08/09/2012
1. White terrorists are called “gunmen.” What does that even mean? A person with a gun? Wouldn’t that be, like, everyone in the US? Other terrorists are called, like, “terrorists.”
2. White terrorists are “troubled loners.” Other terrorists are always suspected of being part of a global plot, even when they are obviously troubled loners.
3. Doing a study on the danger of white terrorists at the Department of Homeland Security will get you sidelined by angry white Congressmen. Doing studies on other kinds of terrorists is a guaranteed promotion.
4. The family of a white terrorist is interviewed, weeping as they wonder where he went wrong. The families of other terrorists are almost never interviewed.
5. White terrorists are part of a “fringe.” Other terrorists are apparently mainstream.
6. White terrorists are random events, like tornadoes. Other terrorists are long-running conspiracies.
7. White terrorists are never called “white.” But other terrorists are given ethnic affiliations.
8. Nobody thinks white terrorists are typical of white people. But other terrorists are considered paragons of their societies.
9. White terrorists are alcoholics, addicts or mentally ill. Other terrorists are apparently clean-living and perfectly sane.
10. There is nothing you can do about white terrorists. Gun control won’t stop them. No policy you could make, no government program, could possibly have an impact on them. But hundreds of billions of dollars must be spent on police and on the Department of Defense, and on TSA, which must virtually strip search 60 million people a year, to deal with other terrorists.
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Comment: I thought it interesting to read through Professor Cole's excellent post once again as we wait for the authorities in the US to tell us who the bombing suspect(s) are.
Already CNN has made a monumental bungling in its rush to claim a "dark skinned" suspect. CBS on the other hand is calling the suspect a white male. See Cole's thoughts on this in a post entitled "CNN Fail: Imaginary 'Dark Males,' 'Accents,' and 'Arrests' Haunt Reporters" (April 18).
Terrorist experts are so hoping it is the usual suspects 'cause you know they would be out of work if the war on terror paranoia and its brown-skin Muslim/Islamist radical spiel is not kept current. See Laura Beth Nielsen's opinion piece in Al Jazeera entitled "What is terrorism?" (April 17) and Glenn Greenwald's earlier Salon article "The sham 'terrorism expert' industry" (August 15, 2012) for more in depth discussion of this point.
And so the racial politics still hangs in the balance giving Islamophobes and other assorted racists more time to conjure up conspiracy theories about this advanced time of Jihad in America.
Watch closely as these nut inevitably cases link the fertilizer explosion near Waco (Texas) to suspicious Islamists/Muslims/Islam, etc.
Oh by the way, did you read about Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) who claimed on C-SPAN yesterday (April 16) that the Boston bombings should limit immigration reform in the US because "radical Islamists ... are trained to act Hispanic"?
You read that right and you can see the rest of the insane gory details at Think Progress.
The implication of the Congressman's assertion is that all brown people are suspect even if they are not Muslim - no really?
So limit the number of brown people and, thereby, defeat immigration woes and the worry that white people are soon to be a minority in the US.
If you read Congressman Gohmert further you will see that he is also advocating the containment of brown people along the lines of that wall Israel built to keep Palestinians out.
It won't be too long until the need to intern/incarcerate all Muslims and other brown people in concentration camps is raised.
Be very careful out there - racist insanity is everywhere and not to be dismissed.
And we are not free.
Onward!
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