ON June 17, 21-year-old Dylann Roof killed nine people during a Bible study class at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina.
Roof’s detailed manifesto reportedly explains his hatred towards blacks.
He even revealed why he chose the historical black church for the hate crime he committed.
Following his arrest, Charleston County Magistrate James Gosnell set Roof’s bail at US$1 million for a single weapons charge, and now there are reports that hate groups have banded together to fundraise for Roof’s legal protection.
According to the most recent information provided by the Citizens for White Rights, who are managing the account and receiving donations, they have raised more than US$4 million for his bail and other legal costs.
The organisation managing the funds for Roof’s legal costs released an image confirming the amount of donation currently received.
The screenshot of the donation page which appears to be a Paypal account, displays the total amount supporters have raised thus far – a whopping US$4 287 321.66.
Yes, over US$4 million dollars so far for Dylann Roof, not the families of the victims he massacred.
Michael Lawson, attorney for Citizens for White Rights released this statement:
“Our organisation wants to ensure that Dylann Roof receives fair and equal treatment under the laws of our nation,” said Lawson.
“With all of the publicity this recent incident is receiving along with the black organisations looking to make our client guilty, it is important that Dylan Roof is protected.
“The donations we are receiving will ensure his protection as we wait for trial as well as when the trial begins.”
Several organisations and individuals are advocating to have the account shutdown while some are looking to have the funds received distributed to the families of the massacred victims.
However, some are claiming it’s a hoax.
If it is a hoax, it is a matter of time before something like that happens.
Taking into account the leader of a white supremacist group Earl Holt cited by Dylann Roof in his ‘manifesto’ has been giving thousands of dollars to Republican politicians, including 2016 presidential candidates Ted Cruz, Rand Paul and Rick Santorum.
Holt, who is president of the Missouri-based Council of Conservative Citizens (CofCC), has donated US$65 000 to Republican campaigns in recent years based on reports from the Federal Election Commission.
The massacre in Charleston was just not an isolated hate crime carried out by a ‘mentally ill’ racist in South Carolina.
It is simultaneously representative and starkly indicative of the rampant racism structurally embedded in America.
The slaughterer, Roof, is a product of a system that has been breeding hatred and bigotry in America since the first Africans were kidnapped and forcibly transported to America in the 15th century as slaves under deplorable, inhumane conditions.
The diabolic enslavement of millions of Africans by whites from Europe who took them away from Africa to the United States where for over three centuries the black race was reduced to a downtrodden, oppressed race as good as cattle or donkeys is believed by many to be the root cause of racism in the United States of America and elsewhere.
Since then, white Americans have sought after the black race.
According to a recent research conducted by the New America Foundation, white supremacists are the biggest terror threat in the United States, having killed more people in attacks than Muslims or any other group in the last 14 years.
The new study research examined the 26 attacks on US soil defined as acts of terror since 9/11, and found that 19 of those attacks were committed by white Americans.
Last week’s Charleston shooting was included in the study.
Also included in the count was a 2012 Sikh temple shooting in Wisconsin, which left six people dead.
The shooting was carried out by Michael Page, who was involved in neo-Nazi and white supremacist circles, and had founded a white supremacist band.
A 2011 multi-state killing spree was also listed, during which David Pedersen and Holly Grigsby killed four people.
The indictment alleged the two were members of a criminal enterprise whose purposes included, “promoting and advancing a white supremacist movement to ‘purify’ and ‘preserve’ the white race.”
More so, the presence of white supremacists has grown within one of the most powerful institutions in America: the US military.
According to the Federal Bureau Investigation (FBI), there are hundreds of white supremacists in the US army or in the veteran community.
Some analysts even estimate the number is in the thousands.
In America, 203 white supremacist extremist cases investigated by the Bureau from 2001 to 2008 involved veterans.
In a 2006 report, the National Gang Intelligence Centre noted: “various white supremacist groups have been documented on military installations both domestically and internationally.”
Despite the risk these army-trained extremists pose, there has been much opposition to acknowledging that the military has a problem, let alone doing something to fix it.
And instead of addressing the real issue affecting America- the racial issue, America’s first black President Barack Obama in reference to Dylann Roof’s Charleston shooting says the issue affecting America is the lax laws regulating gun possession.
But is that true?
Or could it be that Obama, the first black president in America has totally failed to deal with the issue of racism in his country?