Jon Stewart on the Charleston shooting:

I didn’t do my job today. I’ve got nothing for you in terms of jokes and sounds because of what happened in South Carolina. And maybe if I wasn’t nearing the end of the run or this wasn’t such a common occurrence, maybe I could have pulled out of the spiral. But I didn’t.

I honestly have nothing other than just sadness once again that we have to peer into the abyss of the depraved violence that we do to each other and the nexus of a just gaping racial wound that will not heal yet we pretend doesn’t exist. I’m confident though, that by acknowledging it – by staring into that and seeing it for what it is…We still won’t do jack shit. Yeah, that’s us. And that’s the part that blows my mind.

I don’t want to get into the political argument of guns and things. What blows my mind is the disparity of response between when we think people that are foreign are going to kill us and us killing ourselves…

If this had been what we thought was Islamic terrorism, it would fit into our [narrative]. We invaded two countries and spent trillions of dollars and [lost] thousands of American lives and now fly unmanned death machines over like five or six different counties, all to keep Americans safe. We’ve got to do whatever we can – we’ll torture people. We’ve got to do whatever we can to keep Americans safe. But nine people shot in a church, what about that? “Hey, what are you going go to do? Crazy is as crazy is, right?”

That’s the part that I cannot, for the life of me, wrap my head around. And you know it’s gonna go down the same path. “This is a terrible tragedy.” They are already using the nuanced language of lack of effort for this.

This is a terrorist attack. This is a violent attack on the Emanuel Church in South Carolina which is a symbol for the black community. It has stood in that part of Charleston for a hundred and some years and has been attacked viciously many times – as many black churches have. And to pretend that – I heard someone on the news say – “tragedy has visited this church”. This wasn’t a tornado. This was a racist. This was a guy with a Rhodesia badge on his sweater. So the idea that – I hate to even use this pun – but this one is black and white. There’s no nuance here. And we’re gonna keep pretending like, “I don’t get it, what happened. This one guy lost his mind.”

But we are steeped in that culture in this country and we refuse to recognize it. And I cannot believe how hard people are working to discount it. In South Carolina, the roads that people drive on are named for Confederate generals who fought to keep black people from being able to drive freely on that road. That’s insanity. That’s racial wallpaper. You can’t allow that.

Nine people were shot in a black church by a white guy who hated them – who wanted to start some kind of civil war. The Confederate flag flies over South Carolina and the roads are named for Confederate generals. And the white guy is the one who feels his country’s being taken away from him. We’re bringing it on ourselves.

And that’s the thing – Al Qaeda, all those guys, ISIS – they’re not shit compared to the damage that we can apparently do to ourselves on a regular basis.

Reblogged without comment as I believe it speaks for itself.

Last night, 17 June, 2015, 21-year-old Dylann Storm Roof shot dead nine innocent people, three males and six females, in a historic African American South Carolina church. He entered the church during a prayer meeting and sat with other members of the church for an hour before standing up and shooting them. A surviving victim reported that he said:  “I have to do it. You rape our women and you’re taking over our country. And you have to go.” A 5-year-old also survived after her grandmother told her to lay down and pretend she’s dead. He is currently still on the run.

He has been apprehended.

He is a racist terrorist, and the media and the racists will break their backs bending over backward to justify, or at least downplay the horrible evil act he has committed. If a black man walked into a white church and did the same thing you know there would be hell to pay.

A white gunman killed 9 at a black South Carolina church last night

Nine people were killed after a gunman opened fire Wednesday night at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina. Among the dead were the church’s pastor, South Carolina state Sen. Clementa Pinckney.

Police described the shooter as a white male with sandy hair around 21 years old. At a news conference shortly after the incident, city police Chief Greg Mullen called the shooting a hate crime. The shooter is still at large.