Schadenfreude’s a bitch, isn’t it?
After several racial activists — including the Southern Poverty Law Center — suggested that a string of fires at black churches near St. Louis were the result of white supremacists egged on by mainstream conservative groups, St. Louis police arrested a man and charged him with two of the arson attacks and named him as a suspect in the others.
The suspect, David Lopez Jackson, is a 35-year-old black man.
The charges, two counts of second-degree arson, list his address as in the 200 block of Presley Road in the Glasgow Village area of unincorporated St. Louis County. He was being held in lieu of $75,000 bail, according to court documents.
Forensic evidence linked him to the fire on Oct. 18 at Ebenezer Lutheran Church, 1011 Theobald Street; and video of his car near New Life Missionary Baptist Church, 4569 Plover Avenue, links him to the fire there on Oct. 17, police Chief Sam Dotson said. Both churches are in the city.
A container of gasoline and a Thermos bottle that smelled of gasoline were found in his car, Dotson said.
Asked about a motive, Dotson said, “We’re still trying to understand that.”
Dotson did not specifically accuse Jackson of the other church fires but said he was a suspect and suggested that further investigation might result in additional charges for additional crimes.
Although the locations of the fires in predominantly African-American neighborhoods gave rise to speculation that the motive might be race-related, Jackson is black.
Talk about burying the lead! Perhaps the Post-Dispatch forgot what several activists had said about the fires:
A white priest at St. Louis’ Christ Church Cathedral asserted that the arsonist had racist motives.
“Holy God, if we ever needed a wake-up call to believe that racism is alive in St. Louis — if this is not it, I don’t know what it could be,” Mike Kinman said, according to CNN.
The Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks white supremacist groups, suggested in an article last week that the arsons were carried out by white supremacists.
The group quoted a journalist who covers African-American issues who said that the fires were “both alarming and not surprising.”
“This is alarming because domestic terrorism is alive and well,” David A. Love told the SPLC. “It is such a problem that the U.S. Department of Justice recently predicted increases in violent acts by white extremists who are responding to a new reality in which people of color will become a majority in America.”
The SPLC also quoted Love blaming “a vicious cycle created by rightwing politicians, the NRA and hate groups who stir up anger, fear and resentment over changing demographics and want their country back.”
“Arson and other crimes are a natural outgrowth of that. These groups need a scapegoat, whether African Americans, Latino immigrants, the LGBTQ community or others,” he continued.
For its part, the SPLC did tweet a link to the Post-Dispatch’s article noting that an African-American man is the suspect in the case.
Don’t hold your breath waiting for an apology from the SPLC. They have a habit of naming political opponents “hate groups.” Of course, the more hate groups they can find, the more they can scare people into giving them money. It’s an old liberal racket and it usually works like a charm because many on the left equate opposition to “hate.”
These weren’t the only liberals to proclaim racism and hate as the reason for the arsons. It is de rigueur to indirectly blame conservatives by claiming the right stokes the fires of hate by opposing liberal policies. All those impressionable skinheads, Klansmen, and garden variety racists are, trance-like, led to commit acts of violence against blacks, or gays, or any other minority. They can’t help themselves once they hear the siren song of “hate” by the political opponents of the left.
It’s true there are hate groups in the U.S., and given what we know about the FBI’s infiltration of the Klan back in the ’60s and ’70s, you would hope the government knows who they are and has their eyes on them. But the SPLC and other racialists are only interested in using the legitimate hate groups to delegitimize anyone who opposes their political agenda. They signify Christian groups as “hate” groups because they oppose gay marriage. They name anti-Sharia law groups as Islam haters.
The tactic is despicable, but effective. Even when their hypocrisy is exposed as it has been with this incident, it won’t matter. They’ll simply wait for the next opportunity to smear their enemies, trusting that the media will cover their attacks in loving detail.
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