By Andy Brack | We grieve for the 10 people murdered Saturday in Buffalo, allegedly by a racist teenaged gunman. Remember them:
- Celestine Chaney
- Roberta A. Drury
- Andre Mackneil
- Katherine Massey
- Margus D. Morrison
- Deacon Heyward Patterson
- Aaron Salter Jr.
- Geraldine Talley
- Ruth Whitfield
- Pearl Young.
We continue to grieve in Charleston for nine people murdered almost seven years ago by a racist gunman, then 21. Never forget them:
- Cynthia Graham Hurd
- Susie Jackson
- Ethel Lee Lance
- The Rev. DePayne Middleton-Doctor
- The Rev. Clementa C. Pinckney
- Tywanza Sanders
- The Rev. Daniel L. Simmons
- The Rev. Sharonda Coleman-Singleton
- Myra Thompson.
The Saturday deaths of innocent people at a Buffalo grocery store in a predominantly Black neighborhood rekindles the fear, sadness, disappointment, anger, resentment and hopelessness that ripped through Charleston and the country seven years ago. With more than 200 mass shootings already this year, too many are wondering, “Will it ever end?”
The racism and hate that fuels these crimes and the antipathy that grips too many people in the United States is wrong, oh so wrong. It violates the very soul and decency at the root of the world’s greatest experiment in freedom.
From Key West to Seattle, too many Americans feel lost that we can’t resolve the two issues linked by these hate crimes — racism and guns. What’s particularly vexing is how many “wake-up calls” the country has had since 2015 — from hate-based shootings in El Paso (21 dead in 2019), Pittsburgh (11 dead in 2018) and Orlando (49 deaths in 2016). Add to that the racial animosity fueled daily on television and the Internet in political discourse as well as at hate rallies like those in Charlottesville in 2017 and rogue policing that led to the 2020 death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
The burden is growing. It’s a scratchy shroud that bites into our shoulders. It holds back our communities, states and nation. Failure to combat this hate keeps too many from realizing their dreams.
Malcolm Graham, a Charlotte city councilman who lost his sister in the Charleston massacre, rightly describes racism as the country’s Achilles’ heel. “As a country, we need to acknowledge that it exists,” he told the Associated Press. “There’s a lack of acknowledgment that these problems are persistent, are embedded into systems and cost lives.”
But we need to do more. We need to triple-down on efforts to confront hate by reining in the dark Internet, educating youths, celebrating diversity and tearing apart hate groups through the legal system. Unfortunately, it will be hard and take far too long.
What can be done more quickly is to do more to reduce gun violence. It’s a travesty that South Carolina legislators again avoided responsibility to everyone in the state and failed to outlaw hate crimes or close the Charleston loophole that led the Emanuel AME murderer to purchase a gun.
It’s a travesty that members of Congress haven’t taken national steps to reduce gun violence. Some common-sense steps that should happen sooner than later, as suggested by the Center for American Progress and the Prevention Institute:
- Reduce easy access to dangerous weapons;
- Ban assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines;
- Allow federal research of gun violence as a public health issue;
- Require background checks for all gun sales;
- Establish a culture of gun safety; and
- Bolster the health system for more violence prevention.
Let’s stop having these wake-up calls. Let’s really start doing something about gun violence, not just talking about it.
Andy Brack is publisher of the Charleston City Paper and editor and publisher of Statehouse Report. Have a comment? Send to: feedback@statehousereport.com.
We Can Do Better, South Carolina!
FEEDBACK. BRACK: The scratchy shroud of gun violence is killing the U.S.
The silent S.C. legislature
Our legislators have little problem in identifying obscure topics to feign legislative focus. For instance, there is a searchlight on below minimum wage pay for sheltered occupations but no searchlight on the many more jobs set by the legislated minimum wage scale. S.C. lies at the bottom of the states specifying a minimum wage. The legislated minimum cannot provide economic support to anyone.
Hysteria focuses on critical race theory but has no definition of what it is, falling short of becoming law this session. This legislature has an uncanny knack for addressing social questions cloaking hate into state policy or that point of view. The intent is to cast a suppressing blanket upon all instructional voices and thoughts for our children to incorporate.
Murder in another black community that eerily tracks the Charleston Massacre is met with silence. The intervening seven years are enough for even a cautious legislator to clarify their thinking. No outrage or umbrage was offered. Just a deafening silence hoping their hypocrisy will go unnoticed.
If the shooter sprayed shoppers’ blood across the cereal boxes in aisle 6 and the frozen food lockers in aisle 9 in Whole Foods, Wegmans or Publix, the outrage and calls to action would burst our eardrums. And all those guns- make a guess how that would go.
There is no doubt that our S.C. racism is still institutionalized in the state legislature.
Fred Palm
Edisto Island
May 23, 2022
Gun violence silence originates in the legislature.
Our legislators have little problem in identifying obscure topics to feign legislative focus. For instance, there is a searchlight on below minimum wage pay for sheltered occupations but no searchlight on the many more jobs set by the legislated minimum wage scale. S.C. lies at the bottom of the states specifying a minimum wage. The legislated minimum cannot provide economic support to anyone.
Hysteria and denial focus us on critical race theory. Yet there is no definition of what it is. The intent is to cast a suppressing blanket upon all instructional voices and thoughts for our children to fear. Hate fell short of becoming law this session. There is always next year. This legislature cohort has an uncanny knack for addressing social questions cloaking hate into state policy or legislating that point of view.
Murder in another black community that eerily tracks the Charleston Massacre is met with silence. The intervening seven years are more than enough for even a cautious legislator to clarify their thinking. No outrage or umbrage was offered to 10 more blacks killed with rapid-fire long guns. Just a deafening legislative silence hoping their hypocrisy will go unnoticed.
If the Buffalo shooter sprayed shoppers’ blood across the cereal boxes in aisle 6 and the frozen food lockers in aisle 9 in Whole Foods, Wegmans or Publix, the outrage and calls to action would burst our eardrums. Keep the assault weapons and high-volume magazines flowing unchecked. One can only hope this scourge will harm your family before mine. Perhaps that personal harm will motivate you to act with purpose that you lack to serve well our children.
Charlotte, NC and Atlanta, GA anchor the New South economies. We propose to build faster highways to get there and encourage retirees to spend their pensions here. Our economic strategy portfolio is empty. SC’s future economy is defined as the place where tax discounts for what businesses do ordinarily, draining our wallets.
Fred Palm
May 26, 2022