It’s Hard To Love this Country

New NBA and NHL champs were crowned this week and the U.S. Women’ National Team moved on to the knockout rounds.  Sometimes however, sports takes a backseat to more pressing topics.  In this week’s edition of the Friday Sports Dump, we go to Charleston, South Carolina.

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I want to say, “I love this country.”

To say something like that though means I love every thing about it.  I love the purple mountains, the rolling waves hitting our coasts, and all the people who inhabit from sea to shining sea.  After yesterday’s events, and today’s coverage, I. Just. Can’t. Do. It.

As swiftly as law enforcement officials apprehended the terrorist, people from Fox News had already shifted the narrative.  Fox and Friends asked Martin Luther King Jr.’s niece if white people were welcomed at a black church, and if they should be scared.  On the same program, Senior Pastor of Hope Christian Church, Bishop E.W. Jackson said this wasn’t a racial hate crime, but a religious one.  All the while, Elizabeth Hasselbeck, Brian Kilmeade and Steve Doocy all but raised their hands in agreement as if they were in Jackson’s church. U.S. Senator and Presidential Candidate Lindsay Graham would say the shooter was looking for Christians to kill and Presidential Candidate Rick Santorum said the shooting was about “religious liberty” and that the killer chose this historic church and the members inside, “indiscriminately”.  Another GOP Presidential Candidate, Rick Perry called the terrorist attacks an accident and put blame on prescription drug abuse.  The worst, was National Rifle Association Board Member Charles Cotton saying the 9 dead would be alive had murdered pastor and state Sen. Clementa Pinckney supported guns in church.  On Tuesday, South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley stood firm on the belief that the Confederate Flag should continue to wave because she hasn’t gotten any complaints from CEOs.

President Obama in his address to the nation, mentioned it’s time we think about gun control.  Just think about it.  Not pass laws, or outlaw guns, but have a discussion.  Of course this was met with widespread criticism from the right.  God forbid any regulations limit the amount of guns or regulate the sale of guns.

The Economist had this to say about how we in America handled this massacre.

Those who live in America, or visit it, might do best to regard them the way one regards air pollution in China: an endemic local health hazard which, for deep-rooted cultural, social, economic and political reasons, the country is incapable of addressing. This may, however, be a bit unfair. China seems to be making progress on pollution.

This is the world we live in.  People refuse to believe race is still an issue in our country.  They all sit in the back of the bus, closing their ears and yelling at the top of their lungs refusing to believe what’s right in front of their faces.

Race is an issue in our country, until people acknowledge it, it will never be a nation I can truly love.

I have no direct connection to the terrorist.  I am not African American so I can’t reach from some deep relation to this attack.  With every pivot, however, with every casual explanation for this violence that doesn’t include race, they are creating a new mentality.  One where the obvious injustices that used to unify the majority of our country now create a bigger divide.  Those individuals are a new class of terrorism.  The most dangerous of terrorist who use our own airwaves and speak from a position of power and as the supposed informed to blatantly push an agenda.  One hoping to keep the status quo and fatten their wallets, no matter what the cost to our nation.

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Last night someone sat down to pray with a group of African Americans who didn’t know at the time that the individual sitting with them was planning the coldest of calculated plots.  While they prayed, this individual knew in his mind, many of them would die.  He killed 9, reloading on five different occasions, and allegedly told a 10th, she would survive to “tell his story.”  A five-year-old girl played dead.

Two pastors, a speech language pathologist, an aspiring rapper, a grandmother, a librarian, a college enrollment counselor and two others all died at the hands of a terrorist.

The church in which they worshipped, Charleston’s Emanuel AME Church is a part of our country’s history of race relations.

Next year will mark the 200 year anniversary of “Mother Emanuel”. Over two centuries the church has witnessed thwarted slave revolutions, executions, its been burned to the ground and rebuilt.  When laws banned all-black services, the members of “Mother Emanuel” met in secret underneath her roof.  When an earthquake turned her to rubble, once again she was rebuilt.  During the civil rights movement of the 1960s, it was a destination stop for many of the leaders, including Martin Luther King Jr.

Fifty years after King dreamt of people being judged by their character rather than the color of their skin, we realize that it is still a pipe dream.  Too much ignorance and resistance has blocked the tide of true freedom.

Mother Emanuel’s foundation is still sturdy, but rebuilding is necessary.  Her heart was left bloodied at the hand of an individual who doesn’t deserve to be mentioned by name or as a man.  If Emanuel’s 200 year story is any indication, she will rebuild and she will stand tall for the people of Charleston and America.

The families of the victims have already preached love and forgiveness.  They are much stronger than I.  They have already started the rebuilding process.  Their heart and perseverance prove there are still things to love about America.