Thank goodness there was no racial component to the Alabama church fires

[burythehatchet]

:sarcasm: At least according to Faux Noose. 60 second segment. No mention of race. The fact that 3 white Alabama college students burnt down a bunch of churches doesn't necessarily mean they had any racial motivation. Nope. Not in Alabama.

NY Times report: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/08/national/08cnd-arson.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1141841632-ZIIi3hRA/Y9TjBoP2JKpfw

[Marr]

1. Clearly it's secularists attacking the religious!

Right, Bill?

[Kansas Wyatt]

14. Probably more like Mega Churches covert activities

To destroy small older churches, and have their recruits claim to be secularists.

Mega Churches get a bigger flock and more offerings, and get to claim that Christians are being attacked for their religion by evil liberal secularists.

[MadHound]

2. Did they catch the bastards?

I haven't heard.

[burythehatchet]

4. Yes. Three students

One at UAB 2 at Alabama Southern(?)

[Richard Steele]

3. Well, if FOX says it, then it must be true, right?

This alone is enough to convince me that it WAS a racial thing.

If you don't have time to read REAL news,
simply watching FOX and believing the opposite
of everything they say is a pretty good option.

[MadMaddie]

5. They burned an equal number of black and white baptist churches....

Apparantly they like watching fires of burning churches that they started..

sigh...

[burythehatchet]

6. They burned 5 black and 5 white churches

but it will take a lot to convince me there wasn't a racial component with 3 Alabama boys burning down churches.

[MADem]

11. Well, apparently there was a BAPTIST component!!!

Not a single Lutheran, Episcopalian, or Methodist church...they even spared the Catholics!

But they went for the Baptists....ya gotta wonder what THAT was all about?????

[TallahasseeGrannie]

15. Every other church in Alabama is

Baptist or Primative Baptist.

[QC]

19. Yes, when people think in stereotypes--

and I use the word think very loosely here-- it's generally impossible to convince them of anything that doesn't confirm their prejudices.

Given what little we know here, the most likely motivations are either just the thrill of vandalism or some kind of antireligious sentiment. Attacking blacks by burning white churches is too ridiculous to merit any discussion at all.

[DBoon]

7. They must be homos!

why else would they attack good christian churches?

:sarcasm:

[LisaM]

8. If the perpetrators were black, it would be a racial incident regardless

whether it was black on black or black on white crime.

[burythehatchet]

9. Exactly my point.

[TallahasseeGrannie]

13. It can't be racially motivated

if they burned equally black and white churches.

[TallahasseeGrannie]

10. They appeared to be equal opportunity arsonists

I think you are wrong that because they are Alabama kids they are out to burn black churches. It just isn't like that down here anymore. Times have changed.

We don't know the motives yet but it will be interesting to find out.

[MADem]

16. Heh, heh!!

It ain't funny, but that phrase "equal opportunity arsonists" just tickled my funnybone!

I'm curious about the motive, too.

[burythehatchet]

17. Times change but people don't

I'm in Georgia and what I've seen sometimes resembles the 19th century at times.

[TallahasseeGrannie]

20. Really? That just isn't my experience

here in Northern Florida, five minutes from the GA border. Particularly in the college-age generation. These kids have grown up with integration. Is there still racism? Sure. Both races are guilty of it, but it tends to be the older folks, in my experience. And it doesn't tend to be college kids.

I believe people do change with the times. Slowly but surely.

[Elwood P Dowd]

27. I haven't seen anything like that

I have lived in the south (Georgia & Alabama) for 58 years. It's been a decade or more since I've witnessed anything resembling the 1960s, much less the 19th century. If things are like you say, why are so many retired African-Americans moving back to the south from places like Cleveland and Detroit? The Atlanta Journal-Constitution had a nice article on this a couple of years ago.

[TallahasseeGrannie]

32. That is my experience as well

I see enormous progress in racial issues. It is not all hunky-dory, but we don't have young white guys cruising to beat up African Americans. And the younger the kid the better it is. It is an issue that I think will eventually resolve itself. There is tremendous admiration for the black culture among young people. Sure, it is mostly the pop culture, hip hop and that sort of thing, but it is a start. And I teach gifted kids and have a lot of black and bi-racial students. Times are changing, I'm proud to have been a part of it.

[burythehatchet]

18. As LisaM says above, if they were black

it would be 24/7 coverage at Faux with their black faces photoshopped to look blacker and plastered all over the screen.

[TallahasseeGrannie]

23. Maybe it's time to bury the hatchet

because if you expect the worst, you'll never be disappointed.

[alarcojon]

25. That is certainly true

But with half the churches being white, it is a stretch to argue a racial motive, absent further evidence.

[TallahasseeGrannie]

33. You know, I think it might be wiser

to actually wait for things to happen and THEN protest, than to anticipate it. But that's just me. There's so much juicy bad news we can fuss about, why make stuff up?

[pocket]

12. at least they didn't burn down libraries

or laundromats

[Burning Water]

21. You seem to

have made up your mind already.

:shrug:

[burythehatchet]

26. History is a good guide

[Burning Water]

38. Racial violence occurs

in the North, and West, too.

And it's not all whites that are the bad guys.

Plenty of racist blacks, Native Americans, Asian Americans, & Mexican Americans to add to the racist list.

History may be a good guide, but facts are a better one, and we really don't have any facts yet, do we?

[Nikki Stone 1]

22. The article says nothing about why they did it.

Has there been any word from the criminals themselves?

[Clark2008]

24. And, we're not even sure they're criminals.

They haven't been tried, yet.

Remember, thus far in America, they're INNOCENT until PROVEN guilty in a court of law.

:hi:

[Ganja Ninja]

28. Christian insurgents trying to start a religious civil war? n/t

[Infomaniac]

29. Article said Joke got out of hand...

Two students at a liberal arts college in Birmingham will be charged with arson and conspiracy in connection with deliberately setting fires last month at nine Baptist churches in rural Alabama.

In an affidavit filed in a court in Birmingham on Wednesday, a witness said one of the suspects referred to the first string of fires in the early-morning hours of Feb. 3 as "a joke got out of hand."

The second string of fires on Feb. 7 was set "as a diversion to throw investigators off," the affidavit said.

Suspects Benjamin Nathan Moseley and Russell Lee Debusk Jr. appeared in court on Wednesday.

http://www.cbc.ca/story/world/national/2006/03/08/arson-churches060308.html


Too bad one of the suspect's last name isn't Debush instead of Debusk. I could see some heads exploding over at Free Republic.

Were the churches burned on February 3rd considered black churches or white churches or a mix? I'm too darn lazy to do my own search.

[misanthrope]

30. What about the one who...

...went to UAB? That's not a liberal arts school, so why no mention of that at the top of the article?

And why no mention that B'ham Southern is populated by a lot of kids from privileged backgrounds?

[Infomaniac]

31. The one from UAB transferred from the private school.

More information on the suspects is emerging in later news stories. I believe it's a safe bet that this young men come from privileged backgrounds.

[LisaLynne]

34. Well, because rich white kids committing crimes?

It goes against all reason! :sarcasm:

[Infomaniac]

35. Actually, I'm a long way out of college but back in the day...

it was the rich kids who always committed "jokes" or "pranks" while the rest of us poor slobs committed felonies. I saw one article already on how these are "good kids" from "good families." I have never understood what that was supposed to mean exactly to describe a rich or upper middle-class defendant. It's almost like its used as some sort of excuse. "Why, yes, your Honor. My client did burn that orphanage full of children, but he comes from a "good family!"

[LisaLynne]

36. That was always my experiences, too.

The "only poor kids get into trouble" thing is just another one of those prejudices that goes against reality.

[johnnie]

37. I think I will wait to see what happened

I think that automatically jumping to conclusion that it is racially motivated just because the kids are white is a bit..well.. I won't say it.