June 19, 2015

Just another hate crime?

editor:	Ama Lorenz

In the US state of South Carolina, a white teenager shoot on Wednesday nine people in the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church of a black community in Charleston.

Unfortunately, news that seem to become a daily routine in the US. Even, if many of them seem to peter out after a short excitement in the international media. But this crime appears to be different to others in its media analysis, as for instance in Baltimore or Ferguson. This time, a concerned and frustrated acting President Obama says in a news conference: "I had to give all too often such statements ... This kind of violence does not happen in other countries". The question arises - really? And most importantly - if so, why?

The massacre of the 21-year-old suspects is racially motivated. First he prayed together in the church with the black community, later he announces his brutal massacre. A woman who survived the shooting told her family that the gunman said he was letting her live so she could report what happened, the Charleston Post and Courier reported. "I have to do it," he was saying, while he reloaded his gun five times in succession. "You rape our women and gain power in our country - You have to go!"

Among the victims are six women and three men, including the Democratic senator in the state parliament, Clementa Pinckney, who is also the pastor of the historic church*. Historic, because the Emanuel AME Church is a focal point of resistance to racism and oppression for nearly two hundred years. Founded in 1816 as the first independent black church in America, it has long been a meeting place for former slaves. Soon after the congregation it had about four thousand members - more than three quarters of the black population of Charleston.

Now, innocent black people died again, "partly because someone who had mischief in his mind, got too easy a weapon," said Obama. He again made the gun laws responsible for such an act, of which were so many in his tenure. But the gun lobby - like the National Rifle Association - is one of the most influential in the world and it will take more than two terms until something changes about the US gun legislation. Of course, as discussed in many media it is about high time that things change in terms of who is allowed to carry a gun and above all, what for.
But wouldn't it also make sense to concentrate not only on the weapons of the assainators but on their mind set? The reasons, why young men and women hate - other ethnics, other cultures, other religions. So much, that it makes them say: "I had to kill to protect." Do our societies have only written moral standards against "the other" or became these standards part of our culture, of each of us? It can be a small step from exclusion to hate. So, what's the key to racial hatred and how to use this key to close the door for ever? And sorry Mr. President, we need that key not only in America but around the world.

*Further historical facts about the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal church: Charleston church's important role