If only the Boston Marathon Bombers Were Non-white Americans [Reader Post]

This is probably the strangest post I’ve ever written, but stay with me – I’m going somewhere with this…

As we now move into the official Political Aftermath period of the Boston bombing — the period that will determine the long-term legislative fallout of the atrocity — the dynamics of privilege will undoubtedly influence the nation’s collective reaction to the attacks. That’s because privilege tends to determine: 1) which groups are — and are not — collectively denigrated or targeted for the unlawful actions of individuals; and 2) how big and politically game-changing the overall reaction ends up being.

This has been most obvious in the context of recent mass shootings. In those awful episodes, a religious or ethnic minority group holding such privilege would likely be collectively excused and/or justified by media apologists if some of its individuals comprised most of the mass shooters. However, minority privilege means anyone who falls outside the category of white, heterosexual men are not collectively denigrated/targeted for those shootings — even though on a per capita basis most come at the hands of non-white dudes.

Likewise, in the context of terrorist attacks, such privilege means non-white Islamic terrorists are typically portrayed not as representative of whole groups or ideologies, but as “lone wolf” threats to be dealt with as isolated law enforcement matters. Meanwhile, white or domestic terrorism suspects are often reflexively portrayed as representative of larger conspiracies, ideologies and political leanings that must be immediately portrayed as systemic threats — the kind potentially requiring everything from law enforcement action to military operations to even baselessly assigning libelous responsibility onto certain politicians who have absolutely no connection to these incidents.

“Non-white privilege is knowing that even if the bomber turns out to be non-white (or particularly of a certain religion that shall not be named), no one will call for your group to be profiled as terrorists as a result, subjected to special screening or threatened with deportation, or even labeled as terrorists. “Non-white privilege is knowing that if this bomber turns out to be non-white, the United States media will not condemn whatever race, nationality, or ideology from which said bomber came, just to ensure that some baseless “phobia” does not emerge. And if he turns out to be a member of an Islamic group we won’t be able to pinpoint any motives, nor should any blame go beyond the misunderstood individuals.”

Because of these undeniable and pervasive double standards, the specific identity of the Boston Marathon bomber (or bombers) is not some minor detail — it will almost certainly dictate what kind of governmental, political and societal response we see in the coming weeks. That means regardless of your particular party affiliation, if you care about everything from national security to reducing the national debt to protecting second amendment civil liberties to passing border protection, you should hope the bomber was a non-white domestic terrorist. Why? Because only in that case will privilege work to prevent the Boston attack from potentially undermining progress on those other issues.

To know that’s true is to simply consider how America reacts to different kinds of terrorism.

Despite global terror committed by Muslims, the American media has mobilized a full-on war effort of ignoring or justifying the prospect of Islamic terrorism. Indeed, as the story broke leftists from the fringe in Michael Moore to mainstream demagogues like the reporters at CNN began offering as speculation their own personal fantasies that the perpetrator(s) would be anti-US government white males, or better still Tea Party members.

By contrast, once it was discovered that the bombers were Chechnya-rooted and possibly Islamic terrorists, the privilege and double standards baked into our national ideologies means those attacks have resulted in no systemic condemnation had they been white conservatives. In fact, it has been quite the opposite — CNN found the need to remind its viewers that “You can’t blame any group for ‘extremists’.” (Irony alert: When it comes specifically to fighting white non-white domestic terrorists, the left seems to now support the very doctrine it criticized former president George W. Bush for articulating — the doctrine that sees fights terrorism with intelligence-gathering, law-enforcement, detaining terrorists in places like Guantanamo and wire tapping, not to mention killing them with drone strikes.

Enter the Boston bombing. Coming at the very moment the U.S. government is planning to withdraw from Afghanistan, considering cuts to the Pentagon budget, discussing civil liberties principles and debating surrendering any control of our borders, the attack could easily become the fulcrum of all of those contentious policy debates — that is, depending on the demographic profile of the assailant.

If recent history is any guide, since the bombers ended up being a anti-American Islamic extremists, non-white (or more specifically, Non-Western) privilege will likely mean the attack is portrayed as just an isolated incident — one that has no bearing on any larger policy debates. Put another way, non-white privilege will work to not only insulate non-whites from collective blame, but also to insulate the political debate from any fallout from the attack.

It would probably have been much different if the bomber ended up being a white, male conservative American citizen. As we know from our own history, when those kind of individuals break laws in such a high-profile way, the left often cites them as both proof that entire demographic groups must be targeted, and that therefore a more systemic response is warranted. At that point, it’s easy to imagine leftists citing Boston as a reason to block pressure cooker sales, support regressive Global Warming taxes, or somehow even blame opposition to gay marriage.

If that sounds hard to believe, just look at the comments by left-wing CNN, whose talking points can read like White House press releases. Though authorities hadn’t even identified a suspect in the Boston attack, they like other leftists, stood ready to assume the assailant was a Tea Partier, and consequently citing the attack as rationale to force through their latest legislative grievance.

The same CNN, of course, that is now telling us not to speculate or judge the motives of these murderers now that they do not fit the identity of leftist fantasy. In that sense, they perfectly embody the double standard that, more than anything, will determine the long-term political impact of the Boston bombing.

OK, I’m done ranting; thanks for staying with me. If that was painful for you to read I hope it’s some consolation that it was equally painful for me to write. Your first thought might be that this didn’t sound like most of my blog posts – it probably came off a lot more angry and irrational, and where were the hyperlinks for citation to support any of my assertions?¹

The short answer is that I didn’t write most of what you just read. The piece was basically me doing a copy and paste of a recent article that anyone reading this has no doubt heard of by now. What you read above was David Sirota’s piece over at Salon, “Let’s hope the Boston Marathon bomber is a white American”. I enhanced it by replacing his leftist talking points with some that could have come from the right. Since his post came out Sirota has become the favorite pinata of the Conservasphere, and he has been given all of the ridicule that he has so richly earned as a result. So what did Sirota do when he learned that he had generated some controversy? Rather than take a moment for introspection and puzzle through the reality that he may have said something stupid, God bless his leftist heart hedoubled down on stupid. Basically he used an overgeneralization that Bill O’Reilly made that if the terrorists had the support of an overseas government the aftermath would be far different than if they had been domestic terrorists.

Um, yes, David. You may not have liked how we dealt with the Taliban, but we don’t exactly hear you calling for reprisal after terror attacks inspired by hate groups like the Southern Policy Law Center, nor do we see you calling for drone strikes on Bill Ayers or any of his old cohorts (On a side note: A great tweet in the bombing aftermath pointed out something to the effect of “The difference between the Boston bombers and Bill Ayers is competence”). But regardless of race or ethnicity, if the IRA was behind the bombings and the Irish government said they knew where the IRA leaders were in their country and refused to cooperate with us what do you think would have happened?

But enough on this topic. The reason I went through this painful exercise was to put Sirota’s essay in terms that a leftist could recognize as idiocy by just flipping the perspective of the argument. Now that we know that the bombers were practitioners of the religion that shall not be named, hopefully we can have a long overdue national conversation about the cowardice of the leftists in our mainstream media.

Cross posted from Brother Bob’s Blog

1. I could have made better arguments, used better grammar and provided links, but this post was sort of like cleaning a septic tank. You want to do a good job, but sometimes just doing enough to call the job finished so you can get the stink off of you is enough.

Brother Bob

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