Racism In The United States

"JUNE 17, 2015 Dylann Roof, 21, killed nine people with a .45-caliber Glock pistol at a historic black church in Charleston, S.C. FEBRUARY 2015 Mr. Roof was charged with a misdemeanor for possessing Suboxone, a prescription drug frequently sold in illegal street transactions. APRIL 2015 He purchased a gun from a store in West Columbia, S.C. Mr. Roof should have been barred from buying a gun because he had admitted to possessing drugs, but the F.B.I. examiner conducting the required background check failed to obtain the police report from the February incident. JUNE 17, 2015 Mr. Roof joined a Bible study group at Emanuel A.M.E. Church and opened fire with the gun he bought in April."

"“He executed them because he believes they are nothing but animals,” prosecutor Nathan Williams said in his closing argument, addressing a somber jury that had seen crime-scene photos of all the dead, including Susie Jackson, 87, the oldest victim, into whom Roof had emptied an entire 11-round magazine from his Glock .45-caliber pistol.... During the trial, prosecutors documented Roof’s meticulous planning in the seven months leading up to the killings. Data collected from his GPS showed that he had made at least six trips to Charleston, visiting historic plantations and studying the church. He videotaped himself on several occasions taking target practice with his Glock in the back yard of his home."

"Armed with a .45 Glock semi-automatic handgun, he loaded 88 bullets into eight magazines for the attack. Eighty-eight is a symbolic number for neo-Nazis, standing for Heil Hitler because H is the eighth letter of the alphabet. Most of the bullets were fired into an 87-year-old parishioner, Susie Jackson, who received 11 shots to her body."

"Mr. Roof, 21 at the time, told the agents he was astonished to find the church parking lot not swarming with police when he exited a side door at 9:06 p.m. on June 17, 2015. He said he had saved one of eight magazines for his Glock semiautomatic handgun, loaded with hollow-point bullets bought at Walmart, so he could kill himself if confronted by the police.... A final scene from the security camera showed Mr. Roof exiting the church’s side door, holding the Glock at his right side and driving off in his black Hyundai Elantra."

"Then Felicia Sanders heard the first startling boom, she said, as Dylann S. Roof removed a Glock .45-caliber handgun from his fanny pack and methodically shot one African-American worshiper after the next, nine in all, starting with the pastor of Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, the Rev. Clementa C. Pinckney."

"In the last nine years, Glocks have figured prominently in at least five mass shootings. In 2007, Seung-Hui Cho, a senior at Virginia Tech University, used a Glock 19 and Walther P22 to kill 32 people and wound 17 others in two separate attacks on campus. The Glock 19 is a smaller pistol that is easier to conceal. Three years later, Jared Lee Loughner used a Glock 19 to shoot 20 people in Arizona, gravely wounding US Representative Gabrielle Giffords and killing six others, including a nine-year-old girl. In 2013, Pedro Vargas went on a shooting rampage inside his apartment complex in Hialeah, Florida. With his Glock 17, Vargas murdered six people and held two neighbors hostage during an eight-hour stand-off until a SWAT team stormed the building and killed him. On June 17, 2015, Dylann Roof killed nine people with a .45-caliber Glock pistol at a historic black church in Charleston, South Carolina. Two months later, Vester Lee Flanagan II shot and killed a Roanoke, Virginia, television reporter and a cameraman with a Glock 19 during a live news broadcast."

"Shooting: Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina Date: June 18, 2015 Suspect: Dylann Roof Gun: .45-caliber Glock. Roof killed nine people and injured one. How he got it: A flaw in the FBI’s background check system allowed Roof to buy the handgun at a South Carolina store eight days after his 21st birthday. When the gun dealer asked the FBI for approval to sell the gun to Roof, the bureau noted that he’d recently been arrested and exercised its three-day investigation period to get more information. Two days later, an FBI agent found that Roof had not been convicted of the felony drug possession charge, so an immediate denial was not merited. She tried to contact the appropriate police department for more information, but because of a jurisdictional issue the agent couldn’t get the police report in time to make the three-day deadline. Had she gotten the report, she would have seen that Roof had admitted to drug possession, which would have kept him from obtaining the weapon."

"Authorities say Roof shot to death nine people during a Bible study class at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston. Roof walked into the church carrying a Glock .45-caliber pistol with eight magazines loaded with hollow-point bullets, which are designed to do maximum damage."

"On Thursday, investigators did a trace of the handgun used in Wednesday's shooting and determined that it was a .45-caliber handgun Roof purchased from a Charleston gun store in April, two law enforcement officials told CNN's Perez and Bruer. Roof purchased a Glock .45-caliber model 41, which holds 13 rounds, a federal law enforcement source with knowledge of the investigation said. Witnesses have reported that Roof reloaded a number of times."

"The Glock pistol reportedly used by alleged South Carolina mass killer Dylann Roof stands as a stark example of the gun industry’s marketing of increased lethality. Since the mid-1980s, increased firepower and capacity have defined the products of the gun industry — of both U.S. and foreign manufacture. Glock pistols have been part of the arsenals of some of the most infamous mass shooters in the United States, including the 2007 Virginia Tech shooting, which left 33 dead and 17 wounded, as well as the January 2011 attack at a Tucson, Arizona Safeway parking lot by Jared Loughner which left six dead and 13 wounded — including then-U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords. Examples of additional mass shootings involving Glock pistols include: * The 2012 attack at a Sikh Temple in Oak Creek, Wisconsin that left seven dead (including the shooter). * The 2012 mass shooting at the Century Aurora 16 movie theater that left 12 dead. * A 1999 shooting at a Xerox Office Building in Honolulu, Hawaii, that left seven dead. * A 1999 shooting in Springfield, Oregon, where the 15-year-old shooter killed his parents, and then went to school where he killed two of his classmates. * A 1998 workplace shooting at the Connecticut State Lottery Headquarters where the shooter killed four before taking his own life. * The 1991 shooting at Luby’s Cafeteria in Killeen, Texas that left 24 dead (including the shooter)."

"In the century after the foundation of the United States, no fewer than thirty-eight states banned interracial marriages. In 1915, twenty-eight states retained such statutes; ten of them had gone so far as to make the prohibition on miscegenation constitutional. There was even an attempt, in December 1912, to amend the federal constitution so as to prohibit 'forever . . . intermarriage between negros or persons of color and Caucasians . . . within the United States'. The language of the various statutes and constitutional articles certainly changed over time, as rationalizations for the ban on interracial sex evolved, and as new threats to racial purity emerged. Definitions of whiteness and blackness became more precise: in Virginia, for example, anyone with one or more 'Negro' grandparents was defined as a 'Negro', but it was possible to have one 'Indian' great-grandparent and still be white in the eyes of the law. Depending on patterns of immigration, a number of states extended their prohibitions to include 'Mongolians', 'Asiatic Indians', Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, Filipinos and Malays. Penalties also varied widely. Some laws simply declared interracial unions null and void, depriving couples of the legal privileges of marriage; others specified penalties of up to ten years in prison. Nevertheless, the underlying motivation seems remarkably consistent and enduring."

"To be in the margin is to be part of the whole but outside the main body. As black Americans living in a small Kentucky town, the railroad tracks were a daily reminder of our marginality. ... We had always to return to the margin, to cross the tracks, to shacks and abandoned houses on the edge of town. There were laws to ensure our return. To not return was to risk being punished."

"And what was the cost of this Jim Crow? Not merely that the precious words "America" and "freedom" became suspect in the eyes of the world, but more than that. It cost us lives. Lives of white men, of Frenchmen, Russians and Chinese-because there were many battles in this war when replacements were needed. But the American rule of war was "No Negroes allowed on the front lines" until the 92d finally got there. I listened to the Axis radio. Tokyo Rose said, and she quoted American sources, that Negroes were good enough to serve in the American Army, but they weren't good enough to pitch in the American Big League baseball. And they broadcast this not only to our own troops but also to the billion and a half colored peoples of the earth."

"The hundred-year period of racial apartheid and racial terrorism known as Jim Crow."

"In many ways, pseudo-science merely provided sophisticated rationales for such measures. Ideas like 'Social Darwinism', which erroneously inferred from Darwin's theories a struggle for survival between the races, or 'racial hygiene', which argued that physical and mental degeneration would result from miscegenation, came some time after prohibitions had been enacted. This was especially obvious in Britain's North American colonies and the United States. From the earliest phase of British settlement in North America there had been laws designed to discourage miscegenation and to circumscribe the rights of mulattos. Interracial marriage may have been a punishable offence in Virginia from as early as 1630 and was formally prohibited by legislation in 1662; the colony of Maryland had passed similar legislation a year earlier. Such laws were passed by five other North American colonies."

"This is racism, plain and simple, and we need to call it that."

"The president of the United States just threatened the safety and security of immigrants the world over. [...] So now we know. The reason Trump ordered the separation of thousands of immigrant children from their parents – some never to be reunited again – was because they better watch themselves. They are changing the culture and it better stop or else they’ll get hurt. Trump has mused before about how good it would be to deport people without judges messing things up. He doesn’t consider his own country’s ample s to be actual laws that he respects. It’s one short step for a president – but one long step for democracy – to go from disrespecting the laws to ignoring them. This is the language and mentality of so many extreme-right and neo-Nazi parties in Europe. So in the Trump spirit of saying it loud, it’s time to drop the euphemisms: Trump is today’s first major government to be led by the racist far right. It’s not some kind of new populist politics; it’s the old National Front."

"Immigration is where Trump’s journey begins and ends: the message running all the way through this stick of rock. [...] There was a time when politicians like you preferred to use a dog whistle, but those days seem quaint now. There’s something to be said for using a foghorn to blast your racism across the continents. At least we all know what kind of politics you represent."

"Trump is a walking contradiction – but his nativism is consistent. [...] Watching this pinball president ricochet around Europe, you could be forgiven for thinking there’s no method to Donald Trump’s madness. Nato is both a rip-off and very strong. Theresa May’s Brexit plan is both pathetic and terrific. Trump’s interview with the Sun was both and generally fine. Trump has all the consistency of Katy Perry’s Hot N Cold, except when it comes to two things: immigrants and Vladimir Putin."

"He [Donald Trump] doesn't mind being called a racist, because he is one."

"[M]y own view is that Donald Trump is incapable of being a racist in the traditional sense of that word, because racism is derived from a perverted and misapplied sense of loyalty, a sentiment from which President Trump is manifestly immune."

"He claims that he's bringing people together but make no mistake, he is a dangerous, unprincipled, divisive, and shameful racist."

"What Trump is doing has popped up periodically, but in modern times, no president has been so racially insensitive and shown outright disdain for people who aren't white."

"Trump Is a Racist. Period."

"Trump launched his 2015 campaign demonising immigrants from Mexico and continues to put border security front and centre. “It decomplexifies the world. Instead of abstract social structures and historical developments, you have one specific group of people that you can blame all your problems on.”"

"Heidi Beirich, head of the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Intelligence Project, noted “an incredible increase in anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant sentiment over the past few years,” particularly “within the ranks of the anti-government movement.” The presidential campaign, she added, has “produced some of the rawest nativist appeals in recent memory.” She says those appeals might have played a role in the surge of hate incidents since the election, including a wave of anti-Semitic threats and attacks and anti-Muslim hate crimes. Many incidents, she notes, “involved attackers who self-identified as Trump supporters or committed their acts in his name,” such as swastika-laden graffiti saying, “Make America White Again,” or an assault on a Muslim student and his Latino friend in which the attacker shouted Trump’s name. While Trump, in his February address to Congress, did respond to these incidents in general terms, saying, “We are a country that stands united in condemning hate and evil in all of its very ugly forms,” his policies appear to have sent a different message. In hundreds of the nearly 1,400 hate incidents around the nation that the Southern Poverty Law Center counted in the three months following the Nov. 8 elections, the perpetrators directly referenced the election or Trump."

"[Donald Trump] seems to harbor racist feelings about people of color from other parts of the world."

"I have black guys counting my money! I hate it. The only kind of people I want counting my money are short guys that wear yarmulkes every day. Those are the kind of people I want counting my money. Nobody else. Besides that, I've got to tell you something else. I think that the guy is lazy. And it's probably not his fault because laziness is a trait in blacks. It really is, I believe that. It's not anything they can control... Don't you agree?"

"Name one country run by a black person that's not a shithole... Name one city."

"[B]lack people are too stupid to vote for me."

"You know, I had an uncle. He's the longest-serving professor, Doctor John Trump, in the history of MIT, with same genes—we have genes, we're smart people, we're smart people... We're like race—Mr. Lieutenant Governor—we're like racehorses, too. You know, the fast ones produce the fast ones, and the slow ones doesn't work out so well, right? But we're no different in that sense."

"We had a great event yesterday, an event that was so beautiful, young African American leaders. One of the things I asked them, and I’ve been thinking about this for a long time… And great people, great people. Some of them are here tonight. Do you like the name African American or Black? And they said, “Black!” all at the same time. No, true. I tell you. Because you say, “African American or Black?” And they said almost immediately, “Black.”"

"If you're telling me they're horrible people, horrible racist people, I would certainly apologize, if you'd like me to do that."

"So here's the story folks. Number one, I am the least anti-Semitic person that you've ever seen, in your entire life. Number two, racism, the least racist person, in fact we did very well, relative to other people running as a Republican. [Shouts from the crowd] Quiet, quiet, quiet! See he lied about he was going to get up and ask a very straight, simple question, so, you know, so welcome to the world of the media. But let me just tell you something, that, erm, I hate the charge, I find it repulsive, I hate even the question because people that know me, and you heard the Prime Minister, you heard, er, Netanyahu yesterday, you do hear him, Bibi, he said, "I've known Donald Trump for a long time", and then he said, "Forget it!" So you should take that and, instead of having to get up and ask a very insulting question."

"They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists"

"It's just, like, a total catastrophe, the unemployment rates, everything is bad — no health care, no education, no anything, no anything. And poverty is unbelievable. Then, I said, ‘Hey, wait a minute, vote for me. What have you got to lose? You can't do worse, you can't do any worse than what these people have been doing and I will do better."

"Mitt Romney had his chance to beat a failed president but he choked like a dog. Now he calls me racist-but I am least racist person there is"

"I have a great relationship with the blacks. I've always had a great relationship with the blacks."

"Well, I think I was born with a drive for success. I had a father who was successful. He was a builder in Brooklyn and Koreans. And he was successful. And, you know, I have a certain gene. I'm a gene believer. Hey, when you connect two race horses, you usually end up with a fast horse. And I really was -- you know, I had a -- a good gene pool from the standpoint of that."

"Donald Trump: Do you like it? Howard Stern: Yes Trump to : Do you like it? Quivers: Well, I think you’re going to have a riot. Trump:It would be the highest-rated show on television,”"

"George Miller: Is this you? Discussing "Indian blood?" We're going to judge people by whether they have "Indian blood"? Whether they're qualified to run a gaming casino or not? Donald Trump: That probably is me, absolutely, because I'll tell you what. If you look, if you look at some of the reservations that you've approved. You, sir, in your great wisdom, have approved, I will tell you right now, they don't look like Indians to me, and they don't look like the Indians. Now, maybe we say politically correct or not politically correct, they don't look like Indians to me. And they don't look like Indians to Indians, and a lot of people are laughing at it and you're telling how tough it is, how rough it is to get approved. Well, you go up to Connecticut and you look. Now, they don't look like Indians to me sir. George Miller: Thank God that's not the test of whether or not people have rights in this country, or not. Whether or not they pass your "look test..." Mr Trump, do you know, do you know in the history of this country where we've heard this discussion before? "They don't look Jewish to me." "They don't look Indian to me." "They don't look Italian to me." And that was a test for whether people could go into business or not go into business. Whether they could get a bank loan. "You're too black. You're not black enough.""

"Of course! Do you think if I wanted to be a member they would have turned me down? I wouldn't join that club, because they don't take blacks and Jews."

"A well-educated black has a tremendous advantage over a well-educated white in terms of the job market. I think sometimes a black may think they don't have an advantage or this and that... I've said on one occasion, even about myself, if I were starting off today, I would love to be a well-educated black, because I believe they do have an actual advantage."

"Trump is a racial arsonist who encourages bigotry and xenophobia to rouse his base and advance his electoral prospects. In this, he inspires imitators."

"The full-page screed he paid to publish in the New York Times in 1989 calling for the Central Park Five to be put to death wasn't about his deep concern fro the rule of law; it was an easy opportunity for him to take on a deeply serious topic that was very important to the city while sounding like an authority in the influential and prestigious pages of the Gray Lady. It was unvarnished racism meant to stir up racial animosity in a city already seething with it. All five boys, Kevin Richardson, Antron McCray, Raymond Santana, Korey Wise, and Yusef Salaam, were subsequently cleared, proven innocent via incontrovertible DNA evidence. To this day, however, Donald insists that they were guilty- yet another example of his inability to drop a preferred narrative even when it's contradicted by established fact."

"Within a month of the election, I found myself compulsively watching the news and checking my Twitter feed, anxious and unable to concentrate on anything else. Though nothing Donald did surprised me, the speed and volume with which he started inflicting his worst impulses on the country- from lying about the crowd size at the inauguration and whining about how poorly he was treated to rolling back environmental protections, targeting the Affordable Care Act and enacting his racist Muslim ban- overwhelmed me. The smallest thing- seeing Donald's face or hearing my own name, both of which happened dozens of times a day- took me back to the time when my father had withered and died beneath the cruelty and contempt of my grandfather. I had lost him when he was only forty-two and I was sixteen. The horror of Donald's cruelty was being magnified by the fact that his acts were now official US policy, affecting millions of people."

"We thought the blatant racism on display during Donald's announcement speech would be a deal breaker, but we were disabused of that idea when Jerry Falwell, Jr., and other white evangelicals started endorsing him. Maryanne, a devout Catholic since her conversion five decades earlier, was incensed. "What the fuck is wrong with them?" she said. "The only time Donald went to church was when the cameras were there. It's mind boggling. He has no principles. None!""

"For reasons that are, again, obvious to everyone but Republican voters, this “woe is us” narrative is never to fly with the rest of the country, including especially (one imagines) the nonwhite population. Few sane people are going to waste a vote on a sob story about how rough things have gotten for white people. But Trump supporters are clinging to this fantasy far more fiercely than red-state voters were ever clinging to guns or religion. That leaves us facing a future in which national elections will no longer be decided by ideas, but by numbers. It will be a turnout battle between people who believe in a multicultural vision for the country, and those who don’t. Every other issue, from taxes to surveillance to war to jobs to education, will take a distant back seat to this ongoing, moronic referendum on white victimhood. And there’s nothing any of us can do about it except wait it out, and wonder if our politics only gets dumber from here."

"All of Trump's constant bragging about his money and his poll numbers and his virility speak directly to this surprisingly vibrant middle American fantasy about a castrated white America struggling to re-grow its mojo... as basketball star turned pundit Kareem Abdul-Jabbar pointed out earlier this week, PC isn’t a new thing, or even a thing at all. It’s just an “emotional challenge every generation has had to go through.” We get older, our kids correct our bad habits, it happens. Not to Trump’s supporters. They’ve turned some minor cultural changes into a vast conspiracy of white victimhood. They're eating up Trump's Make America Great Again theme, which one supporter hilariously explained must be his true goal, because 'it's on his hat', because it's a fantasy tale of a once-great culture ruined by an invasion of mongrel criminals."

"Perhaps Trump is a racist. Perhaps not. Either way, we can have a productive conversation about whether particular Trump statements or actions are racist. But we can't have a productive conversation that starts from the premise that Trump is a racist overall, and that every action he takes and every statement he makes is therefore covered with the patina of racism. That conversation is about insults, not truth."