Editors note: this article from Deep Green Resistance member and slam poet world champ Dominique Christina was published recently in the wake of the latest mass shooting in Virginia. In the piece, Dominique reflects on the media treatment of different cases: they make the killing of white people into tragedies (which they are), but don’t do the same to the killings of black women and men.
Instead, these killings are fetishized and viewed over and over again without consideration for the family and friends of the victims. This is not a new tradition in America; lynchings were often public events in the South. Bring your kids, bring a picnic. It’s a sensation, and it reflects how white supremacy is still the ruling law of this land, and how people of color are still not viewed as fully human inside this system. We invite you to read Dominique’s piece and reflect on her words.
Thoughts on Dylan Roof, The Charleston Shooting, The Spectacle of Death, & The Roanoke Killings
by Dominique Christina / Deep Green Resistance
I hate writing about this stuff…
But today in Roanoke Virginia, a black man gunned down three people on live television, killing two of them. He even held a camera phone up to record himself doing the deed. I got wind of it late. That is usually the case for me. I actively avoid the news. It leads me toward feelings of hopelessness and I have kids to raise. I have to have enough language left in me to give them hope or something like it. But social media has a way of making sure you know things. I saw tweets like:
And…
And just like that I am again entangled in the too frequent conversation about violence in this country and gun laws, and questions about motive and debates about whether or not it was race-related and the connection between this event and the shooting in Charleston where nine people were killed by Dylan Roof who was named by the Roanoke shooter in the manifesto he wrote and sent to a news station two hours after he murdered the two newscasters.
Read the full article at the Deep Green Resistance News Service.