Exploiting the deaths of the South Carolina nine before they can be laid to rest

It’s not the trumped up battle over the 150-year-old Confederate flag that’s what the slaughter of nine victims at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church is really all about. It’s that the flag protesters seek to make a flag flap transcend the deaths of nine people in church--bypassing those tragic deaths as though they never happened. For shame the tragedy was made political before even Susie Jackson, Sharonda Coleman-Singleton, DePayne Doctor, Ethel Lance, Daniel Simmons Sr., Clementa Pinckney, Cynthia Hurd, and Tywanza Sanders could be laid to rest.

For shame that #BlackLivesMatter trumps ‘Rest in Peace’ at the same moment their loved ones are prostrate in unimaginable heartbreak and grief. Blaming their deaths on the Confederate flag is a convenient political tool for all those who keep stirring the pot of racial discord in America. “On Friday, the White House joined the debate, saying that Obama believes the rebel flag belonged in a museum.” (Daily Mail, June 22, 2016) If Obama sincerely wanted to mothball the Confederate flag by hiding it in the obscurity of a museum, why did he wait seven years to turn on it? Many black men sacrificed their lives fighting on both sides of the American Civil War. How many of the nine’s ancestors could be counted among them?

---

Nor is Obama the only politician willing to politicize the tragedy that took place Wednesday at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church. Jumping with big feet into the Confederate flag fray from the permanent sidelines where he’s been ever since presidential election defeat is Mitt Romney. Romney, who branded the historic Confederate flag a “symbol of racial hatred”, could only join growing calls for South Carolina’s Capitol to take it down in the wake of the mass shooting, primarily because he’s got nothing to lose. Romney already lost everything he had to lose courtesy of his ineffectual ‘nice guy’ presidential campaign against Barack Obama. A stark contrast to the politician-led Confederate flag mob were the thousands who gathered on Saturday at the Arthur Ravenel Bridge. “Thousands of people marched across Charleston's main bridge in a show of unity after nine black church parishioners were gunned down during a Bible study. (Daily Mail, June 22, 2015)

“Crowds gathered on either side of Arthur Ravenel Bridge at around dusk and then met toward the middle of the span. “Part of the bridge was closed as people were walking, taking pictures and chatting. When the marchers from the Mount Pleasant side and the Charleston side met on the bridge, there was clapping and singing of This Little Light of Mine. 'It feels great. There's so much love out here,' said Juliett Marsh of Summerville, who was toward the front of the marchers who walked from the Mount Pleasant side.   

The ‘little light’ of the bridge marchers shone brighter than the one the politicians are trying so hard to shine. The congregation of Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church has done more than any other group to douse the flames of deliberately set racial fires. They are a lesson to Christians everywhere by showing all that it’s easy to pray when all is going well, but soul-searing when loved ones have been lost to a massacre of those who went to church to pray. The loved ones of the slain hold their heads high in the most trying of circumstances and leave their Christian hearts open for the only thing that will bring healing back to their noble Church, powerful prayer to the Almighty--even when outsiders are trying to use their personal sorrow to advance a political cause. Politicians and activists who would rewrite the history of the Civil War will never heal grief-stricken hearts. “Suspected killer Dylann Roof proudly displayed Confederate plates on his car before ambushing a bible study class at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church and opening fire on the African American congregants.” (Daily Mail)

“Protesters in South Carolina have defaced a war monument as the Confederate flag continues to fly over the state's capitol.  “Images have since surfaced on social media of a monument in Charleston's White Point Gardens, which was discovered with graffiti on Sunday morning. “The monument, To the Confederate Defenders of Charleston - Fort Sumter, was erected in 1932 as a gift from The United Daughters of the Confederacy. “It is an allegorical depiction of the Confederate army in the city holding off Union forces during the civil war. “The vandal or vandals spray painted the base, writing 'Black Lives Matter' and 'This is the problem #racist.' “A petition on MoveOn.org has garnered more than 320,000 signatures.” 

In a massacre that seemed almost scripted, any symbol Roof chose to crown his evil should be suspect. In a world where truth still matters, history should never be thrown on the trash heap. “At a vigil for the victims on Friday night, attended by thousands, Charleston mayor Joe Riley refreshed his pleas for the state government to remove the flag. (Daily Mail)

“He added an appeal for gun control: 'There has got to be a better way. “We do not want to live in a country where we need a security guard in a bible center,”Riley said.

The tragic truth is that Americans do live in a country where a security guard is needed in a bible center. And it’s the politicians of the day who uphold the politics of racial divide who made it that way.