I am stealing this idea from Sharon, who brought it up, but an overlooked portion of the horrible rampage that killed nine people in the basement of the Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, S.C. was a statement the suspect, Dylann Roof, was supposed to have made as an explanation for his crime.
He is supposed to have said:
“You rape our women, and you’re taking over our country, and you have to go.”
That, in addition to being a false statement, is also a trope favored by racists since the first one breathed out of his own mouth. The notion that violent racism serves as a protector for females has a deadly history, as Jamelle Bouie writes in Slate:
Make any list of anti-black terrorism in the United States, and you’ll also have a list of attacks justified by the specter of black rape. The Tulsa race riot of 1921—when white Oklahomans burned and bombed a prosperous black section of the city—began after a black teenager was accused of attacking, and perhaps raping, a white girl in an elevator. The Rosewood massacre of 1923, in Florida, was also sparked by an accusation of rape. And most famously, 14-year-old Emmett Till [pictured] was murdered after allegedly making sexual advances on a local white woman.
In fact, it’s an ugly and paternalistic excuse to create havoc. And those women are “yours.” Come to think of it, the land isn’t, either. Jaysus, this stuff makes me tired.
Dating Jesus 