"They believe that the confederate flag is the flag of the white man's country."

Excerpt from Kevin Alexander Grey interview by Chris Hayes, tonight:

"I'm from South Carolina. This state is the ideological home of white supremacy in this country. On our state house grounds we have memorials to confederate heroes. We have a flag of the confederacy that flies on the state house grounds. We have streets, roads, bridges, schools, buildings named after confederate heroes. They built the statue of Calhoun so high so that the freed slaves wouldn’t tear it down. The tourism industry in this city is based on slavery.

That young man grew up in a state that reveres its confederate history. It reveres the fact that the first shots of the civil war were fired from this city. It reveres the fact that the citadel, right across town, was built to crush slave rebellions.

South Carolina statehouse Confederate flag at full mast, all others half http://t.co/70h4WVFhAM #CharlestonShooting pic.twitter.com/U7cL2tBmIz

— Billy Corben (@BillyCorben) June 18, 2015

That young man [Dillon Roff of Columbia, SC] was born and lives in a county that's the most Republican, most conservative county in the state. If you go to places like Swansea, Pelion and Gaston you'll see Confederate flags. They believe that the confederate flag is the flag of the white man's country. This is not new.

If you want to talk about white supremacy and the ideology of white supremacy as terrorism, and how it has kept people down for generations and generations, and locked them out of progress, sure we can apply the word terrorism, but the way it's used now, Muslims are terrorists, Latino people they're illegal immigrants, blacks are thugs, and most of the time when it comes to young or old white men that are troubled, they're mentally ill.

The term terrorism is so overused that it's just as meaningless as the word racism in this country."

Blessed are they who are white, for they are neither terrorists nor thugs, but have mental health issues. #CharlestonShooting

— Kristen Page-Kirby (@kpagekirby) June 18, 2015