Its Terrorism If You're Brown And Mental Health If You're White

[workinclasszero]

It’s Terrorism If You’re Brown And Mental Health If You’re White
When a white person is the shooter, all Trump offers is thoughts and prayers.
Jesse Mechanic, Contributor 11/06/2017 12:24 pm ET Updated 20 hours ago

Another weekend in America, another record-setting mass shooting.

Early Sunday afternoon, Devin Kelley, a 26-year-old white male, walked into First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas with an AR-15 rifle and killed 26 people while wounding 20 others. Victims ages ranged from 1 to 72 years old. The scene was horrifying and heartbreaking but familiar.

According to data from the Gun Violence Archive, it was the 307th mass shooting in the United States this year.

The location changes, the numbers of victims vary. Each time, different families are shattered; new, promising lives are cut short; and pulses of empathy are predictably followed by floods of thoughts and prayers and little else. If the shooter is white.

If the attack is perpetrated by someone of the Islamic faith, the president immediately labels it terrorism and calls for new laws to be instituted and old ones abolished in order to make sure no more evil brown people worm their way into our pristine utopia.

When the mass murderer is a white person, which is the most common scenario, it’s nearly always framed as a mental health issue. It’s never terrorism. Terrorism is something brown people do.


https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/its-terrorism-if-youre-brown-its-mental-health_us_5a0098bce4b076eaaae271a6?section=us_politics

[mythology]

1. There is a difference

The vast majority of these mass shootings committed by white guys aren't in furtherance of a political goal. They are often an extension of a domestic dispute or personal relationship dispute. Those don't really fit the definition of terrorism in that there's no larger goal than committing violence. That said it's not just a mental health issue, it's about our larger culture and a toxic masculinity.

The mass killing events from Muslim extremists are in furtherance of the political goals of ISIS. Sure they aren't necessarily meeting up between these isolated groups/individuals, but it's within the larger framework.

There isn't that larger link between say the Aurora movie theater, Las Vegas and Sutherland Springs shooting.

[cemaphonic]

3. Yeah, this is how I've always seen it.

People like McVeigh and the Unabomber had a political goal, and I remember a good chunk of the media referring to them as terrorists. When the IRA was active, they were certainly labeled terrorists. On the other side, the Beltway snipers were spree killers, even though they weren't white.

Not a fan of this recent push to redefine spree killers as terrorists to fit a social agenda.

[Fred Sanders]

4. Going on mass killing sprees because you have been brainwashed by on line

propaganda is as surely insane and terrorism as a killing spree inspired by anything else, if assault weapons and hundreds of rounds of ammo are so easily available to one and all.

The nation is being terrorized by guns. Same terror, different route.

[workinclasszero]

5. Right, just like this...

Rush Limbaugh Says ‘Terrorists Come Straight From The Democrat Party’
“The left is encouraging this kind of activity. They are promoting it. And they celebrate it,” the conservative radio host said.
By Ron Dicker 1/07/2017 09:17 am ET

Conservative host Rush Limbaugh accused the Democratic Party of producing “terrorists” on Monday.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/10029808811

Limpballs and others on the right are advocating violence for political/religious goals and yet the killers their lies produce are not called terrorists.

[Fred Sanders]

9. Once again, that makes no sense to compare two different things as if the same.

[Dave Starsky]

2. ...

[workinclasszero]

6. Gets the idea across very clearly

[Dave Starsky]

8. Gotta hand it to Seth MacFarlane.

He inserts "inside" jokes into Family Guy that people only understand years later.