Many Ask, Why Not Call Church Shooting Terrorism?

[Toyin Falola]

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/06/19/us/charleston-shooting-terrorism-or-hate-crime.html

Many Ask, Why Not Call Church Shooting Terrorism?

By RICK GLADSTONE

June 18, 2015

The massacre of nine African-Americans in Charleston has been classified as a possible hate crime, apparently carried out by a 21-year-old white man who once wore an apartheid badge and other symbols of white supremacy. But many civil rights advocates are asking why the attack has not officially been called terrorism.

Against the backdrop of rising worries about violent Muslim extremism in the United States, advocates see hypocrisy in the way the attack and the man under arrest in the shooting have been described by law enforcement officials and the news media.

Assaults like the Boston Marathon bombing in 2013 and the attack on an anti-Islamic gathering in Garland, Tex., last month have been widely portrayed as acts of terrorism carried out by Islamic extremists. Critics say, however, that assaults against African-Americans and Muslim Americans are rarely if ever called terrorism.

Moreover, they argue, assailants who are white are far less likely to be described by the authorities as terrorists.

• 
  
• The New York Times Company

[Dhikru Yagboyaju]

That has always been the problem.

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[kenneth harrow]

to call this an act of terrorism is not to acknowledge more truthfully its import, but to buy into the increasingly ubiquitous rhetoric of "terrorism," a term used everywhere to signify an enemy of a regime. it is a heinous crime, a mass murder by a white supremicist bigot who deserves to be punished to the limit. we could go on forever saying how awful his act was, how horrible that nutcases like him can get killing machines to kill as many innocent people as possible, and we'd never really end it.
time to mourn now, and to direct our anger at those whose verbiage helps make these acts seem possible, and who political policies make it easier for crazy people to kill innocent victims. i agree with obama; something should be done to curb the easy access to guns in this country, and more needs to be done to marginalize white supremicists and their rhetoric.
ken

-- 
kenneth w. harrow 
faculty excellence advocate
professor of english
michigan state university
department of english
619 red cedar road
room C-614 wells hall
east lansing, mi 48824
ph. 517 803 8839
har...@msu.edu

[Segun Ogungbemi]

It is not calling the shooting terrorism that matters in my opinion. What needs to be done is compel the hate group to put down their guns. 

The easy access to gun in the US is the cause of the senseless killings which Obama administration finds difficult to control. 

A time is coming when majority of Americans will say they have had enough of the law that permits easy access to gun. 
Prof. Segun Ogungbemi

[kenneth harrow]

agreed. it seems, from the killing of children in connecticut to this massacre of black churchgoers, there is no limit to what people in this country will accept in order to keep their guns. there is nothing natural about this; it wasn't the case when i was a kid. the nra shares, with others who continually pump insane statements into the debate over gun rights, responsibility for these killings. what do we call an industry that refuses to acknowledge its responsibility? or people who won't recognize the connection between their "right" to own a gun, any kind of gun, and these acts that are facilitated by the easy access to any kind of gun?
it is a kind of national insanity.
ken

[Mensah, Edward K]

Ken

Stop dancing around the word terrorism. No, this is not a national insanity.  This is an act of terrorism, in its purest form. This kid has succeeded in creating a condition where the next white youth who walks by a church and dressed in thick clothes puts extreme fear in the hearts of the congregation.

What do you call a condition where someone is prepared to use force to kill or scare others who are of different race, gender, religious persuasion, etc. ?  Hell, this is terrorism.  It does not mean that whites are terrorists?  No, it simply means that this kid is a terrorist.

 

Kwaku

Chicago

[kwame zulu shabazz]

This is a clear act of terrorism. African Americans have been terrorized for centuries America. Americans, especially White Americans, have no problem identifying "terrorism" on foreign soil. But they are often blind to the anti-black terror in their own backyard.

There is also the legal designation of "hate crime" which, by another perversity of inherently (anti-black) US law, African Americans are victimized by hate crimes more than any other group but they are charged with hate crimes at a higher rate than other Americans.

kzs

[Abolaji Adekeye]

When is TERROR?
This pervert has a manifesto clearly outlining his ideas and
intentions. It wasn't a spontaneous act, neither is it a spur of the
moment insanity. No. He is no serial killer, kid is a clear eyed stone
cold terrorist.

> <har...@msu.edu<mailto:har...@msu.edu>> wrote:
> to call this an act of terrorism is not to acknowledge more truthfully its
> import, but to buy into the increasingly ubiquitous rhetoric of "terrorism,"
> a term used everywhere to signify an enemy of a regime. it is a heinous
> crime, a mass murder by a white supremicist bigot who deserves to be
> punished to the limit. we could go on forever saying how awful his act was,
> how horrible that nutcases like him can get killing machines to kill as many
> innocent people as possible, and we'd never really end it.
> time to mourn now, and to direct our anger at those whose verbiage helps
> make these acts seem possible, and who political policies make it easier for
> crazy people to kill innocent victims. i agree with obama; something should
> be done to curb the easy access to guns in this country, and more needs to
> be done to marginalize white supremicists and their rhetoric.
> ken
> On 6/19/15 6:01 PM, Dhikru Yagboyaju wrote:
>
> That has always been the problem.
> On 19 Jun 2015 16:10, "Toyin Falola"

> <toyin...@austin.utexas.edu<mailto:toyin...@austin.utexas.edu>>

> wrote:
> http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/06/19/us/charleston-shooting-terrorism-or-hate-crime.html
> Many Ask, Why Not Call Church Shooting Terrorism?
> By RICK GLADSTONE
> June 18, 2015
>
> The massacre of nine African-Americans in

> Charleston<http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/19/us/charleston-church-shooting.html>

> has been classified as a possible hate crime, apparently carried out by a
> 21-year-old white man who once wore an apartheid badge and other symbols of
> white supremacy. But many civil rights advocates are asking why the attack
> has not officially been called terrorism.
>
> Against the backdrop of rising worries about violent Muslim extremism in the
> United States, advocates see hypocrisy in the way the attack and the man
> under arrest in the shooting have been described by law enforcement
> officials and the news media.
>
> Assaults like the Boston

> Marathon<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/b/boston_marathon/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier>

> bombing in 2013 and the attack on an anti-Islamic gathering in Garland,
> Tex., last month have been widely portrayed as acts of terrorism carried out
> by Islamic extremists. Critics say, however, that assaults against
> African-Americans and Muslim Americans are rarely if ever called terrorism.
>
> Moreover, they argue, assailants who are white are far less likely to be
> described by the authorities as terrorists.
>

> *
> * The New York Times Company

>
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>
>
> --
>
> kenneth w. harrow
>
> faculty excellence advocate
>
> professor of english
>
> michigan state university
>
> department of english
>
> 619 red cedar road
>
> room C-614 wells hall
>
> east lansing, mi 48824
>
> ph. 517 803 8839
>

> har...@msu.edu<mailto:har...@msu.edu>

> --
> Listserv moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin
> To post to this group, send an email to

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>
>
> --
>
> kenneth w. harrow
>
> faculty excellence advocate
>
> professor of english
>
> michigan state university
>
> department of english
>
> 619 red cedar road
>
> room C-614 wells hall
>
> east lansing, mi 48824
>
> ph. 517 803 8839
>

> har...@msu.edu<mailto:har...@msu.edu>

> --
> Listserv moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin
> To post to this group, send an email to

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[Anunoby, Ogugua]

“to call this an act of terrorism is not to acknowledge more truthfully its import, but to buy into the increasingly ubiquitous rhetoric of "terrorism," a term used everywhere to signify an enemy of a regime.”  Ken

 

“I would argue that “to call this an act of terrorism is to acknowledge more truthfully its import”-  the self-confessed Charleston slaughterer, took decided it was his duty to his race to kill African Americans. He himself said he wanted to start a race war.

18 U.S.C. § 2331 defines "domestic terrorism" for purposes of Chapter 113B of the Code, entitled "Terrorism”:

"Domestic terrorism" means activities with the following three characteristics:

• Involve acts dangerous to human life that violate federal or state law;
• Appear intended (i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population; (ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or (iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination. or kidnapping; and
• Occur primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the U.S.   Kyrgyzstan

The man is a terrorist- a domestic terrorist. The man made clear what his motivation, purpose, and influences were. There is no need in my opinion to claim to want to attempt to understand his motivation and influences. Like other terrorists, he was self-motivated, believe in the rightness of his cause, had neither love nor respect for his chosen victims, and was unrepentant. He picked his target just as the Tsarnaevs did. Like them he was determined to cause pain and death so mindless as to shock decent and peace loving people all over the country and elsewhere. I do not see how his brutal act is different than an Al Queda terrorist’s. He has advantages over the Tsarnaevs though. They include:

i)                    he is not Muslim; the Tsarnaev are.

ii)                  he is a privileged Caucasian man born in the U.S; the Tsarnaevs are Caucasian men born in Kyrgyzstan (Russia).

iii)                he is a Southerner entitled to historical/generational hatred of African American; the Tsarnaevs are not.

It is all very well to try to be cerebral and enlightened in public discourse. There are times though when to be those is to be insincere and seemingly duplicitous. This is one of those times. That the rhetoric of terrorism is “ubiquitous” is not to say that acts of terrorism are less so or not at all. Things are what they are regardless of the veneer they are glossed with.

 

oa

 

 

 

 

 

From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com [mailto:usaafric...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of kenneth harrow

Sent: Friday, June 19, 2015 2:15 PM
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com

[kenneth harrow]

the "war on terrorism" is bush's rhetorical creation intended to rally
americans to fight in iraq, and really against muslims. it is an
ideological discursive move to use "terrorism" broadly now to identify
opponents of any regime anywhere. even putin uses it.
i don't think it helps using the label to identify this mass killer. it
isn't a case of accuracy, but of ideology.
your complaints would matter if the word hadn't already been
appropriated by the u.s. govt as a propaganda tool. obama had vowed to
end the use of "war on terror," but didn't
ken

[kenneth harrow]

a legal definition has nothing to do with public discourse. it would be blinkered not to recognize has this term has been used since Bush invented the "war on terrorism"

[kwame zulu shabazz]

Ken, 

Agre that "war on Terrorism" was a Bush-era invention. However, terrorism is as American as baseball. And, as I recall, the first anti-terror laws in the USA targeted the KKK during Reconstruction (long before George W. Bush).

kzs

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[Chika Onyeani]

I take this opportunity to wish all our fathers a Happy Father's Day.

I read an appeal to Prof. Toyin Falola from a contributor asking him to step in and sue for peace in the Dr. Ariyo xenophobic crisis.  I don't know on what basis the appeal was made since he is not a member of the aggrieved group.  If it is made on the basis of his being an intellectual giant, I would accept the appeal.  However, on the basis of age, I am exactly 10 years older than Prof. Falola, and it on this basis that I am making this appeal to my people that we should forgive Dr. Ariyo and leave him to his conscience for advocating the slaughter of other human beings, no matter what they have done to him.  If, as we saw on Friday, the families of the victims of Dylann Roof's cowardly hateful shooting could forgive him, we should be able to do the same.

When I first read Dr. Ariyo's statement, I was amazed and disappointed that a man trained to save lives could be advocating and cheering the slaughter of the same human beings he is trained to save.  I was proud of the appropriate response from people, not only the Igbo, to Dr. Ariyo's statement.  Whether Dr. Ariyo has adequately apologized is totally immaterial because the statement could never be erased.  It is up to him to live with the conscience of what he had said or written.  

I am well aware of how the said statement by Dr. Ariyo has pained the people.  At some point or other, some of us have had to live the pain of being Igbo, like being yanked from London and having to resign from the Nigerian Foreign Service in January, 1967 to return to the Eastern Service, but ultimately having the distinct honor of taking the prepared declaration document of Biafra to the state house on the night of the 30th May, 1967 for Gen. Ojukwu to read; of having the distinct honor of being one of the first two diplomats that Biafra posted to America; of having the distinct honor of being directed by Ojukwu in September 1969 to bring home to Biafra his first book; of having the distinct honor of being the only officer in the 7-man Biafra office in New York invited by Ojukwu to join the government in exile when he got to Ivory Coast on the 15th of January, 1970,  (17th when I received the invitation; the distinct honor of Ojukwu being hosted in my house in 1976 when he first visited the U.S. before he went to address a larger group. 

Despite the names some who hardly know me have called me, like Igbo ''irredentist' or Igbo 'supremacist', I have the distinct honor of having worked very hard and continue to work very hard to unite Nigerians, which doesn't stop me from pointing out when things go wrong.  Of course, people think I am more Pan-Africanist and have received 73 awards to go with that.  But when I received the highest award ever given to an African by the largest African youth organization in America, The Pinnacle Award,the organization was headed by a young Yoruba lady lawyer.  A lot of us have relations who are Yoruba and Hausa and we all have to live together as citizens of a great country and continent, and of course a great race of people. Two months ago, my nephew called me and told me that he had named his son from his Yoruba babymama after me, called Chika.  I have three nieces and nephew in Lagos who are Yoruba as their fathers are Yoruba.  I have two nephews and one niece whose mothers are Hausa-Fulani.  There goes the paradox of ethnicity in Nigeria.

In essence, Umu Igbo, let's forgive Dr. Ariyo.  Let's stop the demonstrations.  The point has been made.  Again, a Happy Father's Day.

Ndeewo nu!! Udo diri anyi nile!!

Chika Onyeani

Akanagbajiegbe 1 of Ohafia

Igwe 1 of Abam

[kenneth harrow]

kwame
indeed terrorism has a long history; not only slavery functioned via terrorism; there was the terrorizing attributed to the anarchists in the  19th century, here and in europe, and the anti-communist red scare was terrorism. colonialism was often practiced with horrible terrorizing of the population: king leopold was not really exceptional when it came to cutting off people's hands.

all that is true, all your points about the history are true.
my only (small point, not needing to be worried any more) is that we live in times that have their own discourse. i won't use the terminology of the war on terror, won't normalize it, since it would validate a political framing of the world that is wrong (in my view).
there is no shortage of vocabulary for us to describe the killings of young black men by the police, the abuse of power, and the abominations of white supremicist nuts like this young fellow. they are capable of monstrous crimes, hate crimes to be sure, and need our condemnation. i won't use bush's rhetoric to make the condemnation, and pretend that i am somehow being more accurate or more condemnatory in doing so.

to be clear, the KKK and its current crop of white supremacists have always tried to terrorize the black population. i'd find other words than "terrorists" to label them for what they are.
our enemies are the same; our rhetoric is something important to me, something we need to parse carefully
k

[kwame zulu shabazz]

Ken,

"War on terror" is Bush rhetoric. Calling white supremacists attacks on Black people terror is much older than Bush. Ida B. Wells, who led the fight against lynchings in the USA, frequently used the word "terror" in her writing. As did Frederick Douglas before her. As did David Walker before him.

kzs

kzs
===
kwame zulu shabazz

email: kwames...@gmail.com

cell: 336-422-9577
skype: kwame zulu shabazz
twitter: https://twitter.com/kzshabazz
===
THE NEUTRAL SCHOLAR IS AN IGNOBLE MAN. Here, a man must be hot, or be accounted cold, or, perchance, something worse than hot or cold. The lukewarm and the cowardly, will be rejected by earnest men on either side of the controversy." Fredrick Douglass, "The Claims of the Negro, Ethnologically Considered" (1854).
===
EVERY ARTIST, EVERY SCIENTIST MUST DECIDE, NOW, WHERE HE STANDS. He has no
alternative. There are no impartial observers. Through the destruction, in certain countries, of man's literary heritage, through the propagation of false ideas of national and racial superiority, the artist, the scientist, the writer is challenged. This struggle invades the former cloistered halls of our universities and all her seats of learning. The battlefront is everywhere. There is no sheltered rear. The artist elects to fight for freedom or slavery. I have made my choice! I had no alternative! - Paul Robeson, speech about the Spanish Civil War at the Albert Hall, London,on 24th June 1937

[Anunoby, Ogugua]

A legal definition has everything to with public discourse on important criminal justice issues in  societies that are based on the rule of law. Terrorist acts as not misdemeanors. They are crimes. They are crimes not because the public says so but because the law says they are.