Transcript
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The following is for mature audiences only.
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So if you aren't cool with dark, disturbing and depraved, you might want to keep it moving.
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Welcome to 10 Minute Murder.
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10 Minute Murder.
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There are bad haircuts, and then there's Dylan Roops haircut, easily the most unfortunate
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bull cut in American history.
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But that's not why we're talking about him today.
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This is a story about a young man who spent most of his life untethered, floating between
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homes, bouncing between schools, and spiraling into isolation.
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When he finally found something to believe in, it wasn't hope or ambition or even a decent
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barber, it was hate.
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It started with a Google search, it ended with nine people dead.
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We're about to walk through the red flags, the warnings that no one caught, and the warped
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logic of a man who wanted to start a war, not by accident, not in a moment of rage, but
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by design.
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But before we get into the story, if you like your true crime brief and bingeable, you
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found the right podcast.
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Tap the follow button now for access to at least two episodes per week.
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Now, let's get into it.
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Well, someone has to have the bravery to take it to the real world, and I guess that has
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to be me.
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At first glance, it sounds like something you'd find on an inspirational poster, maybe next
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to a stock photo of a guy standing on a mountain top, gazing into the distance.
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That context is everything, and in this case, that context is about as dark as it gets.
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The person who wrote that wasn't striving for self-improvement or trying to make the world
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a better place.
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He had a mission, and it was one steeped in hate.
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Dylan Roof was born in 1994 to Franklin Bennett Roof, a carpenter, ironically, and Amelia
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Cowes, who had already split up by the time he entered the picture.
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They briefly attempted a reunion when Amelia found out she was pregnant, but whatever
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hope existed crumbled soon after.
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Franklin and Amelia separated again, and Dylan ended up in his father's care.
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Though care might be an overstatement.
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Franklin was not exactly father of the year.
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He was absent more often than not, and when he was around, he wasn't winning any parenting
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awards.
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After remarrying a woman named Page Man, he largely outsourced child-rearing responsibility
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to her.
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Page did her best, but there was a major roadblock.
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Franklin himself.
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The lesson he drilled into Dylan over the years wasn't one of patience or resilience.
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It was violence.
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For a decade, Dylan watched his father verbally and physically abuse Page, that kind of behavior
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has a way of imprinting itself on a kid, and in this case, the lesson was clear.
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When people upset you, you respond with force.
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Dylan wasn't exactly an easy kid to be around.
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He acted out, developed obsessive compulsive tendencies, and refused to cut his hair in any
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way other than a rigidly specific bowl cut.
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He was kind of child who didn't adapt to the world.
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He expected the world to adapt to him.
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That kind of rigidity mixed with growing anger and mental health struggles made it difficult
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for him to maintain friendships or even function in a structured environment.
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During elementary and high school, Dylan cycled through seven different schools before giving
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up entirely in 2010.
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His family situation didn't help matters.
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Franklin and Page divorced, and with no stable home base, Dylan bounced between his father's
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house and his mother's, neither of which offered much in the way of stability.
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When things got too tense, he'd crash at friends' houses instead, avoiding the conflict
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altogether.
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Without school to keep him occupied, his days were filled with alcohol, drugs, video games,
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and endless hours on the internet.
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He briefly worked as a landscaper, but only because Franklin forced him to get a job.
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That's predictably did not last very long.
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By the time Page was out of his life for good, Dylan wasn't maintaining connections with
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anyone.
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He ignored his own sister's wedding invitation, severing yet another tie to any semblance
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of normalcy.
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His isolation deepened, and when people detach from reality like that, it rarely leads to
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anywhere good.
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By early 2015, Dylan Roof wasn't just isolated, he was unraveling in plain sight.
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In February 2015, security guards at a mall in Columbus, spotted him dressed in all black,
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wandering around like an uninvited funeral guest, and making employees deeply uncomfortable
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with bizarre questions.
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He called the police, who searched him and found illegal drugs.
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The result?
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A misdemeanor charge and a year-long ban from the mall.
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A month later, police spotted him loitering suspiciously in a parking lot.
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When they searched his car, they found a grip for an AR-15 rifle.
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Dylan, never wanted to play it cool, freely admitted that he planned to buy an AR-15, he
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just didn't have the money quite yet.
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That problem would not last long.
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On his next birthday, he had the funds he needed, and thanks to a failure in the FBI's background
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check system, he was able to walk out of a gun store with a weapon that he fully intended
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to use.
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By the time Dylan was arrested again for trespassing at the very same mall he'd been banned from just
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months before, law enforcement had yet to put the pieces together.
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He was let go without any further questioning.
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Meanwhile, those who still had any contact with him noticed something alarming.
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His world view was shifting fast and not in a good way.
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It started when he became fixated on the 2015 shooting of Trayvon Martin.
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But instead of feeling empathy for the unarmed 17-year-old, he saw something entirely different,
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evidence that the country was in the midst of a so-called "race war."
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Quote, "I read the Wikipedia article, and right away I was unable to understand what
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the big deal was.
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This prompted me to type the words "black on white crime" into Google.
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And I've never been the same since that day."
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From there, his rhetoric became increasingly hateful and delusional.
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He openly claimed that "black's were taking over the world."
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Ignoring the irony that some of his last remaining friends were black.
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On Facebook, he posted images of himself wearing white supremacist symbols and openly called
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for a return to racial segregation.
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Dylan wasn't just talking about these things.
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He was planning.
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On June 17, 2015, just six months after his first arrest, a young man walked into a manual
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African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina.
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Inside, a group had gathered for Bible study.
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Moments later, gunfire erupted.
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Nine people were murdered.
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The shooter fled, but not before multiple witnesses got a clear look at him and his very
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distinct bowl haircut.
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The next morning, a motorist spotted a young man that had that unmistakable haircut driving
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a car with a Confederate state of America bumper sticker.
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Something about the whole scene screamed bad news, so she called the police.
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Then in a move that undoubtedly saved lives, she followed him, making sure he couldn't
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disappear before the officers arrived.
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When the suspect was taken into custody, there was no mystery about who he was or what
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he had done.
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Dylan Roof confessed immediately with no remorse, his only regret that he had to target that
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specific church because the people inside had been so welcoming.
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Dylan Roof had left a digital paper trail that made his beliefs painfully clear.
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On his personal website, he had posted images of himself brandishing weapons, posing with
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the Confederate battle flag and flashing neo-Nazi symbols.
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Other posts showed him burning an American flag and visiting locations tied to the history
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of slavery.
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His writings made his intent even more clear.
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"I have no choice," he wrote.
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"I'm not in the position to, alone, go into the ghetto and fight.
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I chose Charleston because it is the most historic city in my state, and at one time had the
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highest ratio of black to whites in the country.
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We have no skinheads, no real KKK, no one doing anything but talking on the internet.
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Well, someone has to have the bravery to take it to the real world, and I guess that has to
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be me."
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There was no doubt about his motivation, no question about his intent.
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Dylan Roof wasn't just consuming extremist propaganda, he was acting on it, and the consequences
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were devastating.
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With his confession already on record, backed up by overwhelming digital and physical evidence,
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prosecutors wasted no time.
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Dylan Roof was charged with nine counts of first degree murder, but this wasn't just another
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high-profile criminal case, it was historic.
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For the first time in US history, both state and federal prosecutors pursued the death penalty
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simultaneously.
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Roof and his defense team attempted to argue that his mental health should be taken into
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account.
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The claim was that his psychological state should lessen his punishment, but there was no
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mitigating the sheer weight of what he had done.
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The state charges were straightforward.
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He played guilty to avoid the death penalty, but the federal case was another story.
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A jury found him guilty and the recommendation was swift.
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Execution.
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The judge agreed.
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Dylan Roof now sits on death row, awaiting execution, spending his days filing appeals, but
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no amount of legal maneuvering can undo the reality of his crimes or the impact of his
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actions.
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His own words condemned him long before the court did.
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That is 10 Minute Murder for Today.
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Brief and bingeable true crime.
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I'm Joe, I'm the host, and thank you for taking the time to listen.
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If you're a new listener, make sure you hit subscribe wherever you like to listen to
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podcast.
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I need to say something about this story we just talked about.
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Hate.
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It doesn't start with violence.
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It starts with words, unchecked, unchallenged, and passed off as just someone's opinion.
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It festers in dark corners of the internet, and even in politics.
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It seeps into conversations.
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It gets shrugged off until eventually it stops being shocking.
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And when that happens, when bigotry gets comfortable, it grows.
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Dylan Roof wasn't a mastermind.
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He wasn't a criminal genius.
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He was a lost, angry man who found validation in the worst places and acted on a lie that
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should have been dismantled long before it reached a trigger.
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His beliefs weren't controversial.
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They were dangerous.
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And ignoring danger doesn't make it disappear.
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It gives it room to thrive.
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Calling out racism.
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Calling out bigotry, extremism, anti-symmetism.
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It isn't about being politically correct.
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It's about making sure people like Dylan Roof and others don't find an audience.
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Because every time this kind of ideology is tolerated, brushed off, or excused, it lays
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the foundation for the next person who decides to take their hate to the real world.
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And the cost of that is never just words.
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Alright, I'm off my soapbox.
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If you'd like to get in touch with me, let me know about a story you want me to cover
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here on the podcast, joe@10minutemerder.com.
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Go and find me on social media, follow me there as well.
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Thank you so much for listening to "10 Minute Murder."
