Welcome to European Tribune. It's gone a bit quiet around here these days, but it's still going.

Welcome to post racial America*

by melvin Mon Jun 15th, 2015 at 01:18:40 AM EST

*dna sample required 5 months prior to entry

Rachel Dolezal, head of the Spokane, Washington chapter of the NAACP, was recently outed by her parents as being white. Or "white." Or hell, I just don't know.

Believe it or not, this is consuming a great deal of oxygen here in the home of identity politics. Let the social media wars ensue.

First there was the claim that her situation was analogous to that of Caitlyn Jenner. [No, it isn't.]

Then the griping that she was "taking away resources" from deserving, authentically "black" women. [Absurd and imbecilic. If you think only black people can teach African history at a university level, as Dolezal does, you are a sick racist.]

(I would be nearly crucified for saying this in the US, but perhaps part of the reason Ms Dolezal was so successful at passing is that, per the recent census, Spokane's black population is 2.3% of the city population. Perhaps most of the "authentically black" population had other things to do? Like Carl Maxey, elected mayor in a landlside in 1981 when the city was even less black.)

Then the claim from Dolezal that "Well, we're all originally from Africa." [True, but irrelevant. Or is it?]

Chances are, like most Americans, she is a mongrel. So where's the one drop rule (trigger warning, nausea warning) when you need it?

Complicating matters is the fact that she is a highly regarded activist, recognized over and over by the city and the NAACP.

Ignored in all this is the science that tells us race is nothing but a social construct. There are genetic differences in populations - and more within Africa than outside it. See lactose tolerance or a hundred other topics. But skin color is nothing; it doesn't appear on the screen.

I have not checked the teabag sites in a while. Presumably, they are having a field day. Progressives meanwhile are tying themselves in knots trying to love the sinner - an otherwise exemplary citizen - and hate the sin. Of what? After all, Clinton gets away with calling herself a progressive. Millions of black Americans chose to pass as white and were lauded for it. How is it that these ridiculous matters are a joke one day, and life and death the next? It used to be a common joke in the US: "I'm so old, I remember when Michael Jackson was black."


Display:
From the NAACP's press release on the matter:

One's racial identity is not a qualifying criteria or disqualifying standard for NAACP leadership. The NAACP Alaska-Oregon-Washington State Conference stands behind Ms. Dolezal's advocacy record.

Confusion reigns though; her planned address on the subject has been postponed.

Experience keeps a dear school, but fools will learn in no other. -- Dr Johnson

by melvin (melvingladys at or near yahoo.com) on Mon Jun 15th, 2015 at 02:20:53 AM EST
I pass as white, which is relatively easy to do since my ancestry is all English and German with the tiniest smidgeon of Scot ... yet some of my Congolese relatives tell me that I have an African heart.

I hope they don't out me ... I think the Chinese stereotype of an American professor is a white American, and if I get outed as having an African heart, I don't know what that will do with my longevity as a laowei professor.

It may not be surprising, given the population diversity in Africa, but I remember most of the African students in both the US and in Australia as being more relaxed about African "ethnicity". I remember the Algerian student who would yell to my Congolese wife (then girl-friend) "Hello, African!" across the married and graduate student housing complex, in French, and she would yell back, in French, "Hello, African!".


I've been accused of being a Marxist, yet while Harpo's my favourite, it's Groucho I'm always quoting. Odd, that.

by BruceMcF (agila61 at netscape dot net) on Mon Jun 15th, 2015 at 06:01:06 AM EST
I had a Jamaican roommate for a year or so. A most interesting man. Highly social. Catching up with him after a few days he would recount people he had met, details of what they were wearing, the model of their car, etc. But he couldn't describe their race. He actually did not notice.

Experience keeps a dear school, but fools will learn in no other. -- Dr Johnson
by melvin (melvingladys at or near yahoo.com) on Mon Jun 15th, 2015 at 07:10:51 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Some years ago, visiting London with my daughters aged about 8 and 12, we were in Brixton one day. I asked them if they noticed anything particular about the neighbourhood, compared to other parts of the city. They couldn't come up with anything.

Two thirds of everyone (shoppers, shop staff, police, etc) were black, and they hadn't noticed.

It is rightly acknowledged that people of faith have no monopoly of virtue - Queen Elizabeth II

by eurogreen on Tue Jun 16th, 2015 at 04:17:57 AM EST
[ Parent ]
I had that experience when I was about 14 or so. Headed to London on a school trip from Dublin. We left our hotel in one of the cheaper parts of the city early in the morning, and I discovered my classmates were gaping at the passers by, astonished. I couldn't figure out why.

It was early morning down a side street, so the crowd was mainly non-white immigrants on their way to work. I hadn't noticed anything unusual: I'd moved to Dublin from London five years before. Some of the less travelled others probably hadn't ever seen a black close up: Dublin was very white thirty (Eeek!) years ago.

by Colman (colman at eurotrib.com) on Tue Jun 16th, 2015 at 05:19:12 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Recently my father recounted a memory from our first and only visit to London when I was 6. We arrived on a day when all shops were closed but we had no food, so the whole family went on a walk looking for something open. We found a building with an open entrance resembling a supermarket's, but it turned out to be a church. Just as we would have left, a hundred people streamed in for mass, all black. They were just as startled to see the bunch of shabby-clothed whites as my father at seeing them.

I have no memory of this, although I remember much more details from London than my father.

*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.

by DoDo on Tue Jun 16th, 2015 at 03:42:53 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Outliers: The Story of Success ...
As an epilogue to the book, Gladwell includes the story of his own success as it connects to his own family's background. Gladwell's ancestors are from Jamaica. His great-great-great grandmother is a slave bought in Jamaica who has a child with her white owner. Gladwell explains the social structure in Jamaica at the time, which is partly based on skin tone. Lighter skinned black people are given more opportunities and privileges than darker skinned people. Gladwell's grandmother, Daisy, along with his grandfather, Donald, are school teachers able to provide an education for their twin daughters, one of whom is Gladwell's mother, Joyce.
Marriage to whiter still persists in many tropical countries.
by das monde on Wed Jun 17th, 2015 at 09:24:45 PM EST
[ Parent ]
White Women Have Always Stolen Black Beauty -- The Daily Beast
According to reports, and accompanying photos, as part of her alleged fraud, Dolezal tanned her skin and braided her hair. So in other words she's like a zillion white female celebrities. Jennifer Aniston recently noted in an interview that she needed a tanning "intervention" to let go of her obsession with darkening herself. She is far from alone in Hollywood where spray tans have become as ubiquitous on red carpets as spanx.

As for the braid craze, celebs like Christina Aguilera, Paris Hilton, Gwen Stefani, and Fergie have all rocked them. Doing so got them noticed for being cool or edgy. Yet they still can't hold a candle to the most famous cornrow wearer of all-time: Bo Derek. The image of Derek sporting blonde cornrows is one of the most iconic and recognizable in Hollywood history. Meanwhile, black women have been sporting cornrows forever.

And therein lies the rub, as they say. Consistently when white women, particularly famous ones, adopt a beauty attribute predominantly seen in minority culture, all of sudden what was once seen as odd is suddenly seen as beautiful. Perhaps the most obvious modern day example is the rise of Kardashian Inc. or rather the rise of the Kardashian derriere.


by das monde on Mon Jun 15th, 2015 at 06:37:35 AM EST
And yet I have a hard time believing that all this was an attempt to be the coolest wigger in Spokane. This woman is hardly a brainless Kardashian adopting a look. She adopted an identity, wholesale.

The family seems to be a mess. And she seems to have experienced racial discrimination herself during her college years at (guess) historically black Howard University, where she was derided for being white.

She doesn't have issues, as we say. She has volumes.

Experience keeps a dear school, but fools will learn in no other. -- Dr Johnson

by melvin (melvingladys at or near yahoo.com) on Mon Jun 15th, 2015 at 07:31:41 AM EST
[ Parent ]
This one is so quintessentially American that I'll be standing waaaaay over here watching with a telescope. In a bunker. On the moon.
by Colman (colman at eurotrib.com) on Mon Jun 15th, 2015 at 08:02:48 AM EST
When this broke, I thought oh great here's some California crap, maybe some Illinois shite we can laugh about. Two sentences in, it's my back yard. Where I have relatives suddenly pretending they are from somewhere else.

Experience keeps a dear school, but fools will learn in no other. -- Dr Johnson
by melvin (melvingladys at or near yahoo.com) on Mon Jun 15th, 2015 at 08:21:37 AM EST
[ Parent ]
I was puzzled to discover that, when you apply for a position in an American organisation, you are asked to identify your race. Here is the list, picked up from a recruitment page of an organisation:
  • None selected
  • White (Not Hispanic or Latino)
  • Hispanic or Latino
  • Black or African-American (Not Hispanic or Latino)
  • American Indian or Alaska Native (Not Hispanic or Latino)
  • Asian (Not Hispanic or Latino)
  • Two or More Races (Not Hispanic or Latino)
  • Native Hawaian or Other Pacific Islanders (Not Hispanic or Latino)
  • Choose not to disclose

....

"Dieu se rit des hommes qui se plaignent des conséquences alors qu'ils en chérissent les causes" Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet
by Melanchthon on Mon Jun 15th, 2015 at 09:05:25 AM EST
Hispanic or Latino is peculiar because in principle you can be Hispanic/Latino and any of the other categories simultaneously, but that would be too confusing.

A society committed to the notion that government is always bad will have bad government. And it doesn't have to be that way. — Paul Krugman
by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Mon Jun 15th, 2015 at 09:07:33 AM EST
[ Parent ]
And of course there's the question as to whether you are Hispanic or not....
by gk (gk (gk quattro due due sette @gmail.com)) on Mon Jun 15th, 2015 at 09:32:23 AM EST
[ Parent ]
But there's an or, so it's whether you are Hispanic, or else Latino, or else both Hispanic and Latino, on the one hand, or neither Hispanic nor Latino, on the other.

Except the or means "or sometimes referred to as Latino", so the critical or is embedded in the definition ... from an EOC definitions from a University of Washington webpage, Hispanic or Latino: A person of Cuban, Mexican, Puerto Rican, South or Central American, or other Spanish culture or origin regardless of race.


I've been accused of being a Marxist, yet while Harpo's my favourite, it's Groucho I'm always quoting. Odd, that.

by BruceMcF (agila61 at netscape dot net) on Tue Jun 16th, 2015 at 09:49:32 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Bolded the wrong or: "... culture or origin ..."

I've been accused of being a Marxist, yet while Harpo's my favourite, it's Groucho I'm always quoting. Odd, that.
by BruceMcF (agila61 at netscape dot net) on Tue Jun 16th, 2015 at 09:53:12 AM EST
[ Parent ]
This or something very similar is quite standard.

And totally insane. On principle I refuse to answer any of this nonsense.

Experience keeps a dear school, but fools will learn in no other. -- Dr Johnson

by melvin (melvingladys at or near yahoo.com) on Mon Jun 15th, 2015 at 09:15:37 AM EST
[ Parent ]
At least they have dropped 'Caucasian', which was really confusing if one had enough geography to know where that is!

If...

'White power' (really epidermically pink-ish) has a better ring than 'Caucasians for ever!' which sounds like an event McClain would jump on a jet for, way out in the petro-rich steppes somewhere, somewhere all the place names had at least eight syllables and started with weird letters like T and K.

I wonder who chooses not to disclose? Roswellians? Lizards? Alpha Centaurians?

'The history of public debt is full of irony. It rarely follows our ideas of order and justice.' Thomas Piketty

by melo (melometa4(at)gmail.com) on Mon Jun 15th, 2015 at 10:00:27 PM EST
[ Parent ]
melo:
I wonder who chooses not to disclose? Roswellians? Lizards? Alpha Centaurians?

Those protesting the system, me thinks.

I just pondered the list and wondered where for example South Africans of Indian descent fits in. The list is such a mix of geography, skin color, culture and language. If they had a cathegory based on religion (for example jewish or muslem) I think they would have covered all the big bases of dividing people into 'races'.

by fjallstrom on Tue Jun 16th, 2015 at 03:12:55 AM EST
[ Parent ]
If you don't disclose you get treated as "white" for all intents and purposes, since the point of this data gathering is affirmative-action programs.

A society committed to the notion that government is always bad will have bad government. And it doesn't have to be that way. — Paul Krugman
by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Tue Jun 16th, 2015 at 04:17:06 AM EST
[ Parent ]
South Africans of Indian descent? Heck, Indians of Indian descent are often in the category 5b
* Asian (Not Hispanic or Latino)
  * (but not the ones you're thinking of)

This is such a pre-9/11 legacy list, since the list tends to imply that Arabs are "White", unless they are like my wife's Algerian friend and are North African Arabs, in which case if he becomes an American, he would literally be African-American, but category 3b,
* Black or African-American (Not Hispanic or Latino)
  * (that's or, not and, and not the ones you're thinking of)


I've been accused of being a Marxist, yet while Harpo's my favourite, it's Groucho I'm always quoting. Odd, that.

by BruceMcF (agila61 at netscape dot net) on Tue Jun 16th, 2015 at 09:39:12 AM EST
[ Parent ]
And then what about Ethiopians? I heard of several Ethiopian university students who emphatically protested being lumped together with sub-Saharan Africans under "blacks" in spite of skin colour and shared continent (focusing on the Semitic language family and early Christian heritage).

*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.
by DoDo on Tue Jun 16th, 2015 at 03:54:56 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Similar to "northern" Sudanese ... the list itself is a mess because the US is a Common Law country with Legislated acts pasted on top, so there is a series of laws and then judicial rulings on what the laws mean that result in that hodge podge, and so it in part picks up groups that have a large enough representation in the US to have been the source of plaintiffs in successful civil rights lawsuits.

Or, IOW, if an "Ethiopian American" wants to maximize their change at academic assistance, they should tick the "African American or Black" box and under the breath mutter, "by which I mean American with ancestry from a country located in Africa".

I've been accused of being a Marxist, yet while Harpo's my favourite, it's Groucho I'm always quoting. Odd, that.

by BruceMcF (agila61 at netscape dot net) on Fri Jun 19th, 2015 at 02:26:07 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Looking at the examples above, it may be a good thing that ethnic statistics are not used in France (even though this ban is a controversy in itself), especially for the growing number of people of mixed ethnicity/national origin.
by Bernard (bernard) on Sun Jun 21st, 2015 at 12:25:23 PM EST
[ Parent ]
It's like in prison.  There's the white gang, the black gang, and the hispanic gang.  If you don't fit, you self-identify.  But you have to join.
by rifek on Mon Jun 22nd, 2015 at 10:20:09 AM EST
[ Parent ]
In US prisons, you mean? Gangs in France are not ethnic based but more like neighborhood based; same for rappers.
by Bernard (bernard) on Mon Jun 22nd, 2015 at 02:08:19 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Yes, US prisons.
by rifek on Tue Jun 23rd, 2015 at 03:29:11 PM EST
[ Parent ]
I had to check, and indeed Sherman Alexie is having a field day on twitter on the Dolezal case.

A society committed to the notion that government is always bad will have bad government. And it doesn't have to be that way. — Paul Krugman
by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Mon Jun 15th, 2015 at 09:08:28 AM EST
Now that is the hilarious Sherman Alexie you get when he speaks to a small group. He is a treasure.

Experience keeps a dear school, but fools will learn in no other. -- Dr Johnson
by melvin (melvingladys at or near yahoo.com) on Mon Jun 15th, 2015 at 09:19:20 AM EST
[ Parent ]
I love the guy, I got to see him live at a Community College when I was doing my PhD in SoCal ages ago.

A society committed to the notion that government is always bad will have bad government. And it doesn't have to be that way. — Paul Krugman
by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Mon Jun 15th, 2015 at 09:21:39 AM EST
[ Parent ]
There were a few years when we spent a lot of time together, during and after the making of Smoke Signals. (the director Chris Eyre is an old friend.) That 'Skin is a riot.

Native culture has created a special tribe for such people as Dolezal, the Wannabes. Though she seems to have true street cred herself.

Me? I'm having trouble identifying as urban Süd Friesich.

"Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage." - Anaïs Nin

by Crazy Horse on Mon Jun 15th, 2015 at 10:24:00 AM EST
[ Parent ]
The attention to Dolezal and Jenner has in part been b trolling. They started the petition to take away Jenner's medal and started hashtags in support of Dolezal and transracialism. That they have succeeded this well shows the sorry state of the left and of public discourse.

The concept of intersectionalism has been turned upon its head. If you take the current identity politics to their logical conclusion they become reactionary. I think that this mess that we have created is only going to get worse. We should back away from it to the old position of tolerance for individuals/ criticism of structures. Instead of dividing ourselves in smaller and smaller parts we should at least try to make mass movements again.

by chumchu on Mon Jun 15th, 2015 at 09:10:07 AM EST
I could not agree more. Identity politics is a road to nowhere.

Always this attempt, for instance, to portray ML King as the lone defender of the black race. No mention of his loud opposition to the Vietnam war (it cost him) or his death while supporting a labor strike.

Experience keeps a dear school, but fools will learn in no other. -- Dr Johnson

by melvin (melvingladys at or near yahoo.com) on Mon Jun 15th, 2015 at 09:35:23 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Have to be able to fit him into a history book that can fit into Texas schools.
by rifek on Mon Jun 22nd, 2015 at 10:27:28 AM EST
[ Parent ]
"African American" is, in my subjective opinion, an ethnicity, but it is only tangentially related to skin colour.

Obama, who is semantically clearly African American, doesn't belong to the ethnic group.

I have close friends who are "African Americans", immigrants from West Africa with US citizenship, and they don't either (which can lead to some strange situations, more with blacks than with whites).

Their children, one born in France, one in the US, are an interesting case. I'm guessing they're not, but could easily fake it if they wanted to (They had the luck to grow up in middle-class suburban North Carolina. Is there a "better" place in the US with respect to "race"?)

It is rightly acknowledged that people of faith have no monopoly of virtue - Queen Elizabeth II

by eurogreen on Mon Jun 15th, 2015 at 11:17:21 AM EST
I have similar friends, academics from South Africa. ethnically Tamil. Two of the kids are American citizens, born here during the long post grad trek. After Uganda and I don't even know all the places, they have wound up happy - to their surprise - back in SA. Their kids can pass as anything they want, anywhere, complete with the appropriate accent.

Experience keeps a dear school, but fools will learn in no other. -- Dr Johnson
by melvin (melvingladys at or near yahoo.com) on Mon Jun 15th, 2015 at 12:20:54 PM EST
[ Parent ]
There is no black. There is no white. We are all just different shades of brown. And we all bleed the same color.

Now where are we going and what's with the handbasket?
by budr on Mon Jun 15th, 2015 at 12:32:48 PM EST
Well the USA isn't post racial, so obviously race matters, and there is a lot of sensitivity to people adopting/coopting political/racial positions.

That being said, I note that her case is being treated quite differently than many whites who identify as black. for instance, there's Shuggie Otis (wrote the song hand-jive). He says he's black, but he doesn't at all hide the fact that his parents are white.

Maybe that's the difference?

by Upstate NY on Mon Jun 15th, 2015 at 01:59:14 PM EST
Give her a break. If she says she's black, she's black. If it's not a self-identifying notion, it's nothing at all.

It is rightly acknowledged that people of faith have no monopoly of virtue - Queen Elizabeth II
by eurogreen on Mon Jun 15th, 2015 at 03:53:03 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Self-identification is the main rule among activiststs for a reason but regarding race in America I would argue that it is how others categorise you that is most relevant.
by chumchu on Mon Jun 15th, 2015 at 04:46:05 PM EST
[ Parent ]
It's not that simple. There is a lot of frustration about people coopting black suffering in America. I understand both sides of this issue.
by Upstate NY on Mon Jun 15th, 2015 at 08:02:56 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Dolezal resigned this morning.

Experience keeps a dear school, but fools will learn in no other. -- Dr Johnson
by melvin (melvingladys at or near yahoo.com) on Mon Jun 15th, 2015 at 07:44:49 PM EST
Marianne Jean-Baptiste: 'It's not a sob story - I could have stayed in the UK and fought it out' | Stage | The Guardian
here's an elephant in the room. There's always one in the room with Marianne Jean-Baptiste. That same old elephant; where have you been all these years? Actually, the answer is simple. The actress, Oscar-nominated for her quietly heart-breaking Hortense in Mike Leigh's Secrets & Lies, has been living in Los Angeles, working away (notably as an FBI agent in the long-running television series Without a Trace, and bit parts in movies), bringing up her family, living the good life. It's the question that is more delicate - why did she leave in the first place?

(...) The thing is, she says, she doesn't want to be portrayed as a victim because she isn't one. "It's not this sob story. I had a choice. I could have stayed and fought it out, but I thought you know what, this is madness, it's like fishing in a river and seeing people grabbing fishes upstream and you're still down there going, `This is where I need to be, this is my spot.' You fucking walk up stream and you catch your fish. I'm a member of the African diaspora, my parents left the Caribbean and came to London for a better life. We moved. And you print that, with the expletives."

Caribbean British Oscar-nominated Cannes winner left Britain for LA. Interesting interview.

by afew (afew(a in a circle)eurotrib_dot_com) on Tue Jun 16th, 2015 at 01:49:09 AM EST
Recently I saw a film with my daughters.
Dear White People (2014) - Quotes - IMDb
Sam White: Dear white people, the minimum requirement of black friends needed to not seem racist has just been raised to two. Sorry, but your weed man, Tyrone, does not count.

Dear White People (2014) - Quotes - IMDb

Gabe: So, Sam, how would you feel if someone started a "Dear Black People"?

Sam White: No need. Mass media from Fox News to reality TV on VH1 makes it clear what white people think of us.

Lightweight but charming film.

It is rightly acknowledged that people of faith have no monopoly of virtue - Queen Elizabeth II

by eurogreen on Tue Jun 16th, 2015 at 05:28:35 AM EST
Claudia Rankine's book "Citizen" is pretty devastating on these issues. Made me ill. If anyone truly believes race is not vexing to its core, read this book. The closest friends can't get through it.

And for once a book of poetry and prose poems makes a significant impact on the American psyche.

by Upstate NY on Tue Jun 16th, 2015 at 11:52:14 PM EST
Added to wish list, though I'm always cynical of Americans who examine "the experience of race and racism in Western society".

Unless today's definition of "the West™" is "the USA", which it may be.

by Colman (colman at eurotrib.com) on Wed Jun 17th, 2015 at 08:16:19 AM EST
[ Parent ]
I was unaware that it was being pitched as anything but American. That being said, there is a big section on Zinedine Zidane and France. Half the book is not very new or revealing, but it trods common ground. The discouraging part of the book enters the personal realm, the anecdotal, racial lines in families and friendships.

Since my children attend an inner city public school in America that is 45% black, 30% white, 15% Latino, and the rest immigrant (Somali, SE Asia), I find that no matter the attempts of parents to integrate, our segregated societies reinforce difference and make integration a long slog. Kids have close friendships, even romantic relationships, but over the years we have noticed the self-reinforcing segregation, ingrained in the soft power of society. And it breaks down in unusual ways. When liberals come to the defense of blacks, they get push back from some surprising voices here. The line between patronizing and sympathizing is a fine one.

by Upstate NY on Wed Jun 17th, 2015 at 09:34:33 AM EST
[ Parent ]
That's quoted from the description on Amazon.co.uk for the Kindle version.
by Colman (colman at eurotrib.com) on Wed Jun 17th, 2015 at 10:34:22 AM EST
[ Parent ]
How China debated whether dark or light skin ages better - BBC News

A Harvard study led some Chinese people to declare they were "black and proud."

The study made headlines all over the world. Researchers at Harvard, led by Dr Alexandra Kimball, found that a lucky few people have a genetic makeup which protects their skin and can make them look years younger than their actual age. Although the research went beyond skin colour, one interesting side note of the study, not yet published but just presented at the World Congress of Dermatology in Canada, is that black people are twice as likely as white people to have the genetic combination for youthful skin.

The study prompted discussion across social media. But, perhaps surprisingly to outsiders, it seemed to strike the strongest chord in China - because of the fact that pale skin has been traditionally associated with beauty.

by afew (afew(a in a circle)eurotrib_dot_com) on Wed Jun 17th, 2015 at 01:09:12 AM EST
9 dead in shooting at historic Charleston African American church. Police chief calls it `hate crime.'

Police are searching for a gunman who opened fire Wednesday night at a historic African American church in downtown Charleston, S.C. Charleston officials said nine people were killed and others were injured.

"I do believe this is a hate crime," Charleston Police Chief Greg Mullen said at a late night news conference, without explaining the basis for his conclusion.

Police said the victims had gathered Wednesday night in the Mother Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in downtown Charleston for a prayer service when the shooting occurred. Police are now searching for the gunman, described as a clean-shaven white male in his early 20s, who has sandy blond hair and a small build. Police said he was wearing a gray sweatshirt, blue jeans and Timberland boots. He is believe to be the only shooter.

by das monde on Thu Jun 18th, 2015 at 03:45:29 AM EST
The trappings of white power are heavy in South Carolina. Confederate Flag flies over the Capital. Culturally, the message received is always about race, and reinforces race difference.
by Upstate NY on Fri Jun 19th, 2015 at 08:58:47 AM EST
[ Parent ]
by das monde on Sat Jun 20th, 2015 at 11:28:25 PM EST
[ Parent ]
You have to see how many more people are killed by guns in America to actually believe it - The Washington Post
"At some point, we as a country will have to reckon with the fact that this type of mass violence does not happen in other advanced countries," Barack Obama said today in response to the killings in Charleston. "It doesn't happen in other places with this kind of frequency."

[...]

On that point, he's absolutely right: when it comes to gun homicide, the U.S. stands out from the rest of the world's wealthy nations. According to homicide data collected by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, and compiled by The Guardian newspaper, the U.S.'s annual gun homicide rate of 2.97 fatalities per 100,000 people is triple the rate seen in most of the world's other wealthy nations, defined in this chart as countries belonging to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. It excludes Latin American countries like Mexico that have traditionally had high murder rates, often due to political instability and the drug war.

The chart in the article was re-tweetted by several people.

by Bernard (bernard) on Sun Jun 21st, 2015 at 10:15:34 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Bernard:
the U.S.'s annual gun homicide rate of 2.97 fatalities per 100,000 people is triple the rate seen in most of the world's other wealthy nations

Bullshit. Statement completely unsupported by the data It is four times the rate of the second ranked wealthy nation (Switzerland, where 72% of all homicides are by firearm, and, coincidentally, every able-bodied man has a gun).

More like ten times the rate seen in most of the world's other wealthy nations.

It is rightly acknowledged that people of faith have no monopoly of virtue - Queen Elizabeth II

by eurogreen on Mon Jun 22nd, 2015 at 06:39:14 AM EST
[ Parent ]
every able-bodied man has a gun

But not ammunition, which limits what you (or your kids) can do with it.

by gk (gk (gk quattro due due sette @gmail.com)) on Mon Jun 22nd, 2015 at 07:43:45 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Still, there was this, where an army weapon was part of the (legal) arsenal, and there have been several smaller amok runs. The reaction is not much better than in the USA: an attempt to identify possible perpetrators beforehand (and take guns only from them).

*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.
by DoDo on Mon Jun 22nd, 2015 at 10:50:54 AM EST
[ Parent ]
But not ammunition

Allow me to be sceptical about that. How does one explain that 10% of French murders, and 75% of Swiss murders, are by firearm?

Italy also has a high rate of murder by gun (66%), (source), which my prejudice leads me to ascribe to organised crime and illegal weapons. Perhaps it is the same in Switzerland?

It is rightly acknowledged that people of faith have no monopoly of virtue - Queen Elizabeth II

by eurogreen on Mon Jun 22nd, 2015 at 11:56:11 AM EST
[ Parent ]
There's nothing to stop you buying your own ammunition. But you can't keep state-issued ammunition at home. Or you could just buy it in Austria - In Liechtenstein last year 100% of the murders were by firearm, and the murderer got his weapon in Austria after having been banned from owning one.
by gk (gk (gk quattro due due sette @gmail.com)) on Mon Jun 22nd, 2015 at 12:31:57 PM EST
[ Parent ]
And nothing to be done about it short of a constitutional amendment, courtesy the Fascist Five on Our Glorious SCOTUS, which went full Kopel in its last 2nd Amendment case.
by rifek on Mon Jun 22nd, 2015 at 10:35:07 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Secret World War II Chemical Experiments Tested Troops By Race -- NPR.org
Edwards was one of 60,000 enlisted men enrolled in a once-secret government program -- formally declassified in 1993 -- to test mustard gas and other chemical agents on American troops. But there was a specific reason he was chosen: Edwards is African-American.

"They said we were being tested to see what effect these gases would have on black skins," Edwards says [...]

According to declassified records and reports published soon after, three types of experiments were done: Patch tests, where liquid mustard gas was applied directly onto test subjects' skin; field tests, where subjects were exposed to gas outdoors in simulated combat settings; and chamber tests, where men were locked inside gas chambers while mustard gas was piped inside.

by das monde on Fri Jun 26th, 2015 at 06:59:31 AM EST


Display:
Go to: [ European Tribune Homepage : Top of page : Top of comments ]