with petty bickering to the point it is hard to see what the normal folks are saying, especially on a phone.
That “chains” thing is pretty funny. Never heard it before.
Southern churches are simply another sign of the racists oppression of Blacks.
These institutions are designed to manipulate the masses and were passed on to blacks to promote their submissive behavior toward whites.
So your saying a white Liberal could be doing it to free the Black man?
Blacks must throw off religion. Enlightened people have always known religion was a tool created by oppressors to control certain populations.
The exact opposite is true. Where there is Christianity, there has the most progress and freedom and democratic institutions.
Where there has been attempts to distroy religion, there has been the most oppressiom.
Soviet Union, China and Cambodia just to name a few.
Blacks MUST throw off the tools of the ruling elites. The confederate flag, the American flag, religion, the current economic structure- it is all design to oppress.
Pensions for state and local employees are a great example of something that MUST be stopped. Whites got the jobs, not blacks, especially the high paying ones. So whites are oppressing the black that were denied jobs everything they get a check.
Give current retirees one year to make arrangements then stop the payments and plow that money into segregated communities. That is the only way to redress the unfairness of the current oppressive, whites first system.
I agree. Those old fat white bastards did nothing to receive their fat retirement paycheck. State government subsidized the white community to the tune of billions per year. Some of the fat bastards make over $100,000 per year for the little work they did while “employed” but the state.
Stop those retirement checks and you will get reform needed to move this country forward.
The money Michele O is using to repeatedly fly her kids and friends around the world could better be used for different purposes. She flies around like Maria Antoinette and asks us to eat cake which we will buy with debt- debt that our kids and grandkids will have to pay back.
Our leaders say watch what we say and not what we do. When our leaders are corrupt, the nation will be corrupt.
Church burning is theater and it is useful to those promoting the downfall of America.
While “her people” fall further and further behind in almost every statistic imaginable, she sees herself as a rockstar, entitled to the best the world has to offer, and all of it paid for by the US taxpayer.
I wonder how many scholarships, doctors visits, classrooms etc that wasted money could have provided for “her people?” She has betrayed them even as they lift her up to goddess status.
Michelle reminds me of a Amazon Jungle Woman doll that my sister had as a kid.
I bet she ties ole Barak up, slaps him around with a leather strap, then makes him whimper for mommy.
Oh yea, I need to find that doll.
There is still a possibility that the fire was not arson. Having said that. There is a special place in hell for anyone who burns down a house of God.
Still, the timing and the target…
Anyone kept track of fires targeting* predominantly white churches in the same area during the same time period?
TBG can play that game, too.
On racial issues,
TBG plays lots of games.
Yea know Bo?
The majority of the comments on this page that blame the members of the church for burning it down come from pogo. He already has a couple of conversations going with himself. TBG and Tazmaniac are trolling similarly.
Thank you SYBIL Jr. Now run along and falsely accuse another neighbor of high crimes and misdemeanors.
Are you drunk? Where do you see “the biggest majority” of comments saying that? Damn man, get a grip.
Also, it is “the majority.” not “the biggest majority.” Biggest is superfluous.
Right as usual Buzz.I am wrong.I apologize to calling you nasty names. You and Rocky are some of the smartest posters on this site.
Be honest, you’re praying some poor white fool burned this church. If it’s lightening, or wiring, or some other benign force that caught it on fire, your whole 2016 Campaign is in the crapper. Hate is your bread and butter. You’re too stupid to come up with anything constructive. Obama has more than proven that.
SLED says it’s lightning. But what kind of lightning?
http://rt.com/usa/laser-lightning-us-army-623/
Damn, four replies from pogo to this one comment alone? lulz!
Following what passes for evidence here, it is clear that the defacing of the Tillman statue must have been done by white-trash pro-flag bigots from Lexington County who are just trying to stir up backlash trouble. Jailbird Jimmie is probably directing it all via contraband cell phone from his barred bungalow.
Case closed.
If I could only figure out how to sell Hot Buttered Popcorn on this site I would be worth millions.
LOL 10+ At least there is still a few Capitalist Pigs on this website!
AP Reports that it has been determined that this was not arson. Looks like the media will have to look for something else to stir the pot about.
The AP reports that a person not authorized to speak says that preliminary indications are that the fire was not intentionally set and was not arson. The source says the fire is still under investigation.
Looks like bowl cut dumbass did start a race war, it’s just that it is one-sided. Probably makes his racist heart flutter too.
The sky is falling!!!
Now that the panic is over, I think all of the investigations so far have dismissed arson as a cause.
First the grand jury said no indictment. Now lightening – not some nutjob seeking guaranteed infamy- has squelched your cries of racist church-burning. Looks like the Hillary will have to run on Obama’s miserable record, instead of perpetuating race-hate. Sucks to be you.