All of these seemingly random acts point to the fact that white supremacy isn’t just a “white is better” belief ingrained in misguided and stubborn opinions; but rather that white supremacy takes many forms. Some white supremacy groups are specifically anti-government; others don’t mind other ethnicities too much, but despise Jews; others are rooted in religious fanaticism (see Christian Identify above); while others still renounce the rigidity of religion (see Hitler and his ambivalent stance on Catholicism and religion in general).
“I do believe this was a hate crime,” Charleston Police Chief Gregory Mullen told reporters. The comments were applauded by observers glad to see authorities not mincing words when talking about the mass shooting. The FBI and the Department of Justice quickly announced that they have opened up a hate crime investigation for the shooting. The only issue is: South Carolina is one of only five states in the nation that doesn’t have a hate crime law on its books.
The Equal Justice Initiative on Monday published, “Lynching in America: Confronting the Legacy of Racial Terror.” They reported that 3,959 African Americans were victims of terrorist lynchings in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia. More than 90 percent of terrorist lynching victims were black men, and some of the victims were boys as young as 12 and 13.
Lee Atwater, the late Republican operative, is described by his numerous detractors as the godfather of contemporary xenophobic dog whistles to the baser instincts of a vastly Caucasian political party. Atwater made his professional bones as chief dirty trickster for the 1978 U.S. Senate candidacy of his own godfather——fellow South Carolinian Strom Thurmond , a white supremacist who secretly fathered a child with a black housekeeper.
At the same time, wood—in its “original” state as trees—has been adversely affected by global climate change and other environmental factors. This has led to wildfires of unprecedented fury and reach, including the megagires in Australia in 2009 that generated an inferno of hellish proportions, eventually covering more than 100 million acres. What comes across most vividly in this panoramic study of wood is Roland Ennos’s love of the subject.
His creative process is a mixture of works on paper, acrylic paint, found objects and non-toxic hot glue, which creates a three-dimensional effect on any surface that gives a sense of realism and presence in his artwork. Darrell refers to this optical artistic illusion as “Definism,” which in his opinion portrays various differences in human nature from life’s everyday dramas to humankind’s quest to understanding the self.
