EDITORIAL COMMENT: Racism has no place in modern society

A 21-YEAR-OLD American man inspired by the racist regimes of Rhodesia and apartheid South Africa last Wednesday went on a rampage in a predominantly black church in the US where he gunned down 10 black people, killing nine of them and critically injuring the other. Dylan Roof — a fresh faced white supremacist — walked into the Emmanuel African Methodist Episcopal church in Charleston, South Carolina, where he spent an hour fellowshipping with parishioners during a Bible study meeting before opening fire and mowing down six women and three men.

The US is shocked by the cold blooded killing of blacks by a white man and some black rights activists have even called it an act of terrorism. A visibly emotional and angry President Barack Obama last Thursday addressed the nation during which he aired his frustration with the country’s propensity for gun violence and lack of progress in enacting legislation to control access to firearms. But the Charleston church massacre is more about racism than it is about lax gun laws.

It will not be lost to many Zimbabweans that the architect of this outrage is a young man inspired by the racist regime of Ian Smith and apartheid South Africa. Roof appears on his Facebook profile, proudly donning the flags of Rhodesia and apartheid South Africa. While there is no direct connection between the young mass murderer and the two racist states, Roof appears to have been inspired by the racist, separatist and white supremacist policies of these regimes.

In the weeks leading to the rampage, a friend told the US media Roof had ranted about black people “taking over the world” and about the need for someone to do something about it for the sake of “the white race”.

In an interview with The Associated Press, Joseph Meek jnr said he and Roof had been best friends in middle school and he had recently made remarks out of the blue about the killing of unarmed black 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in Florida and the riots in Baltimore over the death of Freddie Gray in police custody. “He said blacks were taking over the world. Someone needed to do something about it for the white race,” Meek said, adding that the friends were getting drunk on vodka.

“He said he wanted segregation between whites and blacks. I said, ‘That’s not the way it should be.’ But he kept talking about it.”

Roof appears to have chosen his target carefully and for maximum impact as the church is the oldest African Methodist Episcopal (AME) church in the US south. Civil rights leader Martin Luther King gave a speech there in April 1962 and its founder was a freed slave. Tensions have been heightened since the shooting two months ago of Walter Scott, an unarmed black man by a white police officer in North Charleston, which prompted angry protests.

There have been civil rights protests in Baltimore and nationwide protests regarding the death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri and in connection with the death of Eric Garner who both died at the hands of white police officers. The rise in tensions seems to have awakened white supremacists who now seem determined to brew a race war.

In the wake of the latest shooting, Americans seem to be acknowledging the need to accept the reality that racism still exists in their society and blacks are discriminated against.

While it is true that liberal gun laws are contributing to the carnage, racism is rearing its ugly head just as the first ever black president of the US’s term of office comes to an end. As Zimbabweans, we commiserate with the millions of African-Americans who experience racism on a daily basis and share their pain.

We can relate to their situation due to our history which saw thousands of lives being lost during the liberation struggle which freed the country from racist Rhodesian colonial subjugation.

The fact that young Roof was inspired to murder innocent people by our dark past is a source of embarrassment and the thousands of Rhodies dotted all over the globe should hang their heads in collective shame that their policies drove an impressionable youngster to commit mass murder in their name. Racism has no place in modern society.