Charleston Shooter’s Alleged Manifesto Reveals Hate Group (CCC) Helped to Radicalize Him Online
Source: The Southern Poverty Law Center
A manifesto, purportedly penned by Dylann Storm Roof, the man charged with murdering nine people at a historic black church in Charleston, S.C., has surfaced online. A website contains numerous photos of Roof as well as a 2,000 word manifesto. The website is called The Last Rhodesian the Rhodesian flag was one of the patches Roof had on his jacket in his Facebook profile photo. Roofs manifesto reveals much of his motivations for committing his heinous act. In it, he specifically cites the website of the white nationalist hate group Council of Conservative Citizens (CCC) as his gateway into the radical right. The CCC is the modern reincarnation of the old White Citizens Councils, which were formed in the 1950s and 1960s to battle school desegregation in the South. Today, the CCC dedicates itself to educating whites on what it sees as an epidemic of black on white crime in the United States. The CCC website has been a touchstone for the radical right to get educated on this issue and it appears this was the first stop for Roof on his dive down the white nationalist rabbit hole.
Roofs alleged manifesto reads, The event that truly awakened me was the Trayvon Martin case. I kept hearing and seeing his name, and eventually I decided to look him up. I read the Wikipedia article and right away I was unable to understand what the big deal was. It was obvious that Zimmerman was in the right. But more importantly this prompted me to type in the words black on White crime into Google, and I have never been the same since that day. The first website I came to was the Council of Conservative Citizens. There were pages upon pages of these brutal black on White murders. I was in disbelief. At this moment I realized that something was very wrong. How could the news be blowing up the Trayvon Martin case while hundreds of these black on White murders got ignored?
The CCC is very active in Roofs home state of South Carolina. In fact, the CCC webmaster, white nationalist Kyle Rogers, is based in the state. Rogers is the mastermind behind the CCCs push to bring attention to black on white crime writing article after article on the CCC website exposing what he calls black on white hate crimes. This brand of racist opportunism, exemplified by Rogerss coverage of the Trayvon Martin shooting, is a staple of Rogers and the CCCs media plan. On Feb. 6, 2012, in the midst of the sites coverage of the shooting, the CCCs website topped 170,000 unique visits in a single day. Such successes have emboldened Rogers and the CCCs web team, resulting in similar coverage following the 2014 death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., and the social unrest that followed. It seems the CCC media strategy was successful in recruiting Roof into the radical right.
When he isnt writing about black on white crime, Rogers manages a flag store, Patriotic-Flags.com, which you can visit by clicking an ad on the CCC website. Rogers store sells the flag of the government of Rhodesia, the same flag sewn on the jacket worn by Roof in his Facebook profile. Before Roots alleged manifest was discovered, Rogers was quick to attack the Southern Poverty Law Center for our reporting on the Roof shooting. Rogers claimed there is no evidence whatsoever of Roof being radicalized online. If authorities determine that Roofs manifesto is authentic, Rogers words may well come back to haunt him. UPDATE: Charleston law enforcement authorities have confirmed that the website containing Dylann Storm Roofs manifesto and photos was registered and run by Roof.
Read more: http://splcenter.org/blog/2015/06/20/charleston-shooters-alleged-manifesto-reveals-hate-group-helped-to-radicalize-him-online/
Enrique
(27,461 posts)the right-wing hates them and is always accusing them of being partisan, but they monitor hate groups on the right and left.
If the SPLC didn't put "GOP" or "Republican" in the headline, or in their entire story, please don't sneak it in, as you appear to have done.
big_dog
(4,144 posts)always has been always will be
Hassin Bin Sober
(26,311 posts)EL34x4
(2,003 posts)Without hoods and cross burnings.
I noticed they took their website down. Nothing but a blank page when I clicked on it. Probably trying to scrub it clean while they go into damage control mode.
marble falls
(57,010 posts)paleotn
(17,881 posts)They leave the messy stuff to the poor whites who in reality have more in common economically with African Americans than they do with the stuffed shirts downtown. It's the original propagandize against one's best interests. A southern tradition unfortunately.
truthisfreedom
(23,139 posts)SS Clown Car. Where's your war on christians now?
big_dog
(4,144 posts)who on the sunday shows will be the first to mention this story?
restorefreedom
(12,655 posts)to show his flaming stupidity by clinging to the "war on faith" theme.santorum and huckabee are both scheduled for morning shows. it will be a nail biter to see who puts their foot in their mouth first.
Lithos
(26,403 posts)Been Following them for years...
Koch brothers are also part of this "revival" of 1950's hate groups under a "revisionist" header.
mountain grammy
(26,598 posts)lunasun
(21,646 posts)roamer65
(36,744 posts)One of biggest wastes to occupy a senate seat ever.
summerschild
(725 posts)What I have read of it seems beyond his capability.
He dropped out of school after the 8th grade. Yet someone wants people to believe he has studiously "researched" and evaluated copious amounts of information to form "his" conclusions.
I would suspect his friends at that CCC website had a hand in writing his manifesto and in directing his actions.
alcibiades_mystery
(36,437 posts)For example, "Roof" says "I chose Charleston because..." It's a strange use of the past tense, as if the attack had already happened.
Bernardo de La Paz
(48,955 posts)The decision was made before the manifesto was written.
alcibiades_mystery
(36,437 posts)It just seems extraordinarily odd to speak of a planned event based on a past decision for that event. It's hinkey. In ordinary speech we don't lend that sort of implied finality to a decision in a plan that has not yet unfolded.
Bernardo de La Paz
(48,955 posts)He swallowed gobs of stuff at CCC uncritically and he did not seek counter-evidence.
alcibiades_mystery
(36,437 posts)The most notable is his objection to a "Northwest Front," obviously a term of art within the movement used to describe something like grouping white power peoples in the Northwest. That's his own voice, and it does show him objecting to a particular argument within a movement. Certainly, his use of sources would not pass muster in a freshman composition class, but he does evince his own thought on a number of points. He's essentially taking a radical position within those movements, arguing against pure separatism (even as de facto segregation) and for superiority expressed in dominance. That is, where a lot of white power people want to form their own communities (in compounds and by going to their own mythical private "Idaho" , the author of this manifesto wants to put people of color to heel - to engage and destroy rather than disengage and separate. He's taking up arguments within that twisted discourse, and he's not doing it that poorly.
Of course, the whole thing is a mish mash of stupidities, but taken within its own fields of engagement, it's a coherent address to other white power radicals. Needless to say, it also deploys quite a bit of mainstream conservative rhetoric, which is why conservatives are running from it like hell.
appalachiablue
(41,103 posts)one individual who served on the current governor's 2014 re-election campaign. Thanks for the SPLC article. More information that you may know of, maybe not:
Charleston City Paper, 'Nikki Haley Appoints Member of White Power Organization to Campaign', May 24, 2013.
http://www.charlestoncitypaper.com/HaireoftheDog/archives/2013/05/24/nikki-haley-appoints-member-of-white-power-organization-to-campaign
Sourcewatch, Council of Conservative Citizens
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Council_of_Conservative_Citizens
Sourcewatch link from:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10026876678
ETA: Roan Garcia-Quintana was dropped from Haley's campaign May 28, 2013. What a dark character.
http://www.splcenter.org/get%20informed/intelligence%20files/profiles/Roan%20Garcia-Quintana