From SC to here, church shooting reverberates

LYNN – Gina Cordy is active in the First Church of the Nazarene on Eastern Avenue, and she?s a social worker. She?s seen hatred in her life – both directed at her specifically and to her African-American brothers and sisters in general.Yet for the life her, she cannot understand what happened last week in Charleston, S.C., when a gunman walked into the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church Wednesday night during a bible study group and killed nine black parishioners. But to Cordy and her husband, Maurice, the mass murder is very definitely a terrorist attack.?It has to be,” she said. “If you go by how the government defines it, it?s very definitely a terrorist attack. He put fear into a whole group of people. To me, that?s terror. There are more people out there who think the way he thinks.?What?s so hard to comprehend,” she said, “is that (suspect Dylann Roof) is only 21 years old. How does someone who?s only 21 develop that kind of hatred?”Her husband was a bit more succinct.?If it was a white church, and a Muslim came in and did this, it would be called terrorism,” said Maurice Cordy. “To me, there?s no difference.”While her husband grew up in Lynn, Gina Cordy lived near Baton Rouge, La., as a child and has seen the type of hatred that festers in people and – she says – leads to these types of tragedies.?I have literally seen a cross burned on someone?s lawn,” she said, her voice filled with emotion. “It was a couple of streets over from where my grandfather lived.?One day, my sister and I were walking down the street on our way to a funeral, and we were trying to cross the street. A car came by, slowed down, and the driver spat at us. Another time, I was riding down the street on my bicycle, and someone tried to run me off the road.?This mentality of hate,” she said, “I just don?t understand.”Both she and her husband see the Confederate flag that flies near the Capitol building as being both divisive and reflective of a culture that could spawn such hate.?The thing is,” she said, “is that the things that flag represents ? they?re still happening. How could anyone be proud of that? They say it?s a tradition, but it is very upsetting to me that it?s a tradition the state is still upholding.”Said her husband, “I can see different sides to it. I?m sure to some people, it represents their families ? their great-grandfathers who may have fought in the Civil War, or died in it. I can see that.?But from our point of view, it?s racism. It?s the Ku Klux Klan. You?d think that anything that?s such a sign of hatred ? I don?t know. I know I don?t have the perfect answer.”Gina Cordy said that at one time, her church, on whose board she sits, had talked about coming up with a plan if anyone had ever stormed into the building with a gun while people were worshiping.?We never did,” she said. “But now, in light of this, we?re going to have to.”The Cordys both are vested in the Lynn community. Gina at one time managed the Bridge House, a shelter for victims of domestic abuse; and Maurice has taken three Lynn Pop Warner football teams to Florida for the organization?s Super Bowl. They have tried to parlay their involvement with youth into a mentoring program in Lynn called “Boys to Men.” And Gina cannot wrap herself around the hatred that caused last week?s incident.?It seems to me that it?s encouraged in some places, and not discouraged,” she said. “We?re supposed to be moving away from all of that.?It?s just overwhelmingly sad,” she said.