What I really cannot comprehend is how young people

[akbacchus_BC]

feel so much animosity against people of colour. Most young people I meet day to day, colour does not matter. Somehow, this kid had to learn to hate from home, otherwise he would not have done what he did. Imagine you are sitting with people in a church for 45 minutes, listening to them preaching the God's word, and then suddenly decided to shoot them. It does not make sense to me, that kid is seriously unbalanced!

[daleanime]

1. He had to soak it up from some one close....

the only question is who.

[akbacchus_BC]

3. That is what am trying to say. Hate is handed down by parents!

At 21, you want to live life, have fun, not going into a Church and shoot up people whom you do not like or don't even know. When is the culture of discrimation going to end?

[GGJohn]

2. First thing I asked my wife was,

where did this young man learn so much hate towards POC, it had to be at home, but I don't know that for sure.

[akbacchus_BC]

4. Most likely it was at home. Giving a 21 year old

a gun, surely, that is not responsible parenting. Normal people try to give their 21 year old a beat up car so they would not race anyone. Even a car is a weapon these days.

[GGJohn]

5. Can't say I disagree, and from what I've read,

the kid was known to be a substance abuser and the father gives him a gun?
How fucking stupid is that?

[akbacchus_BC]

6. I know, it seems as if the father was encouraging

bad behaviour! That child needed guidance, instead, some parents facilitate bad behaviour.

Everything is so sad, a community has been devastated and the frigging race issue is still up front and center. No one wants to address that we are all humans and we need to live and let live. Obviously, this child, 21 is just a kid in my opinion, learnt that hatred from somewhere.

[GGJohn]

9. I read that the father could receive 10 years in Club Fed for facilitating a straw purchase for his

son.
If he did buy that gun for his son, then he deserves the time to think about what he is equally responsible for.

[akbacchus_BC]

14. I do not know anything about American laws and if it is legal

to purchase a gun for a child who is not responsible enough to handle a gun. Obviously, the father made a fatal mistake, not sure if the dad will be held accountable, depends on the law of that State.

This is so tragic, I do not like guns, cannot imagine even holding one but some Americans love their guns and I have no idea why! It makes me smile when I see border security and Americans coming over well equipped with guns and their ammo into Canada, and they get the boot.

[GGJohn]

16. Actually a straw purchase is a Federal Law which is punishable by 10 years in a Federal Prison,

hence my reference to Club Fed.

[olddots]

7. some really good parents are terrible people

and some terrible parents are really good people ....Where do we go from here ? I want to assume this guys parents are low life swill or his environment was full of ignorant hatred and racism .

Maybe we will never know but we do know that guns in the wrong hands make us wonder who to blame .The logic is in front of us hiding behind our own fear . sorry just my opinion

[akbacchus_BC]

11. I admire your opinion and please do not apologise!

Sheesh, I always use the British English, am from the Caribbean.

Like the saying goes, the apple does not fall far from the tree, in this case, who on earth will give a child a gun on their 21st birthday? Except really idiotic parents. I blame the parents and the killer has to take responsibility for his actions. It was premeditated. Unless he confesses to the authorities, we will never know what his real motives were.

Gosh, walking into a Church, a sacred place, and killing people is a new low. Frigging boggles my mind! Where did that mentality come from? I wish the authorities can find out so they can prevent future killings.

[haele]

23. Lots of fathers give their sons guns on an 18th or 21st birthday as a "now you're a man" token.

We only hear about the ones from dysfunctional families where a depressed child decides to commit suicide with it because s/he's "not good enough", or an angry child decides to use that gun to get back at people s/he just wants to erase from his or her life, or to feed a darkness inside them with the thrill of a primordial hunt.

A couple decades ago, 16 year old Brenda Ann Spencer got a 22 cal. rifle for Christmas from her father to go hunting birds with. She decided one morning that she didn't like Mondays...and the beast inside her was raging to be let out.

And the Boomtown Rats wrote a hit song about what happened next.

Haele

[akbacchus_BC]

26. Really, that is another culture that is mind boggling.

Who gives an irresponsible child a gun at 18 years old? I'd rather give him/her a used beat up car!

[Lurker Deluxe]

42. I actually got my first gun way before that

I was born and raised on a dairy farm in upstate New York, I used to shoot woodchucks from the back porch. Trapped 'coons by the time I was 12. Got my first gun right around 14, breach load 22.

Of coarse I did not have bullets for the gun, my father kept them. When I needed some I asked and he would give me what he thought was reasonable ... most of the time it was to shoot critters, or target practice.

I have no spawn, but imagine if I did they would have their own guns well before 21.

Different places, different cultures, different values.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

52. I also got a gun earlier, like at 12yo.

But I also got lessons in safety, maintenance, marksmanship. It wasn't like "here's a gun, kid, go shoot something".
Boy Scouts have a merit badge in marksmanship.

And, it looks like Mr Roof indeed had a used beat up car, albeit with an offensive front plate.

[Lilith Rising]

44. According to wiki, this is what she said

about the gun - Spencer later said: "I asked for a radio and he bought me a gun." When asked why he might have done that, she answered, "I felt like he wanted me to kill myself."

[nadinbrzezinski]

8. I raised another possibility

the same place kids are getting radicalized these days by ISIS. The World Wide Web.

[GGJohn]

10. Ahhh, that's one I didn't even think of,

but you could very well be right.

[akbacchus_BC]

12. Nadin, how are you? No, he would have gone into a Mosque

not a Church!

[nadinbrzezinski]

13. I spent the afternoon diving into stormfront

take my word...that is still alive and well.

[akbacchus_BC]

15. Nadin, I have never visited stormfront!

Is that a political website?

[GGJohn]

17. It's a RW sewer of a website full of RW hate. eom.

[akbacchus_BC]

20. Glad I never heard of that site before. Amazing

what you learn on DU. I once visited that cave site and almost puked, the lowlives on there is beyond normalcy

[nadinbrzezinski]

21. Some in the cave would find themselves right at home at SF

but for the most part spellonkers are well adjusted compared to these ahem...nuts. They are very dangerous nuts though.

[nadinbrzezinski]

18. Raw neo nazi white supremacist site.

But given what this young man did, well tour de force. Me and hugpffpost spent some quality time with our lovely white supremacists.

Here, link to my analysis of this.

http://reportingsandiego.com/2015/06/18/why-charleston/

I raised the net as one place, but could very well be dad. Still, it's high time we all realize this poison can easily be passed through you tube, for example.

[notadmblnd]

33. the SPLC website and their Hatewatc blog is a wealth of information in regards to hate groups

I recently tripper over a group that calls themselves the 765 Movement that advocates the killing of cops. Yep, they have a page on facebook.

http://www.splcenter.org/blog/2014/07/03/authorities-investigate-group-linked-to-indiana-man-who-threatened-police-judges/

[nadinbrzezinski]

35. I make a point to check the site once a month

we cover some areas of my county where we have some of these folks. I think we have a new sovereign rights group, but have not been able to fully put my finger on it.

We all should be aware just how many hate groups, they come in multiple favors, are around. Some hate each other more than the rest of us...so rooms, doors and keys come to mind in those cases.

[bettyellen]

24. He lives in a deeply racist area- saw it everyday. No logging on needed.

[nadinbrzezinski]

27. Yes, but we all should start

to realize kids do live on the web and radicalization can and does happen on the web, not just in the back roads. It's baffling. We see kids joining ISIS and it is the web, but people ignore the web as at least a source of this tripe.

It makes zero sense.

Perhaps that's because most people do not spend at least some time looking at what is produced and put in you tube or posted on some lovely places.

It used to be mainly books outside the local area, things like Fire Across the Plain or the Turner Diary. We have evolved.

Oh and for my friends who will have this trigger a search...you guys need the first amendment. This is just a discussion.

[bettyellen]

37. I think I'm this case it detracts from how common his attitudes are in his community.

Which is something I think people really need to face up to right now.
It likely started with his family but he was in no way ostracized in his community either. It's important not to forget that.

[nadinbrzezinski]

45. I disagree

the attitudes are common not just in the community and the analog world, but also in certain corners of the web. They feed on each other.

[bettyellen]

46. But being common in his community directly supported him. Would have been the same scenario pre WWW

In his case. He didn't need to go looking for what was in his backyard although in sure if he was computer literate there's a web trail too.

It's insulting to pretend he was some lone wolf who needed to look elsewhere to find support for his racist views- we already know his classmates laughed at his jokes and looked the other way when talking about slaughtering people of color. The bogey men here are his friends and neighbors.

[nadinbrzezinski]

47. First... I did not call him a lone wolf

you did.

He is a terrorist.

2.- Not recognizing the evolution of communication is the problem we have. People used to rely on pamphlets and books. These days they use the web. I got no idea how you think this is denying the environment, because you know what, this is part of the environment.

3.- I guess we can recognize radicalization partly or completely happening for ISIS, but cannot admit the role the web plays these days with white, blonde American young men. At least the Danes were able to connect those dots with Brevik. I guess they are not exceptional. And I guess we are done.

Have an excellent day.

There are multiple reasons why these discussions cannot happen on DU. I keep forgetting that.

[bettyellen]

48. I agree with you - but it is a SECONDARY factor and IGNORES his own backyard....

And lots of people are ignoring today that his attitudes are too fucking common in that part of our country. Too many people making it about their own pet thing. He was not an outlier who needed to look online for support- he had it at home. To deny that is to deny the reality POC live with everyday.
And THAT is something a lot of people don't like to tak about.

[nadinbrzezinski]

49. Once again you are ignoring the web

it is not secondary. It is part of the environment.

We will likely never know how much of his views were formed when, or how they were reinforced. But I bet the web played a far more important role than you are willing to see or acknowledge. Just like oh The Turner Diaries, a book, was formative for McVeigh.

[bettyellen]

50. To say it is secondary to his family and peers is to acknowledge reality.

It's not ignoring it- but you are ignoring the context in which this happened. Not going along with that.

But people get married to their pet theories and deny what is right in front of their faces all the time. Whatever.

[nadinbrzezinski]

55. Have I said they do not matter?

Where?

I am giving them EQUAL weight, because you know what? The WWW is part of the normal world for young people these days.

I am sorry if you cannot understand that, and I am not married to anything. I acknowledge reality. This is the NEW reality we live in.

Do you want some links? I mean Stormfront (where he was NOT a regular as far as I and Huffpost were able to tell), is one of the best known.

Perhaps you want some links to youtube?

[bettyellen]

56. Spare me the condescending bullshit, okay? It's irrelevant if his neighbor handed him a hard copy

Of the Turner Diaries or supplied a link.
He would have the same influences physically surrounding him thirty years ago. He didn't need to go looking further than down the road to find acceptance for his bigotry and hatred.

There's nothing about this that was web enabled, fucks like him are a timeless tradition in South Carolina. The confederate flag flies proudly all overhis home turf- it's not an image on the web. His supporters are neighbors and not faceless posters on the web. We should never minimize that.

[nadinbrzezinski]

57. Spare me your condescencion as well

and I prefer to live in the real world. I guess young WHITE MEN, who engage in INTERNAL TERRORISM, cannot have a thing to do with the WWW, while young WHITE or other MEN (and women) who join ISIS do.

The logic is one of a pretzel.

Either the web plays a role or it does not.

Go ahead and please insert more words into my mouth and change what I said. Have an excellent day. I have a SANDAG report to read.

Oh, that is a government report... on silly shit like infrastructure and growth. That is the GOOD side to the WWW.

[bettyellen]

60. I don't know nothing about no web, tell me more oh wise one!

Yeah, it's just like Isis- and not more like the America of a hundred or two years ago. Whoosh!

[nadinbrzezinski]

63. The America of 200 years ago

Relied on preachers and pamphlets. The America of a generation ago relied on books, TV and film. Modern day America relies on the web. It is not that complicated.

But I guess internal terrorists never, ever will log on. They are stuck on preachers and pamphlets



At this point it is indeed comedic

[bettyellen]

64. He had neighbors looking the other way-validating his actions by ignoring them.

No web required- never has been.
He was living in cars and had a gun given to him by family, not purchased on Amazon. family.

Friends were concerned because he spoke about it- not posted- but not concerned enough to stop looking the other way.

That's what matters most here- not technology, but living and breathing people who heard him talk about it, and did nothing. He lived among people who thought his brand of hatred normal. Sure he could find more of them on the web, but he sure didn't need to. And living on peoples' couches and in cars - and flunking out in ninth grade I'm guessing he's not as connected as most young people. It's doubtful he even owns a laptop, because spending the money on a gun was more important.

[nadinbrzezinski]

66. Go listen to the Intel Chief for the SPLC

speak of this...

She spoke today with John Hackenberry on NPR 

I guess she is also delusional as to the role of the WWW... alas she also mentioned one of the two sites I already mentioned to you and how easy it is to consume this. And you are wrong. the profile fits one of a person who IS EXTREMELY CONNECTED and reading this crap and finding somebody to blame for his present condition.

His language was right out of places like Stormfront and other lovely places like them.

You think that it is one or the other. I am telling you it is BOTH. But what would EXPERTS know as well. They are just cookie liberals.

You are digging your heels, whatever. At this point it is rather comedic, sad but comedic.

(Hint, libraries have computers, among other places)

[bettyellen]

68. Lol, the kid was in the library finding out about racism....

You think he didn't learn and see it all around him?
Can't wait to hear about the drop out desperately looking for racist connections at the library.

[nadinbrzezinski]

69. You think this young man did not

Spend lots of time online? Average is 40 percent for millennials.

Again pesky experts

[zazen]

58. yes!--if 40%? of their communication occurs online, it's very much part of the environment

Social media and web sites are where many tweens, teens and young adults live. It's alarming. I'd think the more isolated types rely on it even more.

Given how much at my age I depend on the DU community for information on a range of issues--more than I do my neighbors--I have no problem seeing how racism can morph into new, equally twisted manifestations in online communities.

Misogyny preceded online hate pornography, but it doesn't make massive global distribution of online pornography of trafficked, raped, and tortured people any less misogynist. Look what the Net has done for MRA types.

This doesn't minimize the history of slavery, lynching, and institutionalized racism in South Carolina. But the expressions evolve.

I agree with you that we ignore these new incarnations of group-exacerbated hate at our peril.

[haele]

19. Inexperanced people tend to feel more intensely than experianced people.

There's still the magical "I'm the center of the world" aura around youth that can work as a reinforcement to their actions, no matter what the outcome will be. It's all about them, and how their acts allow them to fit in with their chosen peer groups.
Once they hit 13, it's typically all about their peers, and no matter how good parents you were, how good an environment they grew up in - all bets are off, and you can only hope they've got enough ethical compass and good habits and enough activities and interests to fill their hours and help them to fall in with a positive enough peer group to be able to make it into adulthood with the least amount of trouble.

Mind you, we don't complain if their interests and need for peer acceptance pushes them to excel in school so they can get the career they want. It's when they can't figure out what to do with their lives, and their need for peer acceptance is influenced by gang members, nihilists, racists, or dominionists that we cry "What went wrong?" and start talking about mental illness or poor family dynamics, or other moral failings. When for the most part, it's youthful stubborn pride and a set of nasty-minded negative peers they want to impress.

If you've raised teenagers, you will find if they want to do something badly enough, they can easily put on an act and put up with all sorts of events they would normally complain about just to lull you into enough complacency that they think is needed to be able to get away with what they want to do.

If he had already made up his mind to terrorize and kill, the natural selfishness of immaturity paired with the belief in his purpose could easily filter out any potential sympathy for his victims. It would be no worse to him than sitting up in a deer stand, watching a herd at distance, and waiting for his target(s) to come into range so he could make a clean kill.

He believes with the intensity of youth. He didn't have to be schizophrenic, or paranoid, or have some sort of personality disorder. He knew what he was doing and he had a reason to do it, whether or not we as a civil society believe it is a good reason or not.

He believes he is a freedom fighter, even though he is a terrorist.

Haele

[akbacchus_BC]

22. Thank you Haele, your post was very enlightening.

I feel sorry for the way some young people think but my deepest sorrow is for the victims and their families.

African Americans do not deserve this kind of racist attack, especially in a Church. As a matter of fact, no where, what is wrong with some people children? That kind of hate had to be fostered at home but there are no laws to make parents accountable for passing on hatred to their children. Now, at 21, he will languish in prison for the rest of his life at the mercies of veteran prisoners. Sad all round but my empathy are with the victims and their families.

[haele]

30. I agree, no one deserves that sort of attack at all.

While it can be an explanation for why someone did something so hatefully wasteful, youthful pride and strong feelings are never an excuse to inflict pain and suffering on others.

I weep for the victims, and am disgusted at the utter wasteful stupidity in people who stubbornly take pride in as they not only ruin their victim's lives and their own family's lives, they ruin their own by being a tool for their own fearful lizard brains.

Believe me, there's a whole lot of panic and fear behind a bias prejudice based hate. Very rarely is there ever anything that is actually a tangible reason; just a lot of inchoate fear feeding on itself and creating boogie-stereotypes to blame it on.

Haele

[akbacchus_BC]

36. Haele, we all are grieving as I respond to you. This killing is so inhumane, you

begin to wonder what monsters live around us. I have never seen the racism before President Obama got elected, all hell broke lose. They called him names in the Senate and disrupted his speech.

I cannot even believe that the police are killing young black boys for no reason.

In Canada, they think immigrants are stupid, the Canadians have a subtle form of racism, which is more despicable as they think we are stupid not to know better.

[merrily]

25. Not necessarily at home, but home is a good bet.

On the other hand, part of the job of teen maturation is to differentiate self from parents. Sometimes, that takes the form of rebelling against what parents teach.

[akbacchus_BC]

28. I agree with your summation. That is why you need to go to parent teachers meetings!

Find out if your child is adjusting. However, this is a white born American. Do not know what went wrong and why he had so much hate. It is not normal in a 21 year old white child to harbor such hatred!

[merrily]

29. Harboring hatred and acting on hatred with deadly force are two very different things.

Both are bad, obviously, but only one is a felony and leads to fatalities.

Obviously, there are many who hate but don't kill.


Is hate normal? Dunno. Hating one racial, ethnic, religious, etc. group or another sure is common, though. It probably started pre-history. Our bodies evolved. Our hearts and minds still have a way to go.

[akbacchus_BC]

32. Some people hate and do not react, some do with deadly intentions!

As we are seeing at the Church in NC. Thing is, I hate that woman with her crocs tears, Nikki Haley, she should not be on TV on behalf of the victims. She is a hypocrite. It is an insult to the victims and their families to show racist haley's crocodile's tears.

[Tarheel_Dem]

31. We have to stop calling these priveleged young white assholes "unbalanced" for a start. They don't

get to claim crazy because they got caught. He should be treated just like the Boston bomber, and I could give less than a shit about his "state of mind". I get so sick of hearing how they're "troubled", and the rest of us are "thugs". Screw him, and his effed up family.

[akbacchus_BC]

34. I know and thank you. As a POC, I have to be careful what I post.

The Whites get to claim insanity. That guy premeditated to go into a Black church and espouse his hatred towards Blacks. And you ask yourself, why all this latent animosity surfaced. It all surfaced when President Obama got elected. These fuckers undermined him every which way, including some democracts. And the racists were encouraged by the rethugs and hence this shit of going into a fucking church and killing black people. Please pardon my french but am really pissed at this brutality!

[Rex]

38. Racists are usually unbalanced people to begin with.

How do you hate people you've never met before? So much, that you can decide to kill them on the spot in cold blood?

[Brickbat]

39. It's a big country.

[B2G]

40. Same way some kids join ISIS.

Somewhere along the way, this kid was indoctrinated to hate.

Whether that was at home, at school, or he sought it out for himself is unknown right now. Hopefully they'll find out and be able to provide some answers.

[etherealtruth]

41. Unfortunately true

The message of hate often resonates with those that feel disenfranchised (not an excuse by any stretch). Hundreds (thousands) of people received the same message and were un affected by it, yet this young man embraced the messages of hate and acted on these messages in the most abominable way.

Though I am inclined to believe the messages began at home, it may not be so.

[gollygee]

43. Interesting article I saw last night

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2015/06/18/charleston-racism-and-the-myth-of-tolerant-millennials/

Roof, who was born in 1994, violently shatters one particularly entrenched myth that society holds about racism — that today’s millennials are more tolerant than their parents, and that racism will magically die out as previous generations pass on. We think that millennials should be lauded for aspiring to be “colorblind.” There is the belief that tolerant young people will intermarry and create a post-racial, brown society and that it will be “beautiful.”

But the truth is that the kids are not all right when it comes to racial equality. Studies have shown that millennials are just about as racist as previous generations:

(snip)

As Jamelle Bouie at Slate noted:

Millennials have grown up in a world where we talk about race without racism — or don’t talk about it at all — and where “skin color” is the explanation for racial inequality, as if ghettos are ghettos because they are black, and not because they were created. As such, their views on racism — where you fight bias by denying it matters to outcomes — are muddled and confused.

Which gets to the irony of this survey: A generation that hates racism but chooses colorblindness is a generation that, through its neglect, comes to perpetuate it.

[Arugula Latte]

51. It might be he learned it at home, but

there are cases where the parents do everything right, are tolerant, non-hateful people, and they have a kid who becomes violent, racist, and hate-filled. We all probably know larger families where most of the kids grow up to be fine people, but there's one that gets involved in crime or just goes down a terrible path. They all had the same environment growing up. Sometimes more complicated dynamics are at play.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

53. What's the guy's background?

With the patches on his jacket, and his name, was he from South Africa or "Rhodesia"? Or, were his parents? They were not havens of tolerance in the past. I wonder if he has a bit of the "old-style Boer" in his upbringing.

[One_Life_To_Give]

54. Or pent up Rage looking for an acceptable target

My own speculation is the Pent Up Rage is looking for an acceptable target to release upon. In one case it can be people of color in anther it can be opponents of ISIS. Don't know that there is much difference between this kid and some of the ones in Raqqa.

[Jamastiene]

59. An hour.

I have read it was an hour, not 45 minutes. Either way, this guy is a racist hatemonger asshole who murdered 9 people in cold blood. That he could sit there for an hour or even 45 minutes with them and still shoot them after admitting he almost didn't do it because they were so nice to him shows what kind of murdering hatemonger he really is.

[Nevernose]

61. It's my understanding that he didn't "suddenly decide"

He went there with the premeditated plan to shoot them. He just wanted to get to know them first before he killed them.

[hifiguy]

62. Simple. Tribal hatreds passed down

from generation to generation. The Shi'a and Sunnis, for example, have been doing that for a thousand years and you can't tell one from the other by looking at them.

Humans are 4/5 idiot and 1/5 genius. That's why Einsteins and Mozarts are so rare.

[McCamy Taylor]

65. He hates himself and is filled with fear. Then, he is told "Kill this person and you will be safe."

It worked in Nazi Germany. The fascists who run this country figure it will work here. The only problem is that too many Americans are not afraid. But with the proliferation of guns, the minority can make themselves heard--and scare the rest of us. Terrorism American style.

[muriel_volestrangler]

67. Or he knew other racist adults, like the teacher who called for segregation

after the MicKinney pool party incident: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/texas-elementary-school-teacher-fired-for-facebook-post-about-racial-segregation-after-mckinney-pool-party-10316959.html

I thought I'd check the response to that on Discussionist; I found it dismissed as just a "not PC" opinion; "what she says is true - truth hurts sometimes"; and a complaint that "the rules of political correctness have made actual discussion essentially impossible". Whether those people would say those things if they couldn't hide behind internet anonymity, I don't know; but a significant part of the population still holds racist views.