Ship of Fools: White terrorist not making the news

Thread: White terrorist not making the news Board: Purgatory / Ship of Fools.

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Posted by Ian Climacus (# 944) on :

From The Intercept

A white man, a terrorist, placed a bomb in Asheville airport last week. It was defused.

The "lone" wolf or "disturbed" individual is often used for whities instead of the appropriate terrorist. As has been said elsewhere.

What to do though? The mass media seem complicit, explaining it away or, in this case, ignoring it. Can we make them more accountable?

And do you, in your consumption of media wherever you are, see this changing?

Posted by rolyn (# 16840) on :

There is something in this. Daily Uk news, supplied mainly by the dear beeb, tends to constantly play soft tunes to the collective Middle English ear.

The demise of 'white widow' terrorist Sally J. didn’t get much of an airing on this morning's bulletin. I suppose it doesn’t help the tea and toast down in quite the same way as some wrongdoer not born of England's rich earth meeting their Waterloo.

Posted by Doc Tor (# 9748) on :

Well, I heard quite a lot about the "White Widow" on R4, and it was on the front of one of the nationals when I did my shopping yesterday.

Very much less about the high probability that her 12 yo son was also killed in a state-sanctioned extra-judicial killing. Because blowing a 12 yo kid up to make sure his mum was dead might rattle a few teacups.

The other bloke? It did come up on my FB feed, from someone who was also expressing the view that because it was a white supremacist, it was being not so much downplayed as brushed under the carpet.

Posted by Honest Ron Bacardi (# 38) on :

The White Widow was all over the news on the Beeb yesterday. It may be that the news feed is tuned by the reader's IP address (I've wondered that myself when looking at it on holiday).

On the Asheville event - do we know this guy was a white supremacist? There's a Snopes entry on it (here) which suggests an enquiry into that may be in order, before assuming it.

Well, he may be, and even if this turns out not to be an example of the problems outlined in the article Ian C has linked to, those remain relevant areas of concern. It seems to me that anyone “preparing to fight a war on U.S. soil” and leaving explosive materials in an airport is classifiable as a terrorist by any standard.

Posted by Doc Tor (# 9748) on :

Yes. I may be jumping the gun on 'white supremacist'. He could equally be a Weatherman. But I would have anticipated a different target - a minor federal facility, rather than an obviously well-defended target like an airport.

Posted by la vie en rouge (# 10688) on :

I think the “White Widow” made the news because it’s comparatively rarer for women to be involved in this kind of terrorist activity. She had novelty value. I also suspect a bit of underhand “see? Those evil Islamists are even corrupting our white blonde women now”. It still feeds quite successfully into a certain islamophobic narrative.

Posted by rolyn (# 16840) on :

OK. Hands up on the BBC not covering the White Widow story, as it clearly it did.

My diet of news usually begins at 8.00 am with R2, (which tends to deem the NHS, energy prices, and a smattering of sex abuse as being those things necessary to start one's day), and ends with, wait for it.... the DM web page, taken with a large tablespoon of salt.

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