Days before the 150th anniversary of the abolition of slavery, a gunman in Charleston, South Carolina murdered 6 women and 3 men at one of the nation’s oldest black churches. Making a distinct terrorist’s move, the shooter intentionally left one survivor to communicate his message, leaving no question of his motives: “You rape our women and you’re taking over our country, and you have to go.”
Racism is the obvious and undeniable root of this hate crime, yet you probably wouldn’t know it from within the Right-wing echo chamber. A National Rifle Association board member in typical fashion blamed the pastor and the victims for his politics, saying “Eight of his church members who might be alive if he had expressly allowed members to carry handguns in church are dead. Innocent people died because of his position on a political issue.” Billy Graham’s dynastic successor, Franklin Graham, scapegoated the religious right’s favorite liberal boogeyman, “godless Hollywood”, for its glorification of gun violence, just as the NRA has done of previous mass shootings at Newtown and Sandy Hook. Much has already been written about Fox News’ evasion of the racist subject matter, even spinning the story as a war against Christianity. Although the shooter had already announced himself as an outspoken white supremacist by this point, Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush claimed “I don’t know what was on the mind or the heart of the man who committed these atrocious crimes.” Fellow GOP candidate Rick Perry referred to the shooting as an “accident” which he blamed on drugs and then rebuked President Obama for mentioning gun control.
It’s remarkable how an incident of Right-wing violence is used by the Right-wing as an opportunity to further attack liberals. But sadly, this is not really that surprising: the shooter himself claimed to have been set off after the Trayvon Martin case. It’s incomprehensible that the killing of a black teenager would inspire another white man to kill more black people, but this seems to be the endless cycle of far right extremism. He even had the audacity to select as a target a church that had been famously burned down as retribution for a slave revolt before the Civil War. It’s a noticeable pattern from the Confederacy blaming President Lincoln for their own belligerence to today’s polarizing Republican Party accusing President Obama of dividing the nation. Even when their policies and actions are revealed as the root cause of the conflict, it seems to reinforce their animosity towards their perceived enemies rather than provoke soul searching and self-examination.
It’s understandable that conservatives might be uncomfortable or even defensive after a racist mass murderer leaves a manifesto laden with Right-wing talking points, but it is completely unacceptable for them to go on the offensive. On the other hand, the crime was indisputably committed with a gun and motivated by racism, so these are both perfectly acceptable topics to discuss in the aftermath. Contrary to what many conservatives seem to think, addressing blatant racism is not race-baiting, and advocating gun control is not the same as wanting to take everybody’s guns away. It is not opportunistic to discuss gun politics after an actual shooting, whereas changing the subject to entertainment or a paranoid “war on Christians” is a non sequitur. Even more troubling, however, is that the gunman appears to have been radicalized by the white supremacist-leaning Council of Conservative Citizens, which has a history of courting and funding conservative politicians. It is outrageous that the Right devotes more energy towards attacking liberals after this tragedy than in simply denouncing the groups and individuals who are supposedly distorting their movement. If these extremist beliefs don’t really reflect conservative values, than it should be relatively easy for a conservative party to disown them and refuse their contributions, rather than pander to them as guest speakers at their events.
Republicans have a predictable knee-jerk reaction when their party is associated with racism, but they need to face their inner demons at some point rather than misdirecting their anger at their critics. The Party is notoriously unwelcoming to minorities, women, the working poor, gays, and non-Christians, yet they seem to have a tent just big enough to let the white nationalists in. There is no use in getting angry at people for making this logical association, the damage is already done. We all know this is not all conservatives, but there needs to be reassurance that the conservative party leaders will not tolerate expressions of racism and violence. It makes no sense why the Party can make stringent purity tests out of their fabricated culture wars but can’t police the racists staining their reputation. Rather than distancing themselves after the fact, the country needs to hear a clear official statement denouncing these beliefs and breaking this perpetual cycle of violence. For instance, conservatives have nothing to gain by stubbornly insisting that a state officially flying the Confederate flag is acceptable on any level, this should have been a given step towards racial conciliation and Republicans should all follow the lead of Jeb Bush and Mitt Romney on this issue. I applaud South Carolina state representative Norman Brannon for announcing legislation to take it down in his state. The trade-off is that while there would be fewer reasons for liberals to criticize conservatives, conservatives would lose the ability to lash out at liberals after these incidents. But that’s a sacrifice conservatives have to be willing to make.
Matthew Jensen
Matthew Jensen is a freelance writer and activist who lives in Los Angeles, California. Growing up in conservative Christian fundamentalism, he became a student of world religions and eventually broadened his views. He is a fan of silent movies and any books that have been written or copied by hand, from ancient texts to modern comic books.
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