Amen! Lying about racism whether it is someone falsely claiming to be black when she or he is not, or falsely claiming a crime was racially motivated when it was not, or faking a crime that never happened, all diminish real racism.

Yesterday in South Carolina an atrocity happened when a 21-year-old white gunman entered an AME church and murdered nine unarmed black people in cold blood while they were involved in a Bible study. Today while watching CNN I saw two different guests make unproven comparisons, the first compared this crime to the church burnings of the 1990s and the other said that the killer was influenced by hate media, specifically naming FOX News.

First, the nothing about the shooter's motivations have been released to the public, so we don't know what his specific motivations were. Since he murdered black people and he is white the motivation could have been racist, since he murdered people involved in a Bible study in a church the motivation could have been a hatred of Christianity, or it could have been a mix of both. He could also have been a paranoid schizophrenic who stopped taking his meds. So the politicians should not have prematurely asserted what the shooter's motivations were until we have all the facts.

Second, I watch CNN and Fox, and occasionally MSNBC, CNBC and Fox Business, and Fox's news stories do not promote hate but are just as fair as the other stations, maybe even more so. The Fox commentary shows, like O'Reilly, Hannity, etc., are generally pro-police and reflect a more conservative point of view, but nothing that promotes hate. If anything they are anti-hate. They do criticize MSNBC just as Sharpton and Maddow on MSNBC criticize Fox. I have issues with some Fox commentators myself, but what this politician did was to slander the network. We don't have any evidence that the shooter even watched Fox. We don't know what he watched or who he listened to. Moreover, Fox commentators could be described as slightly anti-Muslim, so how does this even relate to encouraging someone to fire on a church? It makes no sense at all. It is a rush to judgment, politicizing an issue and it reflects more on the politicians making the comments than the tragedy itself.

Third, if this was (again, we don't know yet) a terrorist attack by a demented individual, someone who is mentally ill and not necessarily racist, then it misdirects a possible solution by creating a false cause and focusing our attention on that. In the 1990s there was a rash of church burnings that were blamed on racism. It turned out that many of them were caused by a 13-year-old white girl who was motivated by Satanism, others by a fire fighter turned arsonist; there were a few fires committed by the KKK, but they were a significant minority. It also turned out there also a large number of white churches that were burned, but because the black churches were predominately made of wood they were easier targets. It also turned out that the historical numbers were within the norm, so there was no rash of burnings. President Bill Clinton claimed that in his youth he remembered church burnings in Arkansas. An investigation by the Arkansas Gazette showed that there weren't any. Washington Post writer James K. Glassman wondered if this was a diversionary tactic during the illegal use of FBI files scandal. At any rate, the arsons continued with many white churches being burned by practicing Satanist Jay Scott Bollinger and his stripper girlfriend Angela Wood.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm/churches/churches.htm

http://archive.wilsonquarterly.com/in-essence/fires-time

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/691591/posts

http://www.nytimes.com/1996/06/12/us/arr...oners-pain.html

http://www.nytimes.com/1999/04/21/us/man...ghter-died.html

https://www.atf.gov/content/about/our-history/blast-from-the-past/historic-cases/church-arson

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2000/decemberweb-only/35.0.html

http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=95006

http://www.boogieonline.com/revolution/community/race/churches.html