#dylann storm roof

Muslim groups fundraise to restore black churches, ‘support victims of arson’

Muslim organizations have raised $23,000 to help rebuild eight historically black churches that have burned down since the deadly attack on a prayer group in South Carolina. Three fires are believed to be arson, while the rest are under investigation.

 The groups ‒ including Muslim Anti-Racism Collaborative, the Arab  American Association of New York and Ummah Wide ‒ encouraged  Muslims to reach out during their holy month of Ramadan. They  touted the connections between Muslim and African-American  communities in the US, saying the groups are “profoundly  integrated in many ways, in our overlapping identities and in our  relationship to this great and complicated country.”

via @vox: “I was a prominent Neo-Nazi; ignoring White Extremists is a MISTAKE”

Here’s the full transcript of Picciolini’s words in the above video (bold emphasis mine):

“In prior administrations, the [US] government has supported the fight against White extremism. They’ve recognized the threat within our own borders, but some of those policies might change.

Maybe we hear things about White extremism being removed from the Countering Violent Extremism focus, and I think that that’s a mistake.

From dozens of Jewish community centers receiving bomb threatstocemeteries and synagogues being desecrated to police officers in Las Vegas being targeted - specifically because they are law enforcement - by militiamen; we have a domestic terrorism issue that we hardly talk about because we’re so focused on the threat coming from overseas.

When Dylann Roof writes a manifesto proclaiming his hate for people and saying that he wants to murder people to progress his agenda - that, to me, is terrorism. That’s no different than an ISIS propaganda video.

The imagery of White Supremacy has changed over the last three decades. It’s gone from what-you-would-consider-your-normal-racist to something that’s more mainstream: suits and ties; fashionable haircuts; and clothes that would never identify them as Neo-Nazis until they open their mouths. And that was a concerted effort because we knew that we were turning more people away that we could eventually have on our side, if we just softened the message.

These days, with our political climate, we see a lot of coded language or dog whistles: the use of the Star of David when talking about politicians. We used to say that ‘The Jews control the media,’ and now they’ve just massaged the phrase to call it ‘Liberal Media’.

And ‘Make America Great Again’? Well, to them, that means ‘Make America WHITE Again’.

White nationalists, just like any other extremist group, promise paradise. They promise that the problems of crime and the problems of ‘White genocide’ are gonna go away. And that ‘You come from a very White, noble cause’. And that ‘your culture is worth protecting’. The problem is that nobody is trying to take that away from you.

The only problems that they have are the ones that they inflate with propaganda - with fake news - where they teach you that ‘Blacks commit more crimes against White people’ or that ‘the Jews control the media and finance system’. These are all conspiracy theories; there’s no basis in truth.

And I know this because I helped create those lies from the very beginning, and I helped spread them, and ultimately I believed them myself. And I infected that lie into other people that were innocent.

And even 20 years later, after I left the movement, I’m still pulling up the weeds from all those seeds of hate that I planted. Which is why I’ve dedicated the last 20 years of my life to help eradicate racism.”

–Christian Picciolini, former White Supremacist-turned-founder of the anti-discrimination group Life After Hate