Racism’s toll grows

Kansans and all Americans are trying to make sense of the senseless, hate-fueled shooting deaths of nine people in a historic black church in South Carolina. It can’t be done.

Yet such carnage must be held up to the light and examined carefully – every time – or we will risk treating it as expected and therefore somehow acceptable.

The violence at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston came after the alleged 21-year-old shooter sat among the Bible study group for at least an hour on Wednesday evening. Dylann Roof reportedly told police he almost didn’t go through with his plan because everyone was so nice to him.

And no wonder. Most churches are welcoming, fearless places. As President Obama said Thursday, commenting for at least the 14th time during his tenure about a shooting attack: “There’s something particularly heartbreaking about the death happening in a place in which we seek solace, and we seek peace, in a place of worship.”

Sadly, the hate that motivated the gunman to go to the church prevailed over any sane and humane second thoughts, leading him to open fire. Now, nine families and a community are experiencing shock and sorrow. And a nation already rattled by a series of deaths of African-American men at the hands of police officers – a disturbing trend that has stretched from Staten Island, N.Y., to Ferguson, Mo., to North Charleston to, yes, Wichita – is dealing with more pain and confusion.

Some seek comfort in blaming more than the alleged shooter in Charleston, with guns and parenting and mental illness easy targets. Though one wishes troubled young men could be more easily kept away from firearms, the political movement is entirely the other way – toward the view that easier access to guns fosters security and freedom. Kansas lawmakers even voted this year to allow concealed-carry of guns without permit or training as of July 1, while a similar effort fell short in South Carolina.

In any case, Roof’s reported comments at the scene leave no doubt that he was looking to kill African-Americans, confirming that the Emanuel AME Church massacre just extended racism’s staggering death toll in America by nine.

The nation can hope that Roof’s own generation, the millennials, will have less of an appetite than their elders for what the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. called “the stale bread of hatred and the spoiled meat of racism.” In that eulogy for victims of the 1963 Birmingham, Ala., church bombing, King also said: “Their death says to us that we must work passionately and unrelentingly for the realization of the American dream.”

In the absence of a sure way to make the hatred and death stop – here and now – we can only pray harder, communicate better, reach out further, and seek peace, justice and understanding more fervently.

For the editorial board, Rhonda Holman

This story was originally published June 20, 2015 at 7:06 PM with the headline "Racism’s toll grows."