General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsTo distinguish between terroristic acts on the basis of skin color is the essence of racism.
I am old enough to remember in the 60s when perpetrators of crime would separately be identified as being black, but white perpetrators would not be identified by race. The implicit message was not only the reinforcement of the stereotype of black people as criminals, but also something subtler. The idea that an American who happened to be black was somehow other, not a standard American. Whereas of course, so the implication went, white Americans are normal and standard. Eventually that practice stopped because people called it out and editors were finally persuaded that it was at the very least not objective journalism if not downright racist.
Flash forward to the time when Islam entered the popular American consciousness in a big way: the Iranian hostage taking of 1979. Muslims since then, especially since 9-11, have been the targets of another form of prejudice, and the bad actors such as Islamists, Wahabists, etc., have rightly been labelled terrorists.
But the term terrorism has rarely been applied to anything any white people do, at least in American journalism. Perhaps that term has been used in conjunction with Northern Ireland. But if you apply it to the bombing of a black church in Birmingham in 1963, that is the exception proving the rule.
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/four-black-schoolgirls-killed-in-birmingham
I submit that this lack of the application of the term terrorism to these acts, performed for the purpose of extending Jim Crow, among other purposes, is because the perpetrators were white. To me this is the height of racism. White people have been performing acts of terror on this continent for 500 years, primarily to red and black people. It is time we came to grips with a national history filled with terrorism.
Finally, now, the term terrorism is finally be applied to the recent tragedy in Charleston. At last. Maybe then we wont be so eager, as is Bill Maher, to be pointing the finger at Islam. As the cartoon character Pogo once said, we have met the enemy and he is us.
AuntPatsy
(9,904 posts)malaise
(269,365 posts)Excellent
Mnemosyne
(21,363 posts)angstlessk
(11,862 posts)When my husband or I read about a crime, we ask...is there a picture of the criminal, if the answer is no, the criminal is likely to be a white offender..and more times than not, we are right
Uncle Joe
(58,595 posts)Thanks for the thread, Admiral Loinpresser.
BumRushDaShow
(130,142 posts)That "practice" was going on all the way into the 2000s at the big city newspapers like here in Philly - notably the tabloid ones, that would also plaster a huge picture of the perp on their front page.... And it even continues today when they slip back into old habits, where it is a continual struggle for them to stop considering "white" as "universal" and everything else must be narrowly defined to distinguish from "white". Rarely would a white suspect have a photo plastered anywhere in the newspapers.
And it's interesting what happened when they did start omitting race because they had alot of difficulty trying to describe the white perpetrator. They were used to saying stuff like "The suspect is a 'dark-skinned black male, 5'9, with black baseball cap, black t-shirt'... blah blah". When the suspect was white it became "The suspect is a male, 5'9, with a black baseball cap, black t-shirt'.... blah blah". They just couldn't say "The suspect is white/light-skinned, light brown hair.... etc.". And it frustrated them because in many cases, a hispanic (white-appearing) could fit the description too but they just couldn't figure out how to reconcile the bullshit that this country created in terms of hyper-defining people.
I remember the Oklahoma City bombing and the massive resistance to labeling McVeigh a "terrorist". It's bad enough that they don't want to see any of the militias, KKK, Aryan groups, etc., as "terrorists". They perfectly fit the description except they are "white (European-descended)".
Interesting, if not brief analysis article on the problem - http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/opinion/forum/story/2012-06-10/terrorism-white-race-religion-muslim/55503084/1
Admiral Loinpresser
(3,859 posts)Nye Bevan
(25,406 posts)Admiral Loinpresser
(3,859 posts)of white terrorists have been Christian rather than muslim?