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Abstract
Dylann S. Roof, white supremacist perpetrator of the Charleston massacre (2015) resolved to dismiss his lawyers and to represent himself. In the course of the proceedings he wrote extensively, keeping notes and diaries, and also writing directly to the Court, in addition to engaging in a dialogue with the judge. Using Bourdieu on the concept of “force of law” and Foucault on the concept of order of discourse, this essay proposes that Roof reclaimed his autonomy as a subject by developing a rhetorical strategy of communication, and thus affirmed his own voice within the “game” of judicial exchanges and positions of power. This essay serves also as a building block to understand white nationalist or supremacist discursivity.
DISCLOSURE STATEMENT
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 Court records may be found using PACER (Public Access to Court Electronic Records, https://pacer.uscourts.gov/). To avoid complex and lengthy references, I simply bracket the type of record cited and if necessary the date, prefixed by P (for PACER). Exhibits for instance run in the hundreds. The mention “para” denotes a paragraph.
2 Here is the definition of domestic terrorism in the U.S. Code: “The term “domestic terrorism” means activities that—(A) involve acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of any State; (B) appear to be intended— (i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population; (ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or (iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping; and (C) occur primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States” (18 United States Code, § 2331 (5), accessed September 3, 2020, www.govinfo.gov).
3 His website is disabled. However on Wayback Machine of www.archive.org the “manifesto” appears under its doppelgänger lastrhodesian.net, with 40 captures between 21 June 2015 (4 days after the massacre) and 3 July 2020. https://web.archive.org/web/20200703183618/http://lastrhodesian.net/data/documents/rtf88.txt. The url is unstable.
4 A full analysis of the Roof’s case will be presented in the sequel to my Suprémacistes (Salazar Citation2020).
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Philippe-Joseph Salazar
Philippe-Joseph Salazar is Distinguished Professor and Director of Rhetoric Studies at the Faculty of Law, University of Cape Town.