Between the Paris attacks, the shooting at Planned Parenthood and the San Bernardino mass shooting, a disturbing trend has emerged. When a person of color commits an atrocity, they are branded a terrorist, and furthermore they are representative of their whole culture or ethnic group. When a white person commits an act in the same vein, they are “mentally ill” or a “lone wolf.”
Aside from the obvious racism of this phenomenon, a dangerous cycle is allowed to perpetuate. When politicians and the media distance Western — and for the sake of this discussion, white — culture from those who taint it, not only do they offer privilege to white terrorists, but they also stop any critique of Western society from emerging.
When the Paris attacks occurred, this allowed a thriving dialogue on the ills of Muslim culture to thrive. Much of this discussion involved hateful rhetoric that must be condemned, but it also allowed for productive conversation about what circumstances may cause groups like the Islamic State to thrive, what issues women face under these groups, and how we can intervene in human rights violations.
Contrasting this to the shooting at Planned Parenthood, a conversation was stunted. Rather than a condemnation of the hateful anti-abortionist’s rhetoric against the organization that likely caused this attack, the media made a conscious effort to outline how the perpetrator was not the “usual” white, Western citizen. He has a “violent past” or he is “crazy.” The shooter was instantly branded as an anomaly, rather than a person whose act was spurred by damaging aspects of Western culture. As far as I can recall, those who attacked Paris were not constructed as unusual members of their group. Deadly attacks on Planned Parenthood should encourage a decision about sensible policies toward abortion, or the very least an acknowledgment that it is damaging when politicians vehemently use hateful dialogue against an organization.
Now we can analyze San Bernardino, where when it was revealed that a Muslim couple committed the attacks, outrage among the media and politicians rose. Most notably, Donald Trump called for a ban on any Muslims entering the country. Yes, many other politicians, including President Obama, have denounced bigoted and ridiculous comments, but the hateful rhetoric against Muslims rose with this attack, with a spree of armed protests outside mosques, Muslims speaking out about verbal attacks and hateful political commentary. My point here is that the attack on Planned Parenthood, with a white perpetrator, did not create such a political outcry about the conditions of society allowing for such an attack to occur.
Each attack is horrendous, and I am aware that the scale of the two makes a considerable difference in media response. However, the two can still be compared because the nature of the attacks brands them both as terrorism. Secondly, regardless of how the acts are categorized, it makes no sense that the few members of group who do commit terrible acts are evocative of a homogenous problem, and even less sense that this assumption is only projected onto certain races.