These views reflect the opinion of the author.
Rev. Clementa Pinckney, Cynthia Hurd, Rev. Daniel Simmons, Tywanza Sanders, Sharonda Coleman-Singleton, Myra Thompson, Rev. DePayne Middleton-Doctor, Susie Jackson, Ethel Lee Lance. The Beautiful Nine. These are the nine victims of the horrific shooting that took place last Wednesday night, when Dylann Roof entered the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina during a bible study to shoot black people. As a black collegiette and a human being, this hate crime has only reinforced the pain felt when Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Renisha McBride and countless other unarmed black men and women were senselessly gunned down for nothing other than living. Also, with recent videos showing extreme policy brutality against unarmed black men, women and children at protests, pools and in various neighborhoods, this shooting brings up the topics of racial divide in America, the media’s message on race and the question many black people are asking today: if we aren’t even safe in our place of worship, where are we safe?
Racism is nothing new in the world, least of all America. Despite the fact that we have a black president and no longer live in the Jim Crow era of the 1960s where lynching black people was an occasional occurrence met with celebration, racism is still alive and well. As I watched several news outlets with my parents, I came to the realization that several of the victims grew up during the Jim Crow era, having to endure the time when there were separate water fountains, bathrooms and lunch counters for blacks and whites. Then, they were able to see the progress America made as a country; laws such as the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and many others were enacted for blacks to live out the rights that should have already been afforded to them as human beings. They saw President Obama be elected as our first black president in 2008 and once again in 2012. They saw that in 2014 and 2015, racial tensions increased with the outrage in Ferguson and Baltimore, leading many to question whether we were still in the 1960s, only for these victims to see this progress and still be killed by a white racist born decades after Jim Crow. This realization made the crime even worse, because not only were these victims robbed of their lives, but robbed of hope as well.
As I said, I watched various news channels on the Charleston shooting with my parents and I saw no mention of Roof as a terrorist by the media, but only a young boy who was described as wild. Many of my friends and many vociferous voices of all races made the point that if the shooter were of color, particularly of Middle Eastern descent, he would be labeled a terrorist automatically, and if he were black, he would be a thug, a gangster, a criminal. This is where the media’s role in race relations brings up the critical, yet subtle point that often times, white perpetrators are given a sympathetic angle in the media and often described as troubled or disturbed. This selective descriptiveness by the media only helps to perpetuate racial stereotypes and negatively impact not only the way we look at one another, but the way we look at our individual selves.
While there are no words nor actions that can bring back the nine victims of this attack, we can only hope that the killer will be brought to justice as we support the victims’ families and echo the words of Christopher Singleton, the son of victim Sharonda Singleton: “Love is always stronger than hate. So if we just loved the way my mom would, then the hate won’t be anywhere close to what it is.”