Why Does Religion And Color Become A Double Standard In Response To Terrorism?

The weirdest part of the Las Vegas mass shooting was the media going back and forth about whether the devastating attack was terrorism or not. I know there are certain definitions about whether one attack is terrorism and another isn’t based on a certain criteria, but it’s largely BS.

A man spent months planning an attack, spent 3 days smuggling dozens of guns into a suite at the Mandalay Bay casino, broke out the windows, set up two guns, bought bump stocks to increase his rate of fire, then fired on thousands of people. It killed 59 and injured hundreds. Look at the beginning of the sentence: “A man.” If I said it was an Arabic looking man, it would’ve immediately been labeled terrorism. The fact that it was a white man led to the media not being sure what to label it.

Related: Killing In The Name Of — The Crusades Explained

Was the Las Vegas attack domestic terrorism? Of course it was. Terrorism is defined as “the unlawful use of violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims.” I think that might be a bit too specific since the amount of carnage created in such incidents like the Las Vegas shooting caused the most extreme violence and intimidation against civilians. There is an obvious difference between international and domestic terrorism, but it’s still terrorism when lives are lost.

Was that attack political? Considering it created an immense talk in the political culture in D.C. about gun control, I’d say that qualifies, although it yet again led to nighting being done. How dare people talk about an issue that is in its immediacy. Then again, a guy went into an elementary school and murdered a bunch of little kids. If we turned away from that, we already gave up the conversation no matter the level of victims in Vegas.

The recent, horrific terrorist attack in NYC was immediately labeled as a terrorist attack. Why? A brown guy came out yelling “Allahu Akbar.” This is obviously terrorism. The attack in NYC was an obvious attack on civilians caused by a sympathizer of ISIS or ISIL. He left notes and even brags to police about how he planned the attacks.

“He did this in the name of ISIS,” John Miller, the deputy New York police commissioner for intelligence and counterterrorism, said at a briefing on Wednesday. “He appears to have followed almost exactly to a T the instructions that ISIS has put out in its social media channels before with instructions to their followers on how to carry out such an attack.” (Via WaPo)

Don’t get me wrong, twenty-nine-year-old Sayfullo Saipov is a complete disaster of a human being. He pals around with the likes of ISIS, who corrupt the teachings of Islam, murder innocents, destroy ancient structures, and are all-around garbage people, but that leads to a larger difference: A white man can go on a rampage, and it can be be overlooked. White men can’t be terrorists, it must be a mental illness? Right?

Let’s look at the mass shootings by race from 1982 – 2017:

President Trump told the press that the perpetrator of the NYC attack should be sent to Gitmo. Why not send the Dylann Roof, a right-wing, Christian, white supremacist to Gitmo for murdering innocent people in a predominantly black church? He walked into a church and the man is a checklist terrorist, but he’s white. What about the Aurora shooter? White. Does a terrorist only have to be non-white to be labeled a terrorist? Is a Muslim the only religion capable of causing terrorism? What about a Christian who blows up an abortion clinic because of what they are taught? That’s religious and political, especially since many politicians are trying to strip women’s rights away like it’s the 1920’s.

If you look at the Crusades, all religions did some pretty horrific stuff. Christians lit people on fire for being witches only a hundred or so years ago. Jewish leaders let a rapist and murder go to allow Jesus to be crucified. Read the Bible or the Koran. If you love torture porn, those is the best books on the shelf.

Terrorism can be caused by and person from any background or belief. All it takes is an insane position to push them over the edge to commit such atrocities. It can be something as widescale as a mass bombing or shooting, or it can be a limited as a family murdering their daughter for disrespecting their family. Terror is terror. It’s time to stop limiting it to the color of our skin or certain religions.

Whether it is international or domestic terrorism, it’s still terrorism. There are many factors that cause each, but being radicalized for certain things in the country or out of the country is still the cause of death for many innocent people. There is never a justification for that.

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Jeff Sorensen is an author, writer and occasional comedian living in Detroit, Michigan. You can look for more of his work on The Huffington Post, UPROXX, BGR and by just looking up his name.

Contact: jeff@socialunderground.com