The True Charleston Killer Remains At Large

Racism, poverty and violence are the real killers in America.

By Rev. Dr. William Barber

In Luke 23:34, Jesus says, "Father forgive them for they know not what they do."

A deeper meaning of forgiveness in the Christian nonviolent tradition reveals a critique that knows: The Charleston perpetrator has been caught, but the killer is still at large.

There is a scripture that says we wrestle not against flesh and blood but against powers and rulers of the darkness. Within the nonviolent faith tradition it has always been clear that hate cannot drive out hate and evil cannot drive out evil. And so the Christians who were able to forgive the murder 48 hours after losing their loved ones are consistent with their faith in Jesus, who said, as he was being murdered by the state, "Father forgive them for they know not what they do."

But this forgiveness should not be misinterpreted as a dismissing of the greater evil.

Their forgiveness is also an act of resistance to the attempts to lay the blame for this horror at the feet of one man. If America is serious about this moment, we cannot just cry ceremonial tears while at the same time refusing to support the martyred Reverend and his parishioners' stalwart fight against the racism that gave birth to the crime.

The perpetrator has been caught, but the killers are still at large: the deep wells of American racism and white supremacy from which Dylann Roof drank.

These families of the murdered are challenging the schizophrenia of American morality that allows political leaders to condemn the crime yet embrace the policies that are its genesis. Many of the South Carolina politicians and others in the nation are examples of a common theme — decrying the killings but steadfastly refusing to support efforts to quell their divisive race-implying rhetoric and cease their push for policies that promote race based voter suppression, adversity toward fixing the Voting Rights Act, cutting public education in ways that foster resegregation, denying workers living wages, refusing Medicaid expansion, the proliferation of guns and supporting the Confederate flag flying at the state capitol — a symbol of slavery, racism and terrorism against African Americans.

They are even using racial code words to criticize the president, all in the name of taking their country back and preventing its destruction. And they refuse to own that there is a history of racialized political rhetoric and policies spawning the pathology of terroristic murder and violent resistance.

When they were murdered, Reverend Pinckney and his parishioners were advocating for a better life for people of all races. They were standing with fast food workers demanding a living wage. They were calling for the Confederate flag to come down. They were fighting against voter suppression and for funding public education, expanding Medicaid to allow the poor and near poor — of all races — to have health care. They were mobilizing for police accountability and marching for justice in the police killing of Walter Scott, an unarmed African American shot in the back by a police officer.

These brave family members are telling America that you cannot focus only on this one man and absolve America of its historic sickness. In a profound way, they are saying that giving the killer the death penalty is not going to fix what ails us. Arresting one disturbed young man, and dumping on him the sins of slavery, Jim Crow, and the new racialized extremism that has captured almost every southern legislature and county courthouse, will not bring "closure" or "healing" to a society that is still sick with the sin of racism and inequality. A society where too many perpetuate in word and deed the slow violence of undermining the promise of equal protection under the law that preachers from Denmark Vesey to Martin Luther King Jr. to Rev. Pinckney fought for.

They are asking us to forgive the sinner but hate the sin. They are issuing a clarion call borne of their pain and loss to create a society that truly embraces justice and equality, that ends the policies of racism and poverty that only guarantee there will be more Dylann Roofs and more acts of terror. Because only then will we apprehend the real killers.

I believe, in light of this, that real healing would be writing an omnibus bill in the name of the nine Emanuel martyrs. This bill would implement Medicaid expansion, raise public education funding, pass a living wage requirement, pass new gun control laws, and remove the Confederate flag from the state house. And this omnibus bill would be supported and passed by Republicans and Democrats.

Further, the very seat Rev. Pinckney held is in jeopardy as long as Section 5 of the Voting Right Act has been gutted. The current bill in the U.S. House, even if passed, would leave out Alabama, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, and Tennessee from coverage. If we want closure, let us name a Voting Rights Act restoration bill after the Emanuel Nine.

We have no choice. We must see transformative action not temporary ceremonial displays. Until we deal with the issues of race, poverty and violence that threaten to tear our nation asunder, it is not just America's soul that is at stake, but America itself.

 

The Rev. Dr. William Barber II is president of the North Carolina State Conference of the NAACP and pastor of Greenleaf Christian (Disciples of Christ) Church of Goldsboro, N.C. He is the architect of the Moral Monday-Forward Together Movement.