RED AND BLUE TOGETHER: What’s in a word?

MONDAY, JUNE 23, 2015

Part 1—Letting the glory out:
Should Dylann Roof be described as a “terrorist?”

In less than a week, it has become conventional wisdom, within our blue tribe, that he should be so described.

For ourselves, we’re disinclined to agree. But then, we keep puzzling about the best way to “let the glory out.”

The fuller phrase comes from Edwin Markham. In the fuller phrase, we’re seeking the best way to “shake the soul and let the glory out.”

We’ll discuss the line as the week proceeds. As we start, let’s consider the level of reasoning we liberals are now willing to accept as we seek to move our great vision forward.

Should Roof be described as a terrorist? Without attempting to judge that question, consider a piece which appeared on the front page of the Outlook section in Sunday’s Washington Post.

The piece was written by Professor Butler, an associate professor at Penn. A slightly different version of the piece had appeared on line several days earlier, in the immediate aftermath of Wednesday night’s murders in Charleston.

To what standards should liberals and progressives hold journalists, news orgs and professors? We’ll start by stating a value judgment—we should hold these opinion leaders to standards which are high.

Alas! Increasingly, the liberal world seems eager to accept the academic and journalistic standards long associated with people like Rush and Sean. Apparently, the same is true of the Washington Post.

In Sunday’s hard-copy Outlook section, the professor’s piece started like this. Hard-copy headline included:
BUTLER (6/21/15): Is an accused killer called a terrorist? Not if he’s white.

Police are investigating the fatal shooting of nine African Americans at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, S.C., as a hate crime committed by a white man. Unfortunately, it’s not a unique event in American history.
Black churches have long been targets of white supremacists who burned and bombed them in an effort to terrorize the black communities those churches anchored. One of the most egregious terrorist acts in U.S. history was committed against a black church in Birmingham, Ala., in 1963. Four girls were killed when members of the Ku Klux Klan bombed the 16th Street Baptist Church, a tragedy that ignited the civil rights movement.

But listen to major media outlets, and you won’t hear the word “terrorism” used in coverage of Wednesday’s shooting. You haven’t heard the white, male suspect, 21-year-old Dylann Roof, described as “a possible terrorist” by mainstream news organizations (though some, including The Washington Post, have covered the growing debate about this discrepancy). And if coverage of other recent shootings by white men is any indication, he never will be. Instead, the go-to explanation for his alleged actions will be mental illness. He will be humanized and called sick, a victim of mistreatment or inadequate mental health resources.

That narrative has formed quickly for Roof. Soon after his arrest Thursday, former FBI special agent Jonathan Gilliam appeared on CNN, saying that Roof probably “has some mental issues” and didn’t know he had done anything wrong. That is the power of whiteness in America.
Tell the truth! As of Sunday morning, had you seen a lot of people trying to “humanize” Roof?

For ourselves, we had not. That said, questions will almost surely arise about possible mental illness with Roof. In part, that will happen because it’s obviously possible that Roof may be mentally ill.

For ourselves, we haven’t seen a lot of attempts to “humanize” Roof. That said, we’re so old that we can remember when “mass murderer” was a term of disapprobation, with the notion that the killer had conducted a “hate crime” adding to the criticism.

That said, many liberals are saying that Roof should also be described as a “terrorist.” When Professor Butler voiced her complaint about the way he’s being described, she specifically noted that statement by Jonathan Gilliam, which she said reflected “the power of whiteness in America.”

We doubted that CNN had been working real hard to “humanize” Roof. We decided to take the traditional look at the record.

Jonathan Gilliam did say the words Professor Butler has quoted. He said them in the 2 PM hour on Thursday, June 18, the day after Roof committed his murders.

It isn’t entirely clear what Gilliam meant by his comment, which we’ll show you below. That said, we can’t say that the power of whiteness was performing any great favors for Roof this day, at least not on CNN.

Roof had been apprehended roughly three hours earlier. Gilliam was brought on midway through the hour to discuss the interrogation which was likely occurring.

Very little was known about Roof at this juncture. Was CNN trying to humanize Roof?

Not exactly. At the start of the hour, Martin Savidge and host John Berman engaged in this exchange:
BERMAN (6/18/15): And to be clear, what authorities tell us is that this suspect went into this church, he said he wanted to kill black people. That is what we were being told. He apparently also kept someone alive, we are told, because he wanted that witness to tell the world what had happened. It gives you a sense of just how diabolical they believe this suspect is.

SAVIDGE: That is—I mean that's—

When I read that, you, you literally do feel a sense of chill, of someone that would be cold and calculating and would make that kind of a statement and do that kind of an act. Which also, again, leads to why the authorities were so concerned what he might do next.
According to Berman, Roof was believed to be “diabolical.” According to Savidge, Roof’s actions had been so “cold and calculating” that he “literally felt a sense of chill” when he heard them described.

After speaking with Savidge, Berman introduced the Reverend Thomas Dixon, a Charleston minister. Even as the names of the victims began to emerge, Dixon described the killings by Roof as an “atrocity.”

He and Berman ended on this note:
DIXON: Was he alone in this? Do you think that there might have been another ulterior motive involved in this? That’s one of the prominent questions that’s being raised right now for myself. And all last night, it was the question of the hate crime.

I really—I couldn’t, I couldn’t address that issue until I had more facts. Now the facts that have come out today about his motives clearly says that this was all about hate of black people.

BERMAN: Reverend Thomas Dixon, thanks so much for being with us. Sometimes, you know, there’s no answer. Sometimes there’s just evil.

DIXON: Exactly. Thank you.

BERMAN: Reverend, appreciate it.

DIXON: Really appreciate you.
To diabolical, cold and calculating, we could now add “just evil.”

In his next segment, Berman introduced Bernice King, the daughter of Dr. King and CEO of the King Center. She sent her condolences “to all of the families that have been impacted by this horrific act.” She further said, “I really think this is a time that we have to begin to do serious examination in this nation to look at, you know, the issues of racism and hate and violence and what we may have—what we may be doing to create a culture of violence in this nation.”

Watching this program, Professor Butler somehow got it into her head that Roof was being “humanized” thanks to “the power of whiteness.” Or maybe she just decided to say that because it fit a script.

None of this speaks to the question with which we began, of course.

Should Dylann Roof be described as a “terrorist?” We wouldn’t be inclined to describe him that way, although there’s a lot of information about his influences which ought to be shared with the public, preferably in ways which will encourage people to listen.

For ourselves, we wouldn’t be inclined to describe him that way. But then, we’re actively looking for the best way to let the glory out.

We’ve seen some things in the past few days that we’ve very much liked. Yesterday, we saw so-called black and white (and brown) together—but we also saw red and blue together, which strikes us as a potentially glorious sight.

Here’s the question we’ll ask this week—what’s the best route to progress? Adopting the intellectual standards of Rush and Sean strikes us as a bad idea.

By the way, just so you’ll know, Roof had been “humanized” earlier that day on CNN, during the 10 AM hour.

Roof’s name had just been released. Carol Costello spoke with Michaela Angela Davis, who repeatedly characterized him as a terrorist:
COSTELLO (6/18/15): I want to bring in writer and cultural critic Michaela Angela Davis. Thanks so much for being with me. You know, we always try to make sense of these things but this one just—

DAVIS: Carol, really, unfortunately, we’ve seen this historically. This isn’t something that we cannot fathom. You know, if people who follow American history can fathom it—we don't like to, but there is a trajectory of historic, domestic terrorism. He’s a terrorist, taking photos, putting himself up with the Rhodesian flag which to South Africans is the same as, you know, the Confederate flag to us. It triggers—

COSTELLO: And you can see those pictures of him that are on Twitter right now. CNN has not confirmed that but he does apparently have these patches of these flags.

DAVIS: Yes. And it’s not a selfie. It is a portrait that was on Facebook that clearly show some symbolism that also signifies that he's connected with supremist ideology.

COSTELLO: So he goes into this church. People are praying.

DAVIS: He prays with them.

COSTELLO: He prays with them. He’s there for an hour, and then he stands up and says "I want to shoot black people?" It’s just—

DAVIS: You know, unfortunately, this helps to legitimize when people are saying—this is a civil rights moment. We are being under attack. We have not healed as a country. We have not resolved our brutal history. This is it. This is what this looks like. This is what real hate crimes are. This is what real terrorism is.

This is what our parents— I talked to my mother this morning, she was speechless. They listen to (INAUDIBLE). This is it. This is the life. This is the life that many Americans, black and white, live. It's terrorism. And he is a terrorist. And this is a massacre.

COSTELLO: So police are still looking for him now. They came out, the mayor of Charleston also came out and expressed his disgust for this individual and said they were going to hunt him down and, you know, charge him with the most serious offenses and do everything they can. Are the authorities handling this properly?

DAVIS: You know, the optics are very different. You know, this terrorist killed more people than the Boston bombing, right? We know what those streets looked like. We knew what the streets of Ferguson looked like with tanks and people in riot gear. And so this is not lost to, you know, folks that are following this, the difference and the optics.

I don’t want to see tanks on anybody’s streets but are we clear that it’s on lockdown? Are we clear that our children are being protected? Are we clear that there’s a terrorist on the loose?

This kind of languaging and framing of what is happening here can look different than how, say, again Boston, which we all know was terrorist and a massacre was framed.
So there’s a lot of optics, a lot of history, there’s a lot of triggers, particularly this church and particularly this leader.

Was it an assassination? Because it seems very strategic, very calculated, very clear goals from this terrorist.
Davis went on at length, as was perfectly reasonable. She continued to humanize Roof by describing his “gruesome” acts.

By Sunday morning, a Penn professor and the Washington Post were telling you that this conversation didn’t occur. That CNN had actually been trying to humanize poor little Roof.

Our best guess? This probably isn’t a winning way to let the glory out.

This is how Sean and Rush have worked. Do we want to follow them there?

Tomorrow: What James Clyburn said

Gilliam’s fuller statement: During CNN’s 2 o’clock hour, Roof was described as “diabolical.” He was so “cold and calculating” that he literally gave Savidge a chill.

Roof was “just evil,” Berman said. The Reverend Dixon agreed.

Roof had been humanized in these ways before Gilliam was interviewed by CNN’s Ana Cabrera. This is the Q-and-A from which Professor Butler cherry-picked the “evidence” which drove her masterful scholarly theme:
CABRERA (6/18/15): Joining me now to discuss this investigation moving forward...former FBI special agent Jonathan Gilliam.

Jonathan, I want to start with you, because we just heard the police chief talk about what’s going to be an interrogation process that’s about to play out. Walk us through what that might be like.

GILLIAM: So it’s important to understand what interrogation is versus interviewing. When I interview you, I’m trying to collect some information. I’m not changing the environment that you’re in at all. When we take you in and we interrogate you, we are putting you in a sterile environment and we’re trying to create an environment that we can handle and we can manipulate.

And so what’s going on with this individual now is that you have multiple officers in and around him coming in and out of the room or talking to him and handling him and trying to, you know, really, you’d be very surprised, put him at ease so that he feels comfortable to talk to you. It’s not like in the movies, necessarily, where you have the good cop/bad cop. This is something really where you have to build a trust between you and this individual who has done a heinous thing, but you have to build a trust, if possible, so that you can get the information that you need. And you also need to make them aware of what they’ve done, especially somebody who probably, in this case, has some mental issues, if you can, convince them of what they’ve done wrong so that they’ll—the guilt side will eventually come out and they’ll confess.
The professor cherry-picked that “evidence” to pimp her script along.

The Washington Post chose to publish her piece in a high-profile spot. We’ve seen Rush and Sean perform that same way for a good many years.

Just for the record, Gilliam had described Roof in yet another way during CNN’s 10 A.M. hour. Even before Davis came on, he described him as a specific type of “terrorist.”

We’re just saying! You can just click here.

39 comments:

  1. Of course Roof is a terrorist, a racist, a mass murderer and a Millennial. Roof may have shingles as well for all we know.

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    1. A comb-over and back scrub of cicero:

      "That said, Roof seems to be characterized as a terrorist, a racist, a mass murderer and a Millennial. Roof may have shingles. We don't know."

      This is how Bob "has worked/performs." As a progressive I will hold you commenters to "journalistic standards long associated" with Bob.

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  2. This was a good piece written by Ex-Teacher Somerby, an elementary and middle school teacher in BCPSS long ago.

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  3. There has been crude indifference on the right to the obvious racial overtones of the case; and ugly attempts to milk the politics for all they are worth on the left (throw a rock at Salon and you'll hit one). The Daily Howler will spend about 95 per cent of his energy scolding the left.
    Yawn.

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  4. Roof is a racist terrorist murderer. He was inspired to kill in response to the left pimping the Trayvon Martin case. This caused him to become "racially aware" as he puts it, and seek out data informing him of where his own race stands in society and in matters of victimization.

    He looked up black on white crime and decided there was increasing social injustice against his own group, because he found the rationale wanting, namely that the current disproportionate violence committed against his group was excusable because of events that happened centuries ago.

    The left's approach to racism is the root cause of the murders. Before, the biggest consequence of the left's social irresponsibility was a generation of black kids being disabused by social justice warriors of their perception of improved race relations, expressed up to and after the election of Obama, even though facts on the ground did not change.

    The white elite left wasn't having contented blacks. Bad for business and bad for their favorite pastime, indulgence of emotion, in this case "empathy" for victims. No such indulgence is possible when real victims are in short supply, so they must be invented. The murder of nine innocent people is the fruit of the left's self-indulgence of the past few years "on behalf" of black people.

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    1. I remain unconvinced that the 9th grade dropout Roof wrote what is widely being discussed as his "manifesto." But I see remarkably similar work showing up in other forums with increasing regularity.

      Somerby's comment box is a popular place to post the "Trayvon/left is responsible" theory of racist violence. Perhaps it is because this comment box is unmoderated. Maybe it is because Somerby often uses the word "pimp" and thus such commenters are attracted here by Google search.

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    2. Many would like such a theory off the discussion table. Censored in a comment box. Normally if a theory is ridiculous, the more exposure the better. It is when there is resonance that interested parties become nervous.

      The "Trayvon/left is responsible" theory of increased racial hostility is legitimate. Playing ostrich never helps. The left doesn't care because its self-indulgence is more important than avoiding the creation of a miserable outlook within black people who would have viewed their condition more favorably and optimistically but for the race pimping left.

      White people who never had any comparative privilege are demanded to check their privilege, and to outright sanction crime by a group because of skin color. The left tried to imprison a person who acted in self-defense because they didn't like the thoughts they imagined he might have been thinking. They tried to convince the public that Michael Brown was a gentle giant and not a social menace but unfortunately video showing who he was undermined the phony cause. The left has caused more people to think in racial terms but unfortunately, that also inspires white people to do the same and that doesn't bode well, since no one with an ounce of intelligence believes that slavery still excuses violent crime. Those excuses are met with even more hostility when a group begins to believe its progeny to be threatened by that social trajectory. The perverted kind of "racial awareness" promoted by the left is disastrous for everyone except those who it enriches or fulfills emotionally. It can only be taken to a certain level of absurdity before people begin to notice.

      Root's manifesto is more coherent and grammatically correct than one would expect from a dropout or even a public high school graduate, but it's not improbable that an intelligent 9th grader tending toward reading and research could pull it off.

      Everyone who understood that George Zimmerman and Officer Wilson broke no laws is sympathetic toward the victims of Root's racist murders. The left makes no distinctions between guilt or innocence and is not only not credible on questions of race but plagues and dooms society where race is concerned.

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    3. Roof himself said he did what he did and picked his target so mercilessly precisely because he wanted to inflame a war between races. So the left responds by seeing how many whites they can accuse of being equally bad and moving to ban the display and sale of confederate flags. Whose objective does this serve?

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    4. Poor white folks are being required to check their privilege and denied their god given right to proceed to the on-line Walmart check out page with a confederate flag decal to put on their birthday Glock.

      It is enough to inspire any intelligent 9th grader.

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    5. Yes, the GOP Southern Strategy is far worse than the symbol of treason and white supremacy on display all over the South.

      Multi-tasker that I am, I condemn both.

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    6. Everyone knows racism still exists. I'm with the Democrats on Affirmative Action but less likely to stick with them as a voter, one reason being because they are so thoroughly off the deep end on race in general, and on so much more. Their advocates and leaders are embarrassing.

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    7. "... so thoroughly off the deep end on race..."

      I believe this means they think race is an issue in this country.
      BTW, remember when "sun spots" caught on with the public as the reason for the 2008 economic crash?
      Oops, not "sun spots". I meant the just as ridiculous blaming of the CRA, of all things. I often wonder why the CRA caught on as the scapegoat, in this day and age of no racism.

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    8. 2:03 PM,
      So who do you stick with as a voter?

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    9. Nice try to attempt to claim everyone does not recognize that race is "an issue in this country." It's easier than arguing against exploiting lies as support for convincing people of a level of racism that doesn't exist, or that exploitation of race does not gratify a certain element, either financially or emotionally, at a cost to race relations.

      The left has become the proverbial crazy college girlfriend or boyfriend. They obsess about imagined wrongs because it gratifies, and have no interest in practical measures that move human relations forward which include at some point "acting as if" as a necessary means by which negative conditions change. Those improved relations resulting from changing attitudes were underway until the bored left decided that wouldn't do. Browbeating and scolding is the MO because nothing is really about improving relations, but emotional indulgence. The left is crazy right now and like Lena Dunham's and Rolling Stone's rape tales and MSNBC's race tales, invents lie-based narratives in order to nurture a problem that doesn't exist without them, so that they can feel victimized or like self-righteous justice warriors. While stopping all progress in its tracks.

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    10. "The left has become the proverbial crazy college girlfriend or boyfriend. They obsess about imagined wrongs ..."

      This.
      If, for example, you take notice of how the police treated Eric Garner for selling loose cigarettes versus how they treated Dylann Roof, after he murdered 9 people, you're just a hysterical broad like 2:58 PM's college girlfriend.
      Exactly alike.
      Well, except for (I assume) having better taste in partners as a young adult.

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    11. Yes, that is a good example of a hysterical and invalid comparison. People who resist arrest ALWAYS get a beat down. This is universal across the globe.

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    12. Eric Garner died because he was fat. However, the rough treatment by police was a contributing factor. Was there racism behind the tactic and a white fat man would not have been viewed as equally arrest worthy? Unknown and unproven.

      What no one would doubt is whether the white man out west escaping on horseback who was brutally beaten would have drawn more attention from the usual suspects if he had been black. It would be claimed it happened because he was black, and it would be false, as were the claims in the highest-profile incidents involving blacks and police in recent years.

      What is also known is that there is no evidence to support the left's hysteria around an "epidemic" of police brutality against blacks. None.

      What will black people tell their young sons? They should tell them to do what police tell you to do, that there is no evidence of disproportionate police violence against blacks, and that race relations were better than ever before liberals decided to help.

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    13. " I'm with the Democrats on Affirmative Action but less likely to stick with them as a voter..."

      Good news. If you are a minority in a Southern state, the GOP can help you not vote for a Democrat.

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    14. Anon 12:46 & 2:58, (I assume the same anons), I agree that vast outpourings from the left attributing so many things to 'racism' without as far as I can see proving that racism was operative is discouraging. That's not to say that your off the wall theory that this is to blame for Ruff's mass murder has any validity. One illustration of your apparent inability to apply reason is your claim that "the left tried to imprison a person who acted in self-defense . . ." Z was found by the jury to be not guilty. The standard of proof is guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. That there was reasonable doubt that he was guilty does not mean that he was not guilty. I'm pretty sure you weren't there, so you don't know, yet here you are blathering away with complete certainty when you don't know what you are talking about. (this being but one example of this).

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  5. "Tell the truth! As of Sunday morning, had you seen a lot of people trying to “humanize” Roof?

    For ourselves, we had not."

    No. But is your self reference to what you had seen or what you had written? It seems fuzzy to us.

    Presumably you were referencing your own work, as you all too often do, trying to remind readers how long you have been waging the lonely battle. How long you have been on the right side. Selling yourself as a sane voice in the wilderness of irrationality.

    You characterized Roof as a lost soul. Sub-human. You compared him to another sub-human. Donald Trump.

    After that you quickly turned your post into an attack on Rachel Maddow for the way she had covered Donald Trump, a post which reads very much like the work of Anthea Butler published in the Washington Post.

    Want the names of some other life forms you have labeled sub-human?

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  6. @ Greg,

    How is conservative Governor Nikki Haley insensitive to the "racial overtones" of Root's actions?

    "The murderer now locked up in Charleston said he hoped his actions would start a race war. We have an opportunity to show that not only was he wrong, but that just the opposite is happening." Governor Haley June 22, 2015

    Mitt Romney tweet:

    “Take down the #ConfederateFlag at the SC Capitol. To many, it is a symbol of racial hatred. Remove it now to honor #Charleston victims.”

    FNC "The Five" all calling Roof a racist and terrorist.

    "Apparently he is a longtime racist wearing anti-black patches on his clothing" Howler's favorite "conservative" Bill O'Reilly June 18, 2015

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    1. Liberals reduced the tragedy to an opportunity to focus on a stupid flag even before the bodies are buried but discretion and reverence have never been strong suits of the Lena Dunham left.

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    2. We liberals are still lazy, dumb, and of dubious morals. But thank God we had Lena Dunham to wake us from our slumber and lead us from the woods.

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    3. 1;21 PM,
      Ahhh, making political hay out of tragedy. That's the Left for you.
      OTOH, who can forget GWB standing on the rubble at ground zero, asking for 3 or 4 years before rushing to judgement?

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    4. I haven't forgiven the liberal left for forcing children to have to give up their Casper costumes on Halloween.

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    5. @1:52, we're at a point where that would surprise no one. Never mind that Casper's journey was dealing with a condition of existing in a world of prejudice, although his conduct changed their minds. He even was shot by a police officer who wrongly judged him.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sW6I1QK8xHU

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    6. Fox News is doing exactly what I said, so is Paul and most of the Monkey House.

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    7. @ Greg,

      FNC is doing the exact opposite of what you claimed. Have you considered actually watching FNC rather than post Media Matters talking points.

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  7. The cherry picking professor problem. Will it never end?

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  8. [Another Prof Butler, not Althea Butler of Penn.]
    On Yesterday’s Diane Rhem show, Paul Butler, professor of law at the Georgetown University, made this statement:
    BUTLER
    "And so when we look at other terrorist charges, the Boston Marathon Bomber was charged with terrorism. The definition of domestic terrorism is committing a crime with the intent to intimidate or coerce a civilian population. That's what this man did. And you know what? It worked. When you go to church -- when I went to a church yesterday, an African American church, you're looking around. You know, normally, churches are so welcome. I went to an AME church when I was in law school. They're so welcoming of visitors. And that man has destroyed part of that forever. That's what he tried to do. That's terrorism."

    When I heard this my first thought was, how does he know that was Roof's intent?
    I didn’t hear any one ask that, or a clarification from the professor.

    According to a post by Dylann Roof on the website The Rhodesian, he expressed deep hostility toward Blacks.
    Survivors to the shooting say that Roof made racial comments during the attack. He has also reportedly told investigators that his goal was to spark a race war.

    Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2015/06/20/dylann-roof-posted-racist-manifesto-and-dozens-of-pictures-to-his-website/#ixzz3duD7zHt8

    I won’t argue with the prof’s definition of terrorism, but I challenge his conclusion.
    Was Roof’s intent to intimidate Black churches from welcoming whites? Butler does not support this with evidence. He could hardly have produced any evidence in so short a time, so he is merely expression his opinion.

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  9. Let the Glory Out!

    Anthea Butler is working on a book about Sarah Palin.

    Anyone want to bet it is finished before that last touches are put on Chapter 7 of "How He Got There."?

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  10. This heinous murder deserves all the attention it's getting. But, when black people commit mass shootings of other blacks, I think that sort of act should receive national attention. Incredibly, there were TWO such attacks in Philadelphia in the last week. Granted the number of deaths in these two attacks is smaller than the number killed by Dylan Roof. Still, IMHO the black shooters in Philadelphia were just as evil as Roof and are just as deserving of national opprobrium.

    My point, which I've argued before, is to deplore the fact that there's much less public attention when blacks kill other blacks than when whites kill blacks.

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    1. You could be referring to Omar Thornton, who targeted and killed 8 white coworkers on the basis of race in 2010. But maybe not because this type of "reverse-racism" (which we are told is an invalid descriptor) doesn't make good copy in the media and thus no one has ever heard about it.

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  11. Conservatives use the Southern Strategy because it works.
    I'll let the conservatives here explain why without bringing up the inherent racism.

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  12. This is where this country has truly gone off the deep end. Rather than come together to mourn the loss of innocent lives or have a reasoned, factually based discussion over what happened and why...the arguement becomes about should we call roof a terrorist or not, and who is or is not calling him this. then both sides pick up their swords and fight each other over this point. honestly, who gives a flying f*ck what you call him. call him the king of siam for all i care. it doesn't change what he did or why he did it...what you call him is entirely irrelevant.

    i know a lot of people harp on bob for repeating himself, but this is another of his long running complaints, that talking heads in the media pick up on innane parts of the story and run with it to perpetuate a shirts vs skins, sharks vs jets mentality.

    it's just dumb.

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    1. I'll call him a modern conservative.
      Because, you know the old saying, "If the shoe fits..."

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    2. i am going to call him the tooth fairy...you aren't going to call him the tooth fairy, let's fight!!!

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    3. conservatives i know don't condone shooting up churches...

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