So he’s like thousands of other antisocial young men. This article doesn’t tell us much that’s useful or satisfying, does it?
Is this suppose to excuse this racist mass murder’s behavior ? The shit my black parents went through in Louisiana during the 40’s should excuse them if they murdered a bunch of Caucasians? My mothers brother was murdered by Caucasians in 1952 because he was a man and dared to be treated like a man! They left the south because too many of their siblings refused to bow down,Troubled life of a privileged white guy? I f#@king think not ! Draw and quarter his a$$ !!!
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Richard Pryor called it the bowl cut, you put a bowl around this racist’s head and then you cut around it .Very popular with the rail road workers in California in the 30’s.
Thank you jw1 !
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I never get this line of thought. Why should saying something about this guy’s background–a few tidbits which don’t even pretend to rise to the level of an explanation–be seen as an attempt to excuse his actions? We’re just supposed to say he was evil and leave it at that? Obviously what he did was evil, but surely it’s worth trying to see how someone could become so warped that he sees evil as good.
Now this article isn’t particularly insightful and doesn’t give us much, but I don’t see a problem with the basic attempt to understand itself–as if understanding something about the actor’s motivation means that he is absolved of responsibility. On the contrary, seeing how a more or less ordinary level of disgruntlement can open up a space for racist ideology in certain kinds of people brings out just how insidious that ideology really is: we see how it creates an excuse for people to avoid dealing with their problems and encourages them to turn their unhappiness into hatred. That also exposes something about the psychology of right wingers who may not be murderers but espouse similar attitudes toward the world.
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There appears to be very, very little to categorize this monster as unique or troubled.
That any attempt to extend the very, very little there is to know-- will serve to dilute the overwhelming and simplistic hatred and ignorance of the actor.
If you observed the blowback-- and the actions and reactions-- of a huge cross-section of the citizenry and politicians this past week-- recall you saw swift, decisive, righteousness in branding the inspirations of Dylann Roof as utterly evil in addition to criminal.
I want nothing to diminish the political moves made this past week-- which have served to ridicule and deconstruct racism and the racist symbolism-- that is supportive of that mindset-- relative to the motives of Roof’s crimes.
We are in a period where we can reach-- without overreaching-- in hopefully relegating an entire swath of our racist population to the wrong-side-of-history with some sense of permanence.
So, no. I don’t want any dilution at all-- through analyzing Dylann’ Roof’s ‘troubled childhood’.
Those of us on the right-side-of-history-- have our boot on the neck of racism at long last.
I for one? Say we show the same ruthlessness as those oppressors.
jw1
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It reads like a typical American family to me. Is that so hard to believe?
This article says those around him ask “how did we miss the signs?” Then it lists all the signs along with all the things that occured to him because of his negligent parents. For a human to survive this disasterous childhood, they need some love coming from someone at some time. And maybe he did get it for a time from the stepmother who was forced to abandon him. He found his place to belong among the white supremists in SC and on the web. They own this one. Hate is a poweful weapon.
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I admit I scanned the article. So what happened to his mother, Amy, after she dropped him off with his stepmom? I thought white families didn’t succumb to dysfunction, especially when there is a dad in the home. Plus he had three parents at one point, so he’s supposed to be inoculated from dysfunction. Why wasn’t he ever shot by the police the three times he was arrested? Drug crimes. Illegal weapons. Yet he was still bopping around free, not shot in the back or wallowing in solitary for three years. (I think you have to steal a backpack to get solitary.) I didn’t realize that white kids failed ninth grade twice. I thought only urban kids were stupid. Well, I really appreciate this peek into the real America. The Palins. The Duggars. The Huckabees. And now the Roofs. America is exceptional.
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Nothing human is alien to you, eh?
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He sits in North Charleston’s Sheriff Al Cannon Detention Center,
charged with the murders, his $1 million bail far beyond reach.
Jesus H Christ, writers, get a clue.
The bail is for the firearms offense. On the murders, he’s being held without bail.
What else have y’all botched? I won’t seek to know; my reading stops here. I will endeavor to remember your names though, to save myself further bother.
From the tone up to here, this looks to be some sort of melodramatic apologia, anyway. Am I supposed to care that his bail is beyond reach? Sounds to me more like a cause for rejoicing.
Josh: Please try to find reliable sources for your outside articles. The AP does not qualify.
The marital abuse was apparently mainly verbal and emotional between Dylann’s father and his two wives.
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Hear! Hear!
That’s a step too far.
Just the draw part would do.
I don’t believe the author’s intent was to make the murders “more palatable”. His ordinary upbringing, shared by “a million other kids” as you say, is less palatable to me because conditions endemic to Americans make such future outrages very likely. And to the extent that we can regard such “monsters” as different from ourselves, the less likely will we Americans be to reform our endemic cultural dysfunctions.
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And did the article begin to do that?
The question isn’t rhetorical: the saccharine tone and egregious factual error in support of that tone caused me to stop reading early on. Does the article attempt to find an explanation, or is it just turd word salad?
I know where my bet would be placed, but if you see any substance, do give us a precis. While awaiting your response, I think I’ll skip the bated breath, if you don’t mind. Or if you do.
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I agree with you. I know that, for some, characterizing Roof–and perhaps all racists–as inhuman monsters motivated by pure evil alone is supposed to represent moral clarity. But to me it sounds like the attitude of a fundamentalist or rabid right winger. This was certainly not the attitude that Obama was urging in his profound eulogy.
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“And did the article begin to do that?”
Apparently it’s too difficult for you to read through all two paragraphs of my comment to get my answer to that question: “Now this article isn’t particularly insightful and doesn’t give us much, but I don’t see a problem with the basic attempt to understand itself–as if understanding something about the actor’s motivation means that he is absolved of responsibility.”
My comment wasn’t an attempt to defend the article, but, as I made clear from the start, a response to Meangreen’s suggestion that any attempt to understand Roof’s background or motivation is an attempt to excuse his act. Is that your position as well? If not, you are not addressing anything that I was talking about.
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Not difficult; just a complete waste of time.