Rev Joseph Washington HOPE Church Conway
courtesy waccamawcf.org

“I don’t agree with the NRA about a ‘good guy with a gun’ and I don’t want Hope (church) to be the wild, wild West. Not in my wildest imagination did I ever think we’d be living in a time like this. But what (Dylann) Roof did was a seminal moment. And I’m not the kind of guy who you shoot at me and I won’t shoot at you back.” – Rev. Joseph Washington in These Black Churches Are Considering Arming Their Congregations [via vice.com]

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41 COMMENTS

    • Not really. He’s oblivious to rampant, nationwide black-on-black crime. Yet, he zeroes in on the one example of a white racist committing a spree shooting at a black church to take a stand and make an heroic proclamation. Please.

      It’s just him taking the opportunity to exhibit his own racism, his racial paranoia, and a chance to bash conservatives as being racist. Even the article is subtitled “In the age of Trump and Dylann Roof, some church leaders are prepared to take drastic steps to defend against potential shootings.” Nobody but a very few remember Roof’s name. He certainly doesn’t define an age, let alone one worthy of sharing billing with Trump.

      This isn’t about encouraging blacks in general to tool up and exercise their rights in general. This is about plainclothes armed security officers and a uniformed police officer to protect him and his church. Sure, there are two concealed carriers every Sunday; but he doesn’t, and doesn’t want to, know who they are.

  2. National Water Association – “Drink water to stay alive”
    Idiot who drinks water – “I don’t agree with the National Water Association but I’m going to drink water to stay alive.”

    The way people bite off their noses to save face with their politics amazes me. As if nothing is more important than the party. Not even their own lives.

    • It’s a step in the right direction.

      Give him a year and he’ll be a life member of the NRA.

        • She’s a politician whose livelihood depends on opposing the NRA. People give her big bucks to fight the NRA. So of course she wouldn’t join.

        • @ texted

          Someone should sign her up, just like those donations to PP in Mike Pence’s name.

  3. From the original article: “We need to be able to neutralize a shooter.”
    Reality bites, striking down his wishful thinking.
    We may wish it was different, but we live in the world we live in.
    I’m not religious, but I still think it’s sad someone cannot sit in a church and not worry about being killed by some nut case. How to keep guns out of their hands? I have no idea.

    • Also, the original article’s sub-heading had to work Trump and Dylan Roof into the same sentence as the reason why black congregations need to arm up. Meanwhile, black unemployment has hit an all time low. Black folks had no better Presidential friends than Trump and Reagan. Same old cognitive dissonance, different wrapper.

  4. Well, at least he did not try to spin the murder of his congregation members by Despicable Racist as a “message from God”….maybe that’s next, if this doesn’t work.

  5. Not in my wildest imagination did I ever think we’d be living in a time like this. But what (Dylann) Roof did was a seminal moment.

    Was this guy decanted from the cloning vat in 2010 or something? When have black congregations in America been safe from violent white supremacists? Has he never heard of the 16th Street Baptist bombing? Did he think MLK died of old age? Good on him for standing up in defense of his flock, but let’s face it: this isn’t new.

    • True. The threat isn’t new.

      But it’s been a long time since black churches, broadly speaking, have gone against their Democratic Party supporters so directly.

      I consider it a good sign.

      • He feels he has to loudly lie proclaim that he isn’t going against Dem party teaching while he is going against Dem party teachings, so that you know the Dems are always right, even when they’re dangerously wrong.

    • The threat may not be new, but it is exaggerated. Take the 1990s black church burnings mentioned in the article. The article characterized those as being “believed” to have been intended to terrorize blacks, presumably by racist whites. Well.

      If they meant “believed” as in actually in the 1990s when it was happening, I can give them that. If they mean several weeks later in the 1990s, after the arson investigations, and up to the present, then no. They aren’t believed to be the work of white racists.

      Of the 64 “black church fires” of the 1990s, it turns out only four were white racist attacks. Four is four too many, I agree, but it does not constitute a national wave of racist violence.

      In fact, of those 64 “black churches”, a significant number of them only had some black members, but were predominantly white churches misreported as being black churches. Moreover, the identified suspects and motives behind the various actual black churches were themselves varied.

      Some of the arsons were committed out of mental illness, for vandalism, or in concealment of theft. Some of the black church arsons were committed by blacks!

      So I’ll agree that there do exist some racists with criminally violent tendencies and that some of them have acted upon those urges….rarely. That’s the stuff that makes splashy headlines, to the utter disregard of the far more prominent and pernicious threats to the black community posed by other members of the black community.

  6. This pastor probably has no idea how many congregants at his church are already carrying concealed every Sunday.

    • He probably has no idea, either, how many are felons whose presence poses a greater danger than some black swan spree shooting event.

  9. Well DUH…sub-normal boyz like death row boy ain’t yer main problem. Or our president. It’s your fellow folks of color. This isn’t the Jim Crow south-this is 2018 revrunt. Possibly a good start…

    • For some Blacks it is the Jim Crow South. He’s also fighting the Dem “we’ll take care of you, Hillary was our friend, lies.” They were generously expressing their concerns. Police show up, Black man with rifle. You know that might not go well. That’s real. Just like it doesn’t help to call Trump supporters racists I agree with the poster above they, like a lot of anti gunners are figuring it out.

      It is ridiculous for a Black or anyone for that matter to believe that Shannon Watts etc. are actually considering their safety. There are White Christians questioning whether their Faith includes self defense. Be patient and be receptive when they come with questions. Welcome them.

        • I spoke to a 40 something parent of two. He said we need Universal Background Checks. I said we have them. Have you heard of the NCIS system? He said no. I described it. I asked him now that he knows about it and that it’s been in place for awhile, how does he feel. He said, “I feel like I’ve been lied to.”

          So I’m asking you. I shouldn’t have talked about this with him?

  10. Everybody has the right to protect themselves and their loved ones no matter their location. It’s the most basic of civil rights.

  12. A church I am a member of and used to attend until they went full goose bozo liberal to the extreme, is debating hiring off duty cops for security during services to the tune of $7000 a year. It’s the only thing in the last 10 years I agree with them on.

  13. This preacher is a snake. He is not a friend of the civil right to firearms. He like most black Christians today are not the Christians who made up the Deacons for defense and Justice from the 1960s.

    He his more afraid of a single white racist than the black on black crime in the community. As a black gun owner I consider him to be a traitor to the Liberty of Black people.

    What most white people don’t know is black church attendance is way down. They are not the conservative churches from the 1950s that created and executed the civil rights movement.
    They are weak. And are slaves to the democrat party plantation.

  14. Let’s be real ,, from the dawn of mankind , there has been racism among ALL races !
    From the beginning , tribes have fought & killed for territory , woman & racism !
    Humans are racist & killers !
    While there are significant signs that we ALL , races , are learning to coexist better , all one need do is look on the other side of the yellow brick road , to see there are also significant signs that racism is alive & thriving among ALL Races !
    Are we all , as individuals , racist ? Perhaps , to one degree or another , but I do think humanity is getting better !
    Can all racism be erradicated ?
    Na , I don’t think so , thousands of years bares me out on this !
    Can we stop the violence resulting from racism ?
    Na , in the immortal words of Master YOTA ,, racism leads to anger , anger leads to hate , hate leads to suffering !
    For what ever issues the races choose to dislike one another over , can’t we find a way to omit the disire to kill one another over them ??

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