Dylann Roof, a young man who opened fire at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in downtown Charleston, South Carolina on the evening of June 17, is being charged with the murder of nine people. Roof was welcomed into the church during a Bible-study despite not being a member, and purposely left a witness alive to tell the story.
Roof is described as an unemployed, heavy user of pill drugs including Xanax, in favour of racial segregation and intending to start a civil war. A parallel has been made between Dylann Roof and Timothy McVeigh, who murdered 168 people in 1995 in an act of "revolt’ against the government in hope for a race war.
President Obama reacted to the tragedy by addressing the problem of gun violence in America. Many conservatives objected to this, suggesting instead that churches and churchgoers ought to be armed. Some went as far as blaming the victims themselves for not carrying guns, including South Carolina State Rep. William Chumley who complained that somebody in the church should have been ready to defend. Despite holding a record of felony drug charges and being open with friends and neighbours about his wish to kill people, Roof was in possession of a gun. It is unclear, however, whether the gun was a gift or purchased by Roof himself.
Commenters on prominent far-right online forums largely condemned the attack, mainly out of fear that it would be used against them and prompt the government to crackdown on gun ownership and hate speech. Kirk Lyons, a prominent lawyer known for being a Holocaust-denier and protecting Ku Klux Klan members, went on to criticize the killings on the basis that the victims were Christian. Amongst some conservative circles, the outrage surrounding the tragedy seems to be due to the fact that the attack took place in a church, feeding into the fear of a perceived "war on Christianity’.
It is acknowledged that Roof is indeed a disturbed individual, but his ideas of nationalist duty, racism and violence must have come from somewhere. Roof expressed neo-Nazi admiration, and in his manifesto titled "The Last Rhodesian’, explains that he does not hold as much hatred for Jewish people since “they are white”, but did describe wanting to “destroy Jewish identity”. Roof seemed to have been triggered by the outrage surrounding the shooting of Trayvon Martin in 2012 in which he sympathized with the shooter, as well as the website of the Council of Conservative Citizens.
People who knew him described him as someone with a lot of “Southern pride”, but his racist jokes were never taken seriously. He was described as merely "conservative’, an aspect which somehow made his words and racist paraphernalia acceptable to those around him. Photographs found on his Facebook page depict him either holding, or wearing, various flags with particular symbolism that is very relevant to this story. One patch worn by Roof in a photograph depicts the flag of South Africa’s Apartheid government while the other is the flag of the white-controlled country of Rhodesia (later Zimbabwe). He is also pictured sitting on a car with a Confederacy license plate referencing a racist group.
The tragedy was immediately assumed to be a hate-crime by most, probably due to the shooter’s profile and political sympathies, as well as the history of the targeted church. The opinion is not shared by everyone however, as conservative forums and news stations seem to deny the racial motive altogether, or at least suggest we do not “jump to conclusions”. "Fox News’, for instance, held this view but did indeed jump to conclusions themselves – suggesting the motive is an attack on faith. Republican Party politician Rick Santorum also claimed this to be “an assault on religious liberty”.
To some of us, interpreting this act of terrorism as an attack on Christianity is comparable to construing the Boston bombings as an attack on physical exercise. There seems to be nothing, other than the event taking place during a Bible-study meeting that suggests the killer was motivated in this way. His manifesto reeks of nothing other than national pride and staunch racism.
African-Americans were historically targeted in their churches by white supremacists in attempt to terrorise them based on their race – and not religion. Therefore, the history of the church in question is imperative. It has always acted as a safe house from those in fear of white supremacy. It is one of the oldest African Methodist Episcopal Church in the South, and the site where in 1822, Denmark Vesey, a freed slave, planned one of the biggest slave insurrections in U.S history. Leaders subsequently blamed the revolts on the church itself, and it was burnt to the ground, after which its members continued to congregate in secret. In fact, many civil rights leaders emerged from within churches, including Rev. Martin Luther King. These churches were therefore a threat to those who sought to enforce slavery and segregation. Such attacks are, of course, not ancient history, since the 1990s also experienced a wave of fire bombings on historically black churches, as well as the burning of the church in Massachusetts the day President Barack Obama was inaugurated.
South Carolina has a problem with hate groups, with about 19 known groups, including two factions of the Ku Klux Klan, four white nationalist groups, six neo-Confederate groups and two branches of League of the South and the Council of Conservative Citizens. The Confederate flag continues to fly.
The issue with describing Dylann Roof, or any domestic terrorist, as a "lone wolf’ is that it downplays the threat of such terrorism. This is especially evident when compared to the fear surrounding foreign terrorism. It is easy to blame Xanax or mental illness, but the truth is that anyone who commits an act of terrorism is disturbed to some extent. The issue lies in the way terrorists are classified; right-wing terrorists kill more Americans than Islamic terrorists do, and yet they are given disproportionate weight. Even if Dylann Roof is a “lone wolf” who operated outside of any group or institutionalized terrorist campaign, the truth is that this kind of terrorism has been going on for hundreds of years in America. Although there is much talk of combating foreign terrorism, real and substantial action against domestic terrorism is yet to make an appearance.
