Weekend Read: Dylann Roof murdered nine people because of a lie about 'black-on-white crime'
It鈥檚 been three years since Dylann Roof massacred nine black parishioners in a Bible study in Charleston, South Carolina.
As he methodically shot his victims at the historic Emanuel A.M.E. Church with a Glock pistol, that Roof said, 鈥淵鈥檃ll are raping our white women. Y鈥檃ll are taking over the world.鈥�
How did Roof become so immersed in white supremacist propaganda about black violence that he would be driven to murder?
鈥淭he answer lies, at least in part,鈥� narrated our Intelligence Project Director Heidi Beirich in an 人兽性交 video last year, 鈥渋n the way that fragile minds can be shaped by the algorithm that powers Google Search.鈥�
As Roof wrote in an online manifesto, his radicalization began when he typed the words 鈥渂lack on White crime鈥� into Google. He came across the website of a crudely racist group called the Council of Conservative Citizens. There, he found what he described as 鈥減ages upon pages of these brutal black on White murders.鈥�
鈥淚 was in disbelief,鈥� he wrote. 鈥淗ow could the news be blowing up the Trayvon Martin case while hundreds of these black on White murders got ignored?鈥�
Since we exposed the problems with Google鈥檚 algorithm, the search engine has cleaned up its results. But Roof is not the only one to fall for lies about black criminality. And the Council of Conservative Citizens isn鈥檛 the only one to disseminate them.
In November 2015, candidate that originated from a neo-Nazi account, asserting that while 16 percent of white people were killed by white people, 81 percent were killed by black people.
It was a blatant lie.
As at the time, 鈥淭he exact opposite is true.鈥� FBI data shows that just 15 percent of whites were killed by black people; 82 percent were killed by other whites.
In a new report released this week, we鈥檝e traced the history of 鈥渢his idea that black people are wantonly attacking white people,鈥� propaganda that from the mid-1800s to the present day has proven itself 鈥渁 bogus narrative with a very long American history.鈥�
As our Hatewatch staff writes:
White Americans鈥� unsubstantiated views about the potential of violence from black people was the number one excuse they used to justify slavery, lynching, Jim Crow and various forms of mass incarceration. ... Without the ability to claim oppression of black people as a form of self-defense, racial segregation and white supremacy would be seen for what they are: rank oppression of other people for financial or other benefit.
It was this lie about so-called 鈥渂lack-on-white crime鈥� that helped turn a young Roof into a mass murderer.
It is this lie that continues to percolate through our society, fueling hate and fear, as it鈥檚 perpetuated by white supremacist propagandists and their enablers.
And on the anniversary of the Charleston massacre, it is this lie that we have to dismantle once and for all.
The Editors.
P.S. Here are some other pieces we think are valuable this week:
- by Olga Khazan for The Atlantic
- unheeded by Melissa Fares and Charles Levinson for Reuters
- by John J. Lennon for Esquire
- by Samuel Argyle for The Outline
人兽性交鈥檚 Weekend Read聽is聽a weekly summary of the most important news reporting and commentary from around the country on civil rights, economic and racial inequality, and hate and extremism.聽Sign up to receive the Weekend Read聽every Saturday morning.
