White Male Privilege: a License to be a Radical Terrorist Extremist (a Real Patriot!)

[evildevil]

Let’s hope the Boston Marathon bomber is a white American
There is a double standard: White terrorists are dealt with as lone wolves, Islamists are existential threats

Updated: Sirota responds to critics of this piece over here.As we now move into the official Political Aftermath period of the Boston bombing - the period that will determine the

Comments

[qara_isuke]

A friend of mine, who is Career Military, yesterday said pretty much the same thing. She was seriously concerned about what would happen, if the responsible party or parties turned out to be Muslim. So-called "revenge" hate crimes, and pushes towards staying in the Middle East, and just in general a return to a hostile, Islamophobic environment.

However, white male privilege means white men are not collectively denigrated/targeted for those shootings - even though most come at the hands of white dudes.

This reminds me of a few years ago, when I did a presentation on Serial Killers for my Criminology class. In my conclusion, I asked all the white men in the class to stand up to illustrate the point that your average serial killer is a 20-or-30-something White Male, and looks like everyone else. And in general, the crazy folks do tend to look just like everyone else.

Based on the timing, it could very well be right-wing loonies. Stealing from another friend, who summed things up so nicely:

April 19, 1775 -- "The shot heard round

[zinnia_rose]

I hate to nitpick, but was Seung-Hui Cho white?

[dumpweeds]

no, he wasn't.

[yamamanama]

He was an honorary white for a while, before apartheid collapsed.

[zinnia_rose]

So...you think an Asian man shot up a school because of his white privilege?

Um, no.

[qara_isuke]

Yeah, that one is kind of......obviously not White Supremacist-related, and probably more related to the end of the school year. But kinda interesting how many of those events all happened within roughly the same week of April, over the course of decades.

It just struck me as interesting, the amount of crazy that seems to happen during April 10 - 20th, especially in the last 30 years or so. Makes me wonder if we will see more, as crazy folks realize just how much media attention they'll get these days and in general, people seem to be more on edge and strongly in one direct or another, politically.

[alexvdl]

Like your friend, I and many people in the troop are worried about the direction that the military is going to go if this turns out to be the work of, or is just claimed by, a terrorist network. Especially with the rise of Al Qaeda in Algeria, and other similar groups coming up in other parts of Africa.