In the aftermath of the shooting at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina, in which 21-year-old Dylann Roof is accused of killing nine African-Americans attending a bible study inside the church, many on the far-left were quick to use the tragedy to cast blame on all white people. In an article on Salon.com, writer Chauncey DeVega suggested that all white people must share the blame for the shooting.
“White Americans will not have to look in the mirror and ask, ‘what does it feel like to be a problem.’ In the aftermath of recurring mass shooting events, and right-wing domestic terrorism, it is essential that they start to practice such acts of introspection in the interest of the Common Good,” DeVega wrote, after expressing concern that Fox News, an apparent dysfunction in white families, a lack of “sensible and reasonable gun control policies”, a “pathological” violent white culture, and a lack of appropriate role models contributed to the shooting.
DeVega continued, “White right-wing domestic terrorism is one of the greatest threats to public safety and security in post 9/11 United States of America. Such a plain-spoken fact is verboten in mainstream American public discourse.”
The effort to collectively assign blame to all white Americans for the shooting in Charleston directly contradicts Salon.com writer Wajahat Ali’s effort to deflect blame from all Muslims following the 2013 Boston Marathon Bombing.
“The Tsarnaev brothers’ criminal and perverse actions do not speak for me or the overwhelming majority of Muslims. I am not compelled to apologize for them or explain their actions. Muslims are not a monolithic, Borg-like collective, who possess a shared consciousness, specializing in counterterrorism knowledge with a telepathic understanding of the perverse mind-set of radicals in their ‘community.’ This is like asking Republican Christians to apologize for Timothy McVeigh or expecting young white males to explain why individuals like Adam Lanza, Jared Loughner and James Holmes used assault rifles to unleash terror on innocent civilians,” Ali wrote.
In the world of Political Correctness we live in today, when a 21-year-old enters a church and shoots nine African-Americans and posts pictures of himself online holding a Confederate Flag, the logical conclusion is to ban the flag itself.
Following the emergence of images depicting Roof holding the Confederate (and Rhodesian) flags, the South Carolina legislature voted to remove the Confederate flag from the war memorial located just outside the capitol building, the city of Fresno, California passed an ordinance to prohibit the sale of Confederate flags without a historical or educational reason, the Ohio State Fair announced a ban on the sale of all Confederate merchandise, online websites eBay and Amazon banned the sale of all Confederate-themed merchandise (as did retailers Sears and Walmart), and Warner Brothers’ announced the suspension of sales of the “Dukes of Hazzard” car depicting the Confederate flag.
The quest to purge America of all links to the Civil War have not been limited to the Confederate Flag alone. The Memphis, Tennessee City Council voted to exhume the remains of Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest (and his wife), move them to another location and sell off the statue that marked his 110-year old resting place. The Atlanta chapter of the NAACP has called for the sandblasting of the images of Confederate Generals depicted on Stone Mountain. CNN hosts Don Lemon and Ashleigh Banfield suggested the time to “re-think” the Jefferson Memorial may be upon us. DC residents interviewed suggested renaming Washington, DC because George Washington owned slaves and redeveloping the American flag because of the racism that occurred under its banner.
In a totalitarian society, or in this case the twisted version being forced upon us by far-left “Progressives” under the guise of Political Correctness, everything deemed hurtful to someone is banned and purged from society. Before push-back by parents, the Lincoln, Nebraska Public School District advised its teachers to not use words like “boy” or “girl” to not offend students who do not identify as a boy or girl, opting instead to call every student a “purple penguin.”
So, following that logic, why are all links to Islam not being banned after the Chattanooga shooting? Why is the display and sale of Islamic symbols not being banned? Why are the graves of prominent Islamic figures in the United States not being dug up and relocated?
Why stop there? If someone decides to run over ten people using a Dodge Charger, why not ban the Dodge logo and force Dodge to recall all cars with their logo on the roads? If someone decided to use a bow and arrow to kill someone, why not demand the state of Massachusetts remove the bow and arrow depicted on its state flag?
Of course it is ridiculous to blame all Muslims for the Chattanooga shooting, just as it is ridiculous to blame all white people for the Charleston shooting. The notion of imposing collective responsibility on a group of people for the actions of lone individual is something seen in totalitarian regimes. When SS General Reinhard Heydrich was assassinated in Czechoslovakia in 1942, the nearby village of Lidice was razed to the ground, with all men over the age of 16 shot dead and the remaining women and children deported to concentration camps.
