EFF statement on the racist massacre of AME Church members in Charleston, South Carolina, USA
19 June 2015
The Economic Freedom Fighters sends its revolutionary condolences to families and friends of the African-Americans who have been massacred in what should be unequivocally described as an anti-black racist killing. The members of the historic African Methodist Episcopal Church of Charleston in the state of South Carolina were brutally gunned down by a white man simply because they are black.
The African-American community in the United States of America has been under racist attack by the policing system which continues to treat them as sub-citizens without the full protection of the law. Black people under the US criminal system, purely because of the colour of their skin, are permanent crime suspects whom the police harass and kill with impunity.
Dylann Storm Roof who is only 21 years old. He is as young as South Africa’s post-apartheid government and was shown in his Facebook picture wearing the apartheid flag. The man is too young to have experienced apartheid and even to have drawn inspiration from FW De Klerk, PW Botha, HF Verwoerd, Cicil John Rhodes and their anti-black racist regimes they celebrated with flags that he was wearing on his heart.
If Roof was posting pictures on Facebook wearing the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) or Hamas flags, the FBI and CIA would have hunted him down and stopped him even before he killed a single soul. But white America does not care for black people and even if someone could have reported Roof’s Facebook posts, they would have possibly dismissed it as an intellectual expression rather than a basis to suspect anti-black racism and hate speech.
Roof left one of the victims alive so she can tell the story of his racist killing. The victim reported that Roof said black people were taking over America, which means he still harboured the racist idea that America must belong exclusively to white people, as it did for centuries.
The idea of wearing an apartheid flag by a racist killer reaffirms the call by the EFF for the unconditional removal of apartheid and colonial symbols because they continue to inspire white supremacy. The EFF has indicated that all statues celebrating colonialists and apartheid leaders must fall because they provide the basis for white people to think they are superior and untouchable.
The historic Emmanual African Methodist Episcopal Church, which is 199 years old, has endured so much racist torture and murder under white racist governments in America. Yet, even in the America that is led by a black president who has been democratically elected by the majority of the American people, African-Americans continue to be the target of anti-black racist violence. This is a sign, along many other anti-black killings under the watch of President Barack Obama, that America is light years from attaining a human face. It remains the breeding ground for racist whites even after both Mandela and Obama.
The EFF sends revolutionary condolences to the families, friends, congregants of AME and the entire African-American community. As Africans in Africa we want to send a strong message to white America that we are watching the continuing brutal murder of our brothers and sisters and we must not be pushed to a place where we will have to respond. African unity is also inclusive of the Diaspora and whoever touches black people anywhere in the world, touches black people everywhere in Africa.
We call on the African Union to develop concrete policies to promote and support African-Americans because they are clearly not safe under Obama and will never be under all the successive governments of the US.
Statement issued by the Economic Freedom Fighters, June 19 2015
