Saturday, June 20, 2015

Pretending It’s Not About Race

In the wake of the horrifying killing of nine black people at an African Methodist Episcopal church in Charleston, South Carolina by a rather obvious racist, the Republican presidential candidates go to great lengths to pretend that it’s about anything other than race. Like Lindsey Graham:

He continued: “I can’t explain this. I don’t know what would make a young man at 21 get so sick and twisted to kill nine people in a church, this is beyond my understanding.”

“Do you think it’s a hate crime or do you think it’s more mentally disturbed?” one of the co-hosts asked Graham.

“Probably both,” he replied. “There are real people out there that are organized to kill people in religion and based on race. This guy is just whacked out.”

“But it’s 2015, there are people out there looking for Christians to kill them,” Graham added. “This is a mean time we live in.”

Really? You think he shot them because they’re Christian? Is there some trend toward killing of Christians rather than by Christians in this country?

And Rick Santorum, who immediately tied it to this fake “religious liberty” nonsense:

Speaking to AM970 radio host Joe Piscopo, Santorum said that it was hard for him to believe that “things like this can happen in America.”

“It’s obviously a crime of hate,” he noted. “We don’t know the rationale, but what other rationale could there be. You’re sort of lost that someone would walk into a Bible study at a church and indiscriminately kill people.”

“This is one of those situation where you have to take a step a back and say — you talk about the importance of prayer at this time, and we’re now seeing assaults on religious liberty we’ve never seen before,” the candidate noted. “So, it’s a time for deeper reflection even beyond this horrible situation.”

Okay, first of all…speaking to Joe Piscopo? Who the hell would talk to Joe Piscopo for any reason whatsoever? And nice job, Rick, you managed to make the totally absurd connection to your favorite pet issue. Because it must really be about those poor, persecuted Christians and not about the legitimately oppressed and attacked black victims. Oh, I’m sorry, I just “played the race card.” How long before Obama gets blamed? Oh, I’m sure it’s already happening in the right wing fever swamps.

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