Media Terribly Concerned Dead Austin Bomber Is Unfairly Benefitting from White Privilege

The left wing media is absolutely giddy about learning that the Austin bomber was a white man who was homeschooled by his Evangelical Christian family. People who reflexively insist that islamic terrorists are neither islamic nor terrorists (at least not terrorists to any greater degree than the awful white Christians the communists at The  Southern Poverty Law Center classify as belonging to hate groups).

The Washington Post bemoans that authorities haven’t immediately slapped the label “terrorist” on Conditt.

For weeks, the 23-year-old suspected bomber terrorized the city of Austin with a string of explosions that killed two and injured several others.

But should the bomber, identified by authorities as Mark Anthony Conditt, be called a terrorist?

In the hours after police cornered Conditt, who died after detonating explosives in his car Wednesday, the conversation surrounding the Austin bombings quickly turned to labels, language and race. As with other attacks in recent months and years, such as the Las Vegas shooting that left 58 people dead, a debate soon began over whether to characterize the Austin bombings as acts of terrorism.

Authorities avoided using the “terrorist” label, instead describing Conditt — a white man — as a troubled person motivated by frustrations in his life.

The left often seems troubled whenever words have definite meanings. Vox published an overly long navel-gazing session about whether Conditt’s crimes should be called terrorism, as if that is critical question raised by his actions.

In criminal justice or national security matters being labeled a “terrorist” requires more than just scaring people with violence. Terrorism is a tactic used in an attempt to advance a political or religious agenda. It’s interesting to consider that drive-by shootings and urban gang violence are also not reported as “terrorist” activities even though they certainly induce terror for some people. Terrorism implies more than just being scary. Yet deranged people consider it a matter of social justice that we take affirmative action to identify caucasian criminals as terrorists because the white male patriarchy is unfair to islamic extremists.

Might Conditt have been a terrorist in that sense? It’s possible but we don’t yet know and neither do those who want to apply the label. Still the left seems less concerned that people were killed than they are about whether the white killer is unfairly benefitting from his white maleness and its associated privileges as crime scene investigators mop up what’s left of him with a sponge.

When someone shouts “allahu akbar!” before committing mass murder we are cautioned by politicians and their media stooges not to rush to judgement before all the facts are in. When we find out that the perpetrator attended a mosque known for radical imams preaching hate for the west and for Jews, we’re told these people are not in fact islamic because islam is peace. To suggest otherwise is bigotry. Yet let there be the slightest indication that a white person who commits an atrocity held Christian or conservative beliefs and the gloves come off.

With no motive yet identified for the package bomb murders committed in Texas by Mark Conditt, those who insist that every islamic mass murderer is a “lone wolf” acting against the tenets of his faith, gleefully report on Conditt’s Christian upbringing and his vague—school assigned—blog post identifying himself as a conservative, as if this was the driving force behind his evil deeds.

The murderer doesn’t even have to actually be a white, conservative Christian for this sort of narrative to become the focus of the news story.

Remember when after the Boston Marathon bombing, left wing clown David Sirota infamously hoped that the as yet unidentified bombers were white Americans? This was, of course, because mass shooters (most of whom kill themselves or are killed by law enforcement) benefit unfairly from white privilege.

This has been most obvious in the context of recent mass shootings. In those awful episodes, a religious or ethnic minority group lacking such privilege would likely be collectively slandered and/or targeted with surveillance or profiling (or worse) if some of its individuals comprised most of the mass shooters. However, white male privilege means white men are not collectively denigrated/targeted for those shootings — even though most come at the hands of white dudes.

While the Tsarnev brothers were still on the run from police, Chris Matthews at MSNBC pontificated hopefully about how domestic terrorists were most often white conservatives and that the motiviation was likely motivated by taxes.

Normally, domestic terrorists, people tend to be on the far right, well that’s not a good category, just extremists, let’s call them that. Do they advertise after they do something like this?” the “Hardball” anchor asked Michael Leiter, former director of the United States National Counterterrorism Center. “Do they try to get credit as a group or do they just hate America so much or its politics or its government that they just want to do the damage, they don’t care if they get public credit, if you will?”

In 2014, when Jared Lee Loughner murdered 19 people in Tucson, Arizona and wounded many more including then Congresswoman Gabbie Giffords, the media portrayed him as a pawn of Sarah Palin who provoked the murder spree becaus her PAC used metaphorical crosshairs on a map to indicate what political races they were “targeting.”

In 2012 when James Holmes shot up an Auroro, Colorado movie theater, ABC News’ Brian Ross ran with reports that he was connected with the tea party movement before bothering to check whether there might be more than one person in Colorado with the not exactly unique name “James Holmes.”

Just spitballing here, but maybe the media should stick to reporting the news and be a little less focused on rooting for outcomes that fit their predetermined narratives.

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