Submitted by Bruce A. Dixon on Wed, 06/24/2015 - 12:34 A Black Agenda Radio Commentary by BAR managing editor Bruce A. Dixon " US law defines a terrorist as someone willing to break the law to change government or corporate policy, like the #BlackLivesMatter protestors, or Chelsea Manning or Martin Luther King. So can we really call Charleston shooter Dylan Roof a terrorist? Killing black people has always been the official policy of governments and corporations"
“The terms “terrorist” and “terrorism” have never been our words, they've always been deployed by the oppressor against us... ”
There's a lot of noise asking why government officials from the Charleston police chief to the head of the FBI to President Obama refuse to call Charleston shooter Dylan Roof a “terrorist.” Listening closely to their official should make us wonder if that's really a good idea.
As the FBI director explained, the term “terrorist” has a very specific legal meaning in the US. Legally, a terrorist is somebody aiming to influence or change government or corporate (it's hard to tell them apart) policies by breaking the law. By that definition, Dylan Roof, who simply wanted to kill as many black people as he could is NOT a terrorist because the willingness to kill a lot of black people is NOT a change in corporate or governmental policy. Killing lots of black folks has been business as usual ever since Europeans landed in the New World half a thousand years ago.
The Charleston shooter is a deranged kook though, because unlike the Koch Brothers, or R.J. Reynolds, or Aetna Insurance or Bank of America, United Fruit, US Steel or the Massachusetts Bay Company, all of whom filled cemeteries and raked in billions, Dylan Roof did his handful of bodies for free. Read more here
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