I’ve been watching as the number of black churches burnt has mounted to seven since Roof’s shootings, The Atlantic reports. At least four, thus far, have determined to be arson.
These fires join the murder of nine people at Charleston’s Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church as major acts of violence perpetrated against predominantly black churches in the last fortnight. Churches are burning again in the United States, and the symbolism of that is powerful. Even though many instances of arson have happened at white churches, the crime is often association with racial violence: a highly visible attack on a core institution of the black community, often done at night, and often motivated by hate.
I’m reminded of Alito’s closing paragraph on his post about traditional Christians fearing retribution.
This fear always strikes me as a better measure of what the fearful imagine themselves capable of; not a measure of the oppressed; they yardstick measures the person fearing retribution.
Let’s hope that these burnings end, that there is outrage. At one a day, I’m glad the concern has been muted enough to discover the actual cause and not jump to the white-terrorist conclusion that arson evokes.
But four were arson. Retribution is more likely, I think, to be visited by former oppressors, not former victims of oppression.
NOTE: I’d intended this as a minipost, but that option seems to have vanished from my new-post screen.
Well these are horrible acts of terrorism that were sadly to be expected probably.
This is all about cowards who are learning that they are no longer in control and will no longer be cowered to using all they can to inspire terror and fear. They are desperately trying to assert their authority (of which they have none).Report
Terrorism? Pshaw. There’s no right-wing terrorism, haven’t you been paying attention?
This is Southern Heritage.Report
To create a minipost, just put it in the “Off the Cuff” category.Report
This threw me too at first, but that seems to work.Report
It’s the documented behavior. (That is, CK mentioned it in one of his posts.)Report
(twas announced in a contributors list email with a rare all-caps subject line even, plus with asterisks for further emphasis… plus also mentioned in a post… but maybe we need an even more noticeable notice system… )Report
I have never received a ‘contributors list’ email of any sort.Report
Is the confederate flag to blame once again or is the image just click bait?Report
The word for this is not retribution, but plain old aggression. After all, what did the black community do to allegedly warrant this?Report
They forgave Dylan Roof and, when asked, said that it would be nice to take the confederate flag down from the state capital.Report
Existed.Report
@murali
That something is retribution doesn’t imply that it is warranted. Retribution is just retribution: giving back for what’s (been perceived to have) been gotten. It’s still retribution even if what was perceived to have been unjustly gotten was *in fact* justly gotten – or even not gotten at all. It’s still retribution even if the offense you feel
I could be wrong about this, but it seems to me that whether an act isolating someone else is retribution depends almost exclusively on the intent and perception behind the act – not on the facts of what was done to the person seeking retribution, and certainly not to whether those facts establish some just reason to want to dole out retribution.Report
It’s still retribution even if what was perceived to have been unjustly gotten was *in fact* justly gotten
But the there must still have been something gotten (justly or otherwise) for it to count as retributive. I agree that retribution can properly refer to unjust retaliations for things justly gotten, but it seems mistaken to use the word to refer to cases when nothing was actually gotten and there is no halfway reasonable construal of events that could make it such that something appeared to be gotten.Report
See below.
There are those who hold the fact that that flag continues to fly on public property at the behest of state government as a fact of real personal value – as an indication that they still live in a state with a value system and power system that they recognize and identify with. This fact is valuable to them – like having a cherry red Corvette sitting in their driveway (versus not). What they have “gotten” are attempts to change that fact, which they internalize as attacks on their very identity.
I could be wrong, but I suspect it is such people who are burning churches, and doing so in retribution, in their view, for such attempts.Report
To answer both Murali and Notme:
I suspect what they did was seek social and political change in response to intolerable persecution (in the person of Dylan Roof), rather than meekly accepting it (or agreeing to dismiss it as a throughly isolated anomaly not indicative of significant strains of persisting racism in society). In this case, in particular that change included (as a first step) getting the Confederate flag off of public property. Which, if correct, would mean that, yes, @notme: the Confederate flag is once again to blame here – probably more here than previously, in fact.Report
You know, I didn’t really want to get involved while people were all emotional, but at the time I kind of suspected that removing the Confederate flag would be more likely to aggravate rather than reduce racial strife.
That doesn’t mean it was the wrong thing to do, necessarily, but that a handful of dumbasses would go do something stupid like this in response was a fairly predictable consequence, IMO.Report
At what point wouldn’t a handful of dumbasses do something stupid?
When would it be right for the damned thing to come down?Report
When we’re done fixing the real problems.
You know, like poverty and innocent children suffering.
(Seriously, the businesses have wanted that damn flag down for years, and I’m glad they finally had the chance to get the ball moving).Report
Exactly what I’m going to say when people finally start shooting CEOs.Report
BB,
I said as much then, in fact, or at least I mentioned the risk of backlash. Though I rated the risk of violence quite low. Political blowback was inevitable.
I guess I underestimated the backwardness of the backward elements of the Old Confederacy. In the aftermath of Charleston. Dumb.
SMH.
Dumb.Report