Prison Radio
Kerry “Shakaboona” Marshall

“Why the US Media Refuse to Call Dylann Roof a Terrorist” by Shakaboona.

The major US media corporations announced breaking news: Dylann Roof, the self-proclaimed white supremacist, has been sentenced by a jury of his peers to death for the heinous massacre of nine God-loving, beautiful black woman and men at the historic Emmanuel African Methodist Episcopal church in Charleston, SC.

The news media has called Dylann Roof all sorts of names: murderer, white supremacist, insane, and evil. They have called Dylann Roof almost every name in the book of names besides “terrorist.”

Why does the media and government officials refer to the Boston marathon bombing and the Orlando nightclub massacre as acts of domestic terrorism and call those perpetrators “terrorists,” yet when Dylann Roof massacred nine black parishoners while they prayed in church, he is not referred to as a terrorist.

Moreover, how is it that the media and right-wing news pundits can have the gall to willfully mischaracterize the nonviolence Black Lives Matter movement as a group of terrorists yet refuse to truthfully characterize Dylan roof as the white supremacist terrorist that he is.

The answer to why the US media has downgraded Dylann Roof’s crime to a common hate offense violation and don’t acknowledge his act of terrorism or refer to him as a terrorist is because they don’t believe black lives truly matter.

Dylann Roof should have been charged with the more serious federal crime of domestic terrorism and not just murder and hate crime offenses. If the 1963 bombing of the 16th Street Baptist church in Birmingham, AL that killed four little black girls while at Sunday school was an act of domestic terrorism then, and it was, the 2015 shooting massacre at the Emmanuel African Methodist Episcopal church in Charleston, SC that killed nine black parishioners while praying is an act of domestic terrorism now.

The designation of terrorists shouldn’t be dismissed out of hand by the US media and politicians when terrorist acts are committed against black Americans. Dylann Roof’s stated intention was to commit an act of terror against black Americans to start a race war in America, so the media must stop being complicit in the spread of white nationalism and act of terror against black Americans and call Dylann Roof what he truly is: a terrorist.

From the belly of the beast at Prison Radio, I am Shakaboona.

These commentaries are recorded by Noelle Hanrahan of Prison Radio.