Apparently the 3 churches were all fairly close to each other. I've no idea if the suspect skipped other churches to target these specific 3.
Deputy sheriff's son charged in connection with string of fires at historically black churches in Louisiana
This absolutely could have had a racial motivation, but the very little evidence given so far doesn't make that certain.
Nobody said it was "certain". Nothing at this point is "certain", including the Norway thing.
In fact, the only evidence I've seen in the various articles on this subject indicate that to this point, it is Holden's black metal and pagan ties which are thought to be motivations, not any racially based motivation.
That's not "evidence". That's
correlation. What other correlations to the accused exist, that we don't know of? Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence and nobody suggested this Norway thing is all there is to know about the perp.
Seems to me there was recently a gaggle of wags whining about a rush to judgment about a smirking teenager not long ago based on, again, limited information.
I'd want to know how many churches are in the area, and how many are historically black, before I'd be ready to make any judgements about this being a racially motivated crime.
Sure. But tell that to the OP who put this thread in "Racism" with a bizarre quip suggesting "white people wouldn't talk about it" whatever that means, and then ran away when asked to explain it.
Nobody knows the arsonist's motivation thus far but they also need not be an either/or. There's no reason BOTH couldn't be contributory. Or a third motivation not yet apparent. But for the poster to hang it on some klown who burned churches in Norway 25 years ago while ignoring a vast 200-year history of burning black churches in the South, including the infamous 16th Street Baptist Church bombing, smells like somebody trying to pre-emptively divert.
Oh, IM2 always seems to make race-based arguments. It's what he's known for on this site.
I totally agree that to this point, the suspect's motivations are unclear. My point was that the churches burned being historically black is on the correlation rather than causation side of the scale like the black metal and pagan leanings, so your statement that "I do know there's a long history of church-burnings perpetrated by the Klan and its fellow racist travellers, and this appears to be a story confirming that it's still going on." was a bit of a jump to a conclusion.
It's not a "conclusion" at all; it's historical
context. Just as the Norway thing is context in this individual's case. And out of the two, one is a lot more glaringly Occam's Razor than the other. The NAACP condemned these burnings as hate crimes, and it's not hard to fathom why. Conclusions, we don't have yet.
Sure it's
possible that this knuckledragger went out with the mission of simply burning churches and was totally ignorant of the long history of black church burnings in the South --- where he lives --- yet is all up to speed on some obscure crime spree in Norway 25 years ago ..... and just
happened to pick black churches in his own home turf. But it stretches credulity to think he wouldn't see the significance.
And it's worth pointing out again that a church, especially one in the black community, is much more a
social center than a religious function -- and that's exactly why there IS that long history of racist church burnings ---- it's certainly not because they were out there practicing Christianity. The Klan, who were notorious for church attacks, were hyperpartisan Christians themselves. What they attacked was the idea that black people could socialize and potentially organize.
Now if this Norway freak had an entirely different motive, i.e. attacking Christianity, then his motive is still terrorism but rather than the social intimidation of racism, his terrorism would derive from a different motive of religion. But terrorists are out to make an intimidation point, and the point must be understood by his target, otherwise the message fails. To convey the point of religious intimidation he would have burned both black and white churches to eliminate the obvious racial implication. But he didn't. Arguably he would have burned ONLY or predominantly white churches to make that point and avoid the obvious racial connection. But he didn't.
I'm not sure how he could understand the tactics of intimidation and yet be oblivious to the racial implications of burning
black churches in the
South. It's a bit like burning a cross on a neighbor's lawn and then going "I saw you had some dead trees and I got rid of them for you --- what? It means something? I had no idea".
I'm not familiar with IM2's history so I can't comment on that. I guess whatever he posted in the past failed to make an impression.