Forget race — call a terrorist what he is
For more than two weeks, an unidentified individual terrorized Americans in Texas by leaving bombs disguised as packages on doorsteps. We African-Americans watched as the national media failed to give proper context and coverage, seemingly going out of their way to avoid using the word terrorism.
Interestingly enough for AfricanAmericans, this created feelings of both anger and anxiety. Despite that, we collectively understood why the media were not framing these acts as terrorism. The easy and complicated answer is, of course, race.
America has always had an interesting relationship with the word terrorism. I guarantee you that if a certain segment of our population were to describe what a terrorist looked like, it undoubtedly would picture a brownskinned individual, who may or may not be Muslim. This dangerous and improper characterization has been peppered into America’s consciousness over the past 25 years, successfully conditioning Americans’ processing of terrorism.
What has amazingly escaped the description of terrorism are the actions of white Protestant males. From the Reconstruction era to the present, white Protestant males likely have committed more acts of terror on American soil than any other demographic, when you consider the number of mass shootings, lynchings and other hate crimes. That statistic is staggering.
The failure to designate these acts as terrorism oftentimes seems strategic. Why the Ku Klux Klan was never designated a domestic terror group is mind-boggling, especially when you consider that the Klan has documented acts of terror ranging as far back as the Reconstruction era. The continuous and deliberate failure to recognize that most terrorists in America are home-grown and often white males, all while pigeonholing people of color into associations of violence, creates an attitude of indifference and, even worse, ignorance.
Imagine if we were to deem mass shootings as acts of terrorism. Gun reform would not be a controversial subject, our national focus (and resources) would be used to attack problems associated with gun violence, and the National Rifle Association would be persona non grata to lawmakers.
The national dialogue surrounding the Texas bomber is disappointing. Identifying the actions of suspects as terrorism is important because it would start to change the perception and ultimately the association of whom we as a nation designate as terrorists. This would then lead to a more mature conversation on terrorism. I get it; the subject of race causes great consternation. However, ignoring the issue of race in America or believing this country has moved beyond it is the problem.
Once we acknowledge that the subject of race is as embedded into our American consciousness as apple pie, the easier it will be to identify the issues surrounding race and thus ultimately solve them. But we have to be willing to take the first step, which is to identify the problem and then properly designate it.
We could start by calling the Texas bomber what he was — a terrorist.