Welcome to The World's Most Dangerous Beauty Salon, Inc.
My name is Susan DuQuesnay Bankston. I live in Richmond, Texas, in the heart of Tom DeLay's old district. It's nuttier than squirrel poop here.
I am honored and privileged to know Miss Juanita Jean Herownself, hairdresser extraordinary and political maven. Since she does not have time to fiddle with this internet stuff, I type her website for her and you can read it if you want to. If you don't, she truly does not give a big bear's butt.
A lot of what I post here has to do with local politics, but you probably have the same folks in your local government.
This ain't a blog. Blogs are way too trendy for me. This is a professional political organization.
Suspect in custody, and may I say, he looks exactly as I thought he would…. kinda like Jim Carrey playing a petulant man-child.
1Vote, vote and vote some more. Gun attacks are abhorrent. We need sane laws, so that our schools are sanctuaries and Black churches have the same respect, while men like Dr. Tiller also have equal protection under the law from right wing lunatics.
Thanks Fox not the News for your endless noise ‘inspiring’ lunatics with guns to become full force domestic terrorists.
2Don’t blame Fox; apparently they think it’s the victims’ fault for gathering in a gun-free area. Those places are magnets for the crazed and demented gun toters.
3FOX, as well as other right wing talking heads, say the [racist] shooting deaths are really the “war on Christians” …they try so, so hard to make their words into a reality. There was another church shooting this morning in Memphis:
4http://www.wsmv.com/story/29350533/shots-fired-into-church-on-pendleton-street#.VYK9OqXE2iY.twitter
PKM: I’m not so sure the boy is some crazed lunatic running amok. I think he is a carefully taught racist and hater, starting at a very young age. I blame his parents and his peer group for the damage they created. Turns out his father gave him a .45 pistol for his birthday a few weeks ago. He had to know what the boy was capable of because he taught him well in his formative years.
5This wasn’t a hate crime because careless gun owners have lots of black friends.
6This wasn’t a hate crime because Karl “The Mailman” Malone is a black member of NRA.
7W. C. (Pete) Peterson, we’re on the same page. I wrote “lunatic” to which you responded he wasn’t a “crazed lunatic.” Point taken, he was a well-groomed lunatic. Groomed by sources of misdirected anger and irrational fear, whether parental, media/website or both, we’ll soon learn.
At least 11 people accepted him into their peaceful circle for reportedly an hour. At no moment during that time did it occur to him they were of no threat to him. I don’t believe in Zombies, but his behavior displayed a zombie-like error of ‘mission.’ He saw and heard nothing of the facts in front of him; just the voices placed in his head.
8Agree on the carefully taught racist. Conservative values and southern pride (both listed by one of his relatives as his) basically amount to being taught from birth that black people are stupid, ugly, violent, natural criminals and that white men have a divine mission to rule them and protect white women from black rapists.
I have a blog post up about it, if anyone cares:
http://e-moon60.livejournal.com/
The US flag at the South Carolina state capitol is at half-mast, but the Confederate flag is still at the top of its pole.
9The Church was originally built by Denmark Vesey, it was burnt down after his failed slave revolt and subsequently rebuilt by his sons, MLK spoke there and the church has a long and important place in the history of civil rights. The gunman clearly thought this out, it was well orchestrated and racially motivated (the gunman’s statements to ones of the few survivors makes this clear). We are not “post racial” in this nation, indeed there is an undercurrent of racism and fear of “the other” that pervades vast swaths of our country. Alas we allow politicians and media pundits to obfuscate the truth behind these horrifying events and to twist the truth behind them to their own purposes. It is no accident that South Carolina has no hate crimes statue anymore than it is coincidental that the gun the criminal used was a birthday present from the daddy who taught him that black people are evil.
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1999/12/denmark-vesey-forgotten-hero/305673/
10I just don’t get all this. According to the RWNJ’s all gun owners are responsible and racism is dead. This must just be some anomaly. Right?
11I’m with Pres. Obama; I hate having this talk AGAIN.
Who are the people who teach such hatred to their children?
12I’ve already seen gunhumpers dismiss this as a consequence of “gun free ” zones, and state that it could have been state that it could have been prevented by armed congegants or clergy. the reverse of that “logic” says combat zones ought to be the safest places on this Earth. I’m here to tell you from personal experience that nothing in either case could be further from reality.It will be interesting to see if Fux Noise or other RWNJs call this terrorism or even remark on it.
13His uncle is now saying that he told his sister there was something a little “off” about Dylann Roof because he’s 19, doesn’t have a job or a driver’s license. I think oftentimes, some family members have a suspicion that their loved ones have mental issues, but they think that maybe they will go away as time passes. I’m not saying that Roof has mental issues, but that it might be a possibility. His uncle says that he is “too introverted,” whatever this means. I’m basically an introvert, but it has never entered my mind to attack anyone, even those I disagree with. Reuters also reports that his Facebook postings shows he has an affinity for South Africa when it existed under apartheid. A clue that he has been consuming right-wing information is that one of the persons at the church said that while he was shooting and killing parishioners, he said, ” ‘I have to do it. You rape our women and you’re taking over our country,” Johnson said.”
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/06/18/us-usa-shooting-south-carolina-idUSKBN0OY06A20150618
Since I’ve lived in the South my whole life [over 60 years,] and since I know the hidden racism that exists in my state, and have witnessed the unnecessary animus many have toward President Obama, that this happened doesn’t surprise me. I grew up in the Jim Crow South, so I can say that I’m not surprised that racism is still alive and well in these United States. Things have changed quite a bit since the 1960s, but the racism is still being passed down by some families, from one generation to the next, and we’re seeing more and more evidence of this by the things that are being done by some of our youth. It is indeed, sad, very sad.
14We do not have to accept this type of behavior as the price we pay so these freaking morons can play cowboys with real guns they aren’t qualified to posess. We have rights,too and we better make sure our elected officials know that we have our rights.
15After Newtown, the monster boy with access to all those guns should have been a lesson for parents, if only to protect themselves. Instead, the gun nuts keep showering their kids with the deadly weapons and filling their heads with an even worse one-hate. This young man’s dead eyes make him look like a refugee from Deliverance.
16majii says:
“His uncle is now saying that he told his sister there was something a little “off” about Dylann Roof because he’s 19, doesn’t have a job or a driver’s license.”
Dylann didn’t have the ability to pass a driver’s license test, but his uncle gave him a gun for his birthday? You don’t need 20/20 hindsight to question that decision.
17But Rick, driving is a privilege. Gunhumpin’ is a sacred right bestowed upon us by our Creator via the 2nd Amendment.
18In a glimmer of decent news, I offer 2 items to Texans:
One: SCOTUS said it was not illegal for us to keep the confederate rag off the personalized license plate choices-so we are not promoting that here, and
Two: We don’t raise the confederate rag over our capitol.
Let’s continue to keep it that way. I loathe every single thing that ugly symbol stands for, including the needless deaths of so many young American men. It is steeped in the blood of attacks like this. I am mourning…something we could have had…
19I did not suspect that racism would become more open and visible once we elected President Obama. Wow, was I wrong.
20We can pray it will not occur again, but are fools if we think that is all it would take. I am not knocking prayer but human responsibility does not come from prayer. It comes from teaching, and repercussions for bad behavior. People do not recover from serious illness or have a change or heart or behavior because of prayer. Hard work, treatment and expectations work better.
@Rick … it was his Father who gave him a .45 for his 21st birthday, not his uncle.
Doesn’t matter how he got the gun … he shouldn’t have had it at all! Too late now … his horrific damage has been done!!
21“The US flag at the South Carolina state capitol is at half-mast, but the Confederate flag is still at the top of its pole.”
Regardless of the fact that the Dixie Swastika shouldn’t be on any flag staff on government property, having a flag of any sort above the US flag is a violation of the Flag Code. Somebody made a decision to leave that one alone when they lowered the other one.
22Prolly someone in solidarity with whitey mass murderer.
23Racism is bad with Obie in the White House. Watch sexism skyrocket if HRC gets elected. Count on it.
24This boy’s parents should have gotten him help from a mental health professional long ago. Instead, his daddy gave him a gun.
He murdered nine people.
I can’t even………
25It seems that the confederate flag at the state capitol in SC cannot be lowered. It is locked in its current position by state law!
I also read that the people in the state government who have Gladson flags on their desks to proclaim their Confederate pride removed them today. Why is this even acceptable?
My disgust for many in the south continues to grow. I know that not all are as stupid as it seems, and I have sympathy that those who remain for various reasons.
26Pete Peterson… my thoughts exactly.
27Elizabeth Moon. I read your blog post. To it I say Amen.
28I am pleased to learn that he was apprehended without being killed, and I hope that he has the benefit of a fair hearing and trial. I am available to serve on the jury should a Texan be needed to help sort out the moral issues.
I hope that he is tried under federal guidelines, not state guidelines, and I hope that he is not sentenced to death. He is twenty-one years old, and a federal life sentence could give him at least sixty years to contemplate the depravity of his crime.
If, at the end of his miserable life, he is not any closer to understanding and regretting what he has done, he will have proved to us all that he really is as stupid as he looks, and his legacy will be that of a life that every sentient human will look on with derision. He deserves nothing more, or less.
29It’s hard to know what to say in moments like this. The right will inevitably accuse of of politicizing the gun debate on the backs of tragedy. I’m not sure when is the appropriate time to do it. They will say it’s a mental health issue. Guns don’t kill people they’ll say. Yes, but it’s a much more efficient weapon. I can’t help but see the open carry bull hockey at the backdrop in all of this (I know SC and not Texas). Are they blind? Do they not care? I’m lost.
30Elizabeth Moon. I also read your post. Powerful. I’ll let it percolate in me for some time. May I repost as long as I include your url?
31We need help.
32The depravity of the few is outweighing the many.
I spent so much time as a child (coming from a poverty filled, racist, stupidity drunken background) looking for what is true that I now fear for it all.
The rise of the post-intellectual America is terrifying. People who are inordinately proud of their stupidity and willfull ignorance, the rising tribal factions, the upward curve of the new barbarians in our midst and the wholesale armament of mentally challenged “sovereign citizens” is a death knell to life, liberty and most of all the pursuit of justice. If the right wing Old Testament based Christians want to clean the place up–using the eye for an eye idea–which nine members of the shooters family do we remove? If guns do not kill people, what does? And if your family group has such mind bending hatred in it, is that group worth keeping in the culture?
The draconian side of my personality, the part that sees people as “other” is a place I do not like to visit. It’s getting closer to the surface every day. As with all gentle people who have wrestled gentleness out of abuse, I activily work at controlling my rage. “You won’t like me when I’m angry.” I am slow to anger, but I am getting there now. “All that is necessary for evil to prevail is that good men do nothing.” Just voting and being on neighborhood committees isn’t enough against the chaos–nor is being a foster mother, volunteering, and supporting groups that I believe in.
This morning on the TV news I saw a picture that a church member took of what might be Roof. How long before Fox – particularly one of the pretty little gals – starts in on taking a “gasp” picture in CHURCH!
33Within hours of the incident, the white mayor and white police chief of Charleston were calling it a hate crime. Shockingly, though, several prominent conservatives spoke up to discount the clear evidence that Roof was motivated by racism.
Ex-New York Mayor Rudi Giuliani advised against injecting race into the situation and said of the shooter, “We have no idea what’s in his mind. Maybe he hates Christian churches.”
Fox and Friends host Steve Doocy was appalled that people jumped to the conclusion this was a hate crime motivated by race, then jumped to his own conclusion that the shooter was acting out “hostility toward Christians.”
Civil War 150th anniversary ends; Reconstruction remembrance begins
David Horsey / Los Angeles Times
Conservative Miami Herald columnist A.J. Delgado looked at surveillance footage from the church and tweeted, “Sorry, am I the only one who isn’t seeing a white male? I know media wants to run a racial angle here but the guy doesn’t look white?” In a later tweet, she said the story did not add up because the targets of white supremacists are not usually “church-going African Americans.” Idiotically, Delgado ignored the countless bombings and arsons of black churches that stretch back as far as the burning of Charleston’s first Emanuel A.M.E. Church in the early 19th century.
GOP presidential aspirant Rick Santorum called the killings an “assault on religious liberty,” asking “what other rationale could there be?” Another candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, mentioned race in passing, but emphasized that “there are people out there looking for Christians to kill.”
From the LA Times Opinion
34Read it here: http://www.latimes.com/opinion/topoftheticket/la-na-tt-charleston-church-killer-20150619-story.html
35The hate in that boy came from an upbringing and social environment of racism. His remarks about “You people are raping our women and taking over our country..” belie the “war on Christians” crap. His parents are responsible for giving him the gun, knowing that he was troubled, and for filling his head with hate. The law should hold them accountable too, but won’t.
36The confederate flag should be burned and any school district teaching The War of Northern Aggression instead of the Civil War should be closed. Tolerating hate and lies leads to this kind of travesty.
Majii – great post.
As to the misdirection ploy that this is somehow an attack on Christian liberty:
So… Aurora was an attack on my cinematic liberty? Sandy Hook was an attack on my educational liberty? The Tucson shooting that injured Gabby Giffords and killed others was an ironic attack on my Safeway liberty?
37Jon Stewart’s first segment last night was something everyone should have to listen to although the RW will deny his conclusions. Larry Wilmore’s panel also had excellent comments that the RW has deliberately ignored. The fact is IF this was a “war on Christians” why didn’t he stop at the first church he saw? Why did he go to that particular church? If it was a war on Christians then he should have stopped at the first church he came to and opened fire. SC is also a state where the offense of hate crime is not on the books. I also agree with above that if Hillary is elected women will be the brunt of the RW’s vile mind. What I’ve noticed is how the RW and GOP have always gone to the worst on Dems…from JFK’s targeting to Carter & Clinton — when Nixon resigned before impeachment it was like they lost their minds in an all out effort to make each and every Democrat worse than Nixon. I was angry at Clinton for giving them something to find – but from Vince Foster on they were out to destroy any Democrat…it is time we stopped giving them any benefit of any doubt and recognize we are giving them attributes they have not had for far too many years. Both sides DON’T do it and it’s time we pressure the media and our candidates to speak out…we can recognize it, call them on it without doing it ourselves but it must be brought out to shine some light on it before it even begins to disappear. Stewart’s statement that he doesn’t understand how we have spent billions to protect ourselves from ISIL, etc. but when it comes to some gunman here that is OK. I also don’t understand when GOP lost all courage and are like frightened children who want to start wars everywhere (with everyone else’s kids) and go armed everywhere. They have created a very scary world and one I don’t want to live in.
38NRA will deny a gun was used just because “guns don’t kill people.”
So true,Marlene.Wingnuts have always claimed the push to impeach Nixon was driven by partisan Dems when in fact it had wide bi-partisan support, Clintyon’s impeachment was payback for Nixon. Impeachment threats for Obama is because they didn’t get Clinton removed from power.
39It occurs to me that there are a class of flags, the Rising Sun, the swastika flags of Nazi Germany, that revolt civilized Americans because of the atrocities associated with them. I can see how civilized Americans would feel the same way about the Confederate battle flag. We would not tolerate the Nazi flag or the Rising Sun flying free from a pole in our community. Why should we tolerate a Confederate battle flag flying freely. The thought disgusts me.
40@Micr, and the argument would be, “well, those are flags from other countries”, with no sense of irony at all.
41Roof’s background should have been a waving red flag right from the moment he dropped out of high school almost as soon as he entered. Did anyone ever find out why or didn’t they care? Was there bullying afoot? Was he violated? The kind of withdrawal, reticence and even self hate are all characteristics of someone who has undergone either one of these horrible, horrible experiences. So his folks nagged at him to get a job and yet he got money as a birthday present from a family member – dad? – and got hold of a gun. Dammit all to hell and back. This was so preventable!
42Elizabeth Moon, thanks for the link to your blog post. Love your knitting, too.
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