Whenever an attack like this is perpetrated by a Muslim, right wingers screaming at every media outlet that doesn’t label them a terrorist, and whenever a white person does it, those on the left screaming at every media outlet that doesn’t label them a terrorist. It’s unfair to see white people labeled “gunman” and “shooter” when a Muslim would not receive the same treatment from certain outlets.
But it is also important to remember that the threat of domestic terrorism is used by the empire to justify taking away civil rights on the pretense of protecting the citizenry. Demanding the expanded use of that term is ultimately demanding more surveillance, torture, arbitrary detention, and the erosion of legal and constitutional protections for everyone. It’s important to be aware of the potential propagandistic leverage in the language and causes we advocate.
Islamophobia has been exponentially inflamed by the mass media since 9/11 to justify the empire’s need to keep slaughtering human beings who happen to be walking around on top of oil and geostrategic locations. In his manifesto the attacker explicitly stated that he chose Muslims as the group of immigrants to target with his racist vendetta because “They are the most despised group of invaders in the West, attacking them receives the greatest level of support.” The reason Muslims are so despised is because the flames of Islamophobia have been fanned by propagandists who need us not to care about the cold-blooded murder of a million Iraqis....read more>>>....
