Story highlights Nine black people at a Church in Charleston, South Carolina, were killed by a shooter

Roxanne Jones: I can't recall any other time in my life that I've felt this much hate and terror

Roxanne Jones, a founding editor of ESPN Magazine and former vice president at ESPN, has worked as a producer and as a reporter at the New York Daily News and The Philadelphia Inquirer. She was named a 2010 Woman of the Year by Women in Sports and Events. Jones is a co-author of "Say It Loud: An Illustrated History of the Black Athlete" and CEO of the Push Marketing Group. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author.

(CNN) The shooting at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina, that left six women and three men dead, including its politically active Honorable Rev. Clementa Pinckney, shook my soul. Police report the shooter, Dylann Roof, 21, said he was at the church "to shoot black people."

I can't recall any other time in my life that I've felt this much hate and terror as a black American in my own country. And I am disgusted. Hate crime doesn't begin to describe the church shooting. It was an act of terror -- that's how every black person (and people of other races) I know describes the massacre. We feel angry and terrorized and ashamed of our nation.

Every day, headlines tell us about incidents of hate or horrendous crimes against innocent black people and our children. America is heading to a dangerous place if we can't deal with our race problem. We have reached a tipping point. It has to stop. All of us have to stand against this act of terror.

When I first heard about the massacre in the church, grief was not my first reaction. I am done with grief. I am angry. It's time for us to put grief aside and think clearly about what part we can all play in the fight for racial justice. Because it is a battle that America cannot afford to lose.

Roxanne Jones

It has always been ironic to me that America has been diligent in fighting the war against terror around the globe, losing thousands of lives in the effort and spending billions, if not trillions, of dollars over the years to hunt down foreign terrorists whom we felt were a threat to our nation or our allies. Well, America, it is past time to fight a war on racial terror within our own shores.

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