[TheZookie007]

This is where you and I disagree. Yes, they are both terrorist attacks and yes, they are of different scale and yes, the Paris situation continues to unfold, etc. But there is absolutely no question that the white man who placed a bomb in front an NAACP office in Colorado Springs CO was indeed racially motivated. This is borne out by the tortured racial history in the United States, and the history of such attacks against groups fighting for the civil rights of African-Americans (especially).

Also, there is indeed an all-too-common tendency for American media (especially) to downplay the terroristic actions of people when they are white and/or Christian (by calling them "the work of a lone gunman with mental issues", not linking their purported religious beliefs to their actions, not blaming all people who share their purported religious beliefs for the actions of this particular individual, not demanding that others who may share his purported beliefs denounce that individual's actions, etc.), and play up the terroristic actions of people when they are non-white and/or non-Christian. This has happened over and over and over again. Look at how the Aurora shootings were covered versus how the Boston Marathon bombings were covered, as just one example of far too many.

As someone said in another forum:

"Don't forget that the KKK is a (white) Christian terror group that's been murdering and harassing black people for decades -- but other Christians aren't expected to apologize for them every time they commit an act of terror. Yet Muslims are always called upon to apologize for Muslim terrorists. Why?"

In a strange and perhaps unintended mirroring of that, here you are demanding that Ms. Lemieaux apologize for pointing this out

When something is indeed a terror attack/hate crime (as both incidents clearly are), then call them so. There is a difference between reporting the facts of the situation ("the people who attacked Charlie Hebdo are terrorists who purport to be Muslim") and immediately trying to tie their individual actions to all the other people who are actual proponents of their shared religion. By which I mean, when the Westboro Baptist Church people do something stupid, nobody calls on the Pope to condemn their actions, and nobody immediately starts treating random everyday evangelical Christians, Jehovah's Witnesses, Episcopalians, Methodists, Anglicans, etc. etc. as pariahs -- but here are some clearly extremist Muslims doing stupid things, and one of the first reactions of the French public was to start stoning mosques. That's the sort of linkage in the mind of the people that she was decrying: the "when you picture a terrorist you see a brown person with a beard" concept.

[rtpoe]

Personally, I prefer to call the perpetrators in Paris "assassins", since it is extremely clear that they were targeting specific people and not unnamed "civilians", and it also seems appropriate given the origin of the term.

Anyway, I've posted my thoughts on the Charlie Hebdo attack on my blog:

http://pureblather.com/2015/01/08/charlie-or-ahmed/

Comments there are greatly appreciated.

[Palomine]

This is where you and I disagree. Yes, they are both terrorist attacks and yes, they are of different scale and yes, the Paris situation continues to unfold, etc. But there is absolutely no question that the white man who placed a bomb in front an NAACP office in Colorado Springs CO was indeed racially motivated. This is borne out by the tortured racial history in the United States, and the history of such attacks against groups fighting for the civil rights of African-Americans (especially).

Also, there is indeed an all-too-common tendency for American media (especially) to downplay the terroristic actions of people when they are white and/or Christian (by calling them "the work of a lone gunman with mental issues", not linking their purported religious beliefs to their actions, not blaming all people who share their purported religious beliefs for the actions of this particular individual, not demanding that others who may share his purported beliefs denounce that individual's actions, etc.), and play up the terroristic actions of people when they are non-white and/or non-Christian. This has happened over and over and over again. Look at how the Aurora shootings were covered versus how the Boston Marathon bombings were covered, as just one example of far too many.

As someone said in another forum:

"Don't forget that the KKK is a (white) Christian terror group that's been murdering and harassing black people for decades -- but other Christians aren't expected to apologize for them every time they commit an act of terror. Yet Muslims are always called upon to apologize for Muslim terrorists. Why?"

In a strange and perhaps unintended mirroring of that, here you are demanding that Ms. Lemieaux apologize for pointing this out

When something is indeed a terror attack/hate crime (as both incidents clearly are), then call them so. There is a difference between reporting the facts of the situation ("the people who attacked Charlie Hebdo are terrorists who purport to be Muslim") and immediately trying to tie their individual actions to all the other people who are actual proponents of their shared religion. By which I mean, when the Westboro Baptist Church people do something stupid, nobody calls on the Pope to condemn their actions, and nobody immediately starts treating random everyday evangelical Christians, Jehovah's Witnesses, Episcopalians, Methodists, Anglicans, etc. etc. as pariahs -- but here are some clearly extremist Muslims doing stupid things, and one of the first reactions of the French public was to start stoning mosques. That's the sort of linkage in the mind of the people that she was decrying: the "when you picture a terrorist you see a brown person with a beard" concept.

You seem to be making a straw man argument Zookie, and knowing the quality of your rhetoric to this point, I can only assume that's an accident on your part.

I did not state that the attack on the NAACP was not racially motivated, thus your insistence that it was is the proverbial straw. I simply qualified my classification of that act as terrorism by including the words "if the NAACP was his intended target." If so, then (as I said) the NAACP attack certainly is a terrorist act and though I'm sure someplace somewhere someone will deny that, I seriously doubt that any mainstream news organization of note/merit will argue that it's not terrorism unless some additional facts come to light, no matter what Ebony's "senior digital editor" may claim or believe.

People (and the news organizations that are comprised of many people) often use words interchangeably and/or loosely. A terrorist: a person who commits a terrorist act... can act alone and thus reasonably (if not also melodramatically) be described as a "lone wolf." That doesn't make him or her any less of a terrorist. Words are powerful things of course, and discussion of their use isn't necessarily semantic or needless mincing. However, the all-too-common incident of a solo gunman on a rampage isn't as commonly/culturally described as terrorism (it seems to me) because of the apparent motivations involved. Using your example, the Aurora shooter's political motivation (if any) is unknown to me: he seems like he was a person with mental problems and even now, years after the fact, his motives are "murky" (per the Daily Beast) and may have had something to do with his distaste for academics (in which case shooting the audience at a Batman movie seems an odd choice). The Boston Bombers on the other hand stated that the motivation behind their acts were politiical: the U.S. involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan (per the Washington Post). Thus, in terms of how the media ascribes cause-and-effect (at least in the early days of an incident/attack/investigation) it's the motivation that causes one thing to be called terrorism and another to be described in other terms, not the skin color of the perpetrators or their religious affiliation (at least in the Aurora vs. Boston cases you chose to compare).

Happily diminished in scope and standing though it is, the KKK is without doubt a terrorist organization, one that happens to have racial (and to a lesser extent) political motivations. Just because some random person on the net decrys the lack of news coverage given to their activities in recent decades, it's not evidence of some media double standard. It's just evidence that the KKK doesn't seem to do much these days, so news coverage about them is drastically diminished. If they start lynching people again, or bombing bulidings, shooting cartoonists or hijacking airplanes, I've little doubt that "terrorism" would be used to describe those activities. To wit: ISIS and Boko Haram get more press these days than Al Qaeda... because that's the case, does anyone seriously think that AQ isn't a terrorist organization? Of course not.

My criticism of the Ebony "senior digital editor" is based on her profound stupidity. She continues to propagate the culture of victimhood that, in my opinion, is extremely counter-productive to the best interests of African Americans. She crassly and exploitatively attempts to assert that the difference in news coverage (Colorado vs. Paris) is evidence of media bias and/or a double standard, without paying even one iota of attention to the difference in scale between the incidents. IMO, her foolishness renders her an embarrassment to both journalism and Black culture in America. But of course, that's just my opinion... one that I'm as free to share as she is hers (and yes, I know that you didn't imply that I wasn't ...I haven't picked up that proverbial straw ).

If he were asked about it, I think Pope Francis would, on human decency grounds, decry the actions of Westboro Baptist Church members. AFAIK, no one's asked him about it. Whether he regards their horrifically distasteful but non-violent protests as terrorism, I have no idea. However, he's the leader of the Roman Catholic church and not a Baptist, so perhaps someone else's opinion about Westboro would be more relevant (a body of Baptist Elders perhaps). But that fact is moot: terrorists do come in all flavors and Timothy McVeigh is just as much a terrorist as Cherif Kouachi. Offhand, I don't see anyone reputable claiming otherwise, though of course, anti-government fanatics will regard McVeigh as a "patriot" and radicalized Islamists will likely regard Koachi as a martyr.

A terrorist is a terrorist, regardless of how some might assert otherwise. And IMO, Ebony's "senior digital editor" seems to have about as much sense as any most any uninformed teenage online blogger lacking her fancy title.

[pedonbio]

Personally, I prefer to call the perpetrators in Paris "assassins", since it is extremely clear that they were targeting specific people and not unnamed "civilians", and it also seems appropriate given the origin of the term.

Anyway, I've posted my thoughts on the Charlie Hebdo attack on my blog:

http://pureblather.com/2015/01/08/charlie-or-ahmed/

Comments there are greatly appreciated.

Thank you for the Thomas Nast reference, rtpoe. The assassins could have attacked the French army, the French government, or even the anti-Islamic French political party, but they knew that the real threat to their medieval lunacy was a bunch of leftist cartoonists.

[TheZookie007]

My criticism of the Ebony "senior digital editor" is based on her profound stupidity. She continues to propagate the culture of victimhood that, in my opinion, is extremely counter-productive to the best interests of African Americans. She crassly and exploitatively attempts to assert that the difference in news coverage (Colorado vs. Paris) is evidence of media bias and/or a double standard, without paying even one iota of attention to the difference in scale between the incidents. IMO, her foolishness renders her an embarrassment to both journalism and Black culture in America. But of course, that's just my opinion... one that I'm as free to share as she is hers (and yes, I know that you didn't imply that I wasn't ...I haven't picked up that proverbial straw ).

Are you saying that the only reason why these two incidents are not being equally covered is "the scale of the attacks"? If so, explain to me why a domestic attack is deemed not as important to cover than one that happened overseas. I get that "if it bleeds, it leads" and that there's a whole lot of bleeding going on in France right now (unfortunately) and there was no bleeding in the Colorado Springs incident (fortunately), but there was zero coverage of the Colorado Springs bombing on CNN, Fox and MSNBC for two days after it happened. If it weren't for Twitter, I wouldn't have even heard of it -- and it wasn't until the Twitterverse made "Colorado" a trending topic that CNN had a single report on it.

And Ms. Lemieux is not "propagating a culture of victimhood". She's pointing out an actual thing. This essay explains what is problematic with your assertion better than I can (emphasis mine):



“Seems you’re making a catch-22: if people talk about it, they’re trying to be victims, but if people don’t talk about it, it doesn’t happen.”

"In the recent comment thread here on Examples of Racism in Atheist/ Skeptical Communities?, ischemgeek made this comment. It was so perfect, and so succinct, that naturally I have to muck it up by expanding on it and gassing on about it.

When people talk about oppression and marginalization and bigotry — racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, biphobia, xenophobia, classism, ableism, etc. — we often get caught in a particularly nasty Catch-22, beautifully summarized above. If we don’t talk about oppression and marginalization and bigotry… nobody will know about it, and it can and will be ignored. In fact, many people will assume that this particular form of oppression and marginalization and bigotry is now a thing of the past, and doesn’t even exist. If a certain amount of progress has been made in a certain area — sexism, for instance — many people will act as if the problem is entirely behind us, and we don’t have to worry about it, or think about it or, Loki forbid, change our behavior.

But if we do talk about this oppression and marginalization and bigotry? We get accused of 'playing the victim card.' We get accused of making up the marginalization, or exaggerating it, or going out of our way to look for it, or twisting innocent events to frame them in this narrative of victimhood, or trying to manipulate people into giving us our way by scoring sympathy points we haven’t earned. And not at all coincidentally, this once again results in the marginalization being made invisible: ignored, treated as if it either flat-out doesn't exist or is too trivial to worry about.

Now, this 'playing the victim card' trope doesn't always come from people in the privileged group. In this particular debate, for instance, one of the people making the argument that 'that’s all these blogs seem to be about, who’s going to play the victim card this week' and 'can we stop with the always trying to find reasons to be victims' was black. And, of course, Paula Kirby is now infamous for her essay arguing that women shouldn’t complain about sexism so much: we have to 'stop blaming it on men or hierarchies or misogyny or, silliest of all, ‘privilege’, and start simply practising being more assertive.' People in a marginalized group who haven't personally experienced a particular form of marginalization will sometimes dismiss it: perhaps out of the Just World Fallacy, perhaps out of a desire to think that their successes are theirs alone and they don't owe anything to the people who've fought for decades to smooth their path.

But it comes a lot from people in the privileged group. And regardless of who it’s coming from, it has the same effect: It renders oppression and marginalization and bigotry invisible. People fighting oppression get put in a Catch-22: If we speak out against oppression and point to examples of it, we’re accused of 'playing the victim card,' and the oppression becomes invisible. And if we don’t speak out against oppression and point to examples of it… then the oppression once again becomes invisible..."

[Palomine]

More than a dozen dead: mostly unarmed non-combatants (civilians drawing cartoons or doing their grocery shopping) vs. no one dead or even slightly injured? Seriously? I know that Ebony's glorified teengrrl blogger can't tell the difference, but I think most other people can.

She made an astonishingly asinine and embarrassing complaint. She didn't simply "talk about" (your emphasis) what happened in Colorado, she compared it (my emphasis) to something else and proceeded to complain without even a smidge of logic or context. Thus, the Catch-22 quote is moot: talking about something doesn't make the talker a victim. Playing the victim card and ignoring other factors (i.e.: reality) in order to do so ...that makes the talker in this case a "victim." You may disagree, and if so I'm fine w/that.

And a person needn't come from the "privileged group" to recognize that. Eyes, ears and a working brain are all that's required.

[TheZookie007]

More than a dozen dead: mostly unarmed non-combatants (civilians drawing cartoons or doing their grocery shopping) vs. no one dead or even slightly injured? Seriously? I know that Ebony's glorified teengrrl blogger can't tell the difference, but I think most other people can.

Again, to show that the "scale of attack" argument doesn't explain the discrepancy entirely: in the exact same time period of the Paris attacks, the Boko Haram group in northern Nigeria killed 2,000 people:

Hundreds of bodies – too many to count – remain strewn in the bush in Nigeria from an Islamic extremist attack that Amnesty International described as the “deadliest massacre” in the history of Boko Haram.

Fighting continued on Friday around Baga, a town on the border with Chad where insurgents seized a key military base on 3 January and attacked again on Wednesday...

The five-year insurgency killed more than 10,000 people last year alone, according to the Washington-based Council on Foreign Relations. More than a million people are displaced inside Nigeria and hundreds of thousands have fled across its borders into Chad and Cameroon.

[Palomine]

Specific events not getting the media coverage they'd seem to warrant is a different discussion... and one that's been going on for decades. I've just been posting about that tweet, the incidents it compares, and some of the points you've raised since then (the decrease in coverage about the KKK, etc...).

I don't have an interest in deconstructing events and their subsequent coverage ad infinitum. I've expressed my views about the topics we've discussed thus far and explained the whys and wherefores of those views.

To sum up: we live in a world where illogic, myopia and reactionary blather are usually richly rewarded, so I expect that despite her idiocy, Ebony's glorified blogger will go far.   

[pedonbio]

Specific events not getting the media coverage they'd seem to warrant is a different discussion... and one that's been going on for decades. I've just been posting about that tweet, the incidents it compares, and some of the points you've raised since then (the decrease in coverage about the KKK, etc...).
  

Indeed, it has been going on for a long time. I recall a Monday in 1973 when the White House press secretary announced that the White House had completed its investigation of the burglary at the Watergate office building and had concluded that no one "...presently working at the White House..." had been involved. No one bothered to ask a follow-up about the four or five trusted advisers who had quit the week before.

[TheZookie007]

...

[salem]

I'm not sure if domestic mass shootings are ever considered 'Terrorism'. I think Terrorism only applies if the acts are committed by a foreign nation in your country for political or religious reasons. For example, the IRA's reign of terror against the UK, which lasted for many years, and all of those terrorist actions were perpetrated by white people.

[pedonbio]

I'm not sure if domestic mass shootings are ever considered 'Terrorism'. I think Terrorism only applies if the acts are committed by a foreign nation in your country for political or religious reasons. For example, the IRA's reign of terror against the UK, which lasted for many years, and all of those terrorist actions were perpetrated by white people.

...or, as it was known in my family, the struggle to drive out the colonial oppressors.   

[salem]

...or, as it was known in my family, the struggle to drive out the colonial oppressors.   

Contrary to popular belief, Northern Ireland WANTS to be part of the UK. And as for the colonial oppressors thing, that was a LONG time ago, even the US has probably forgiven us for THAT business (except maybe Mel Gibson, who has the worlds largest chip on his shoulder regarding the English/British).

[Palomine]

Contrary to popular belief, Northern Ireland WANTS to be part of the UK. And as for the colonial oppressors thing, that was a LONG time ago, even the US has probably forgiven us for THAT business (except maybe Mel Gibson, who has the worlds largest chip on his shoulder regarding the English/British).

From what I've heard, he seems to hate Jews a bit more than he hates Brits. Being despised by such a repugnant and pitiful lunatic is basically a badge of honor.

[salem]

From what I've heard, he seems to hate Jews a bit more than he hates Brits. Being despised by such a repugnant and pitiful lunatic is basically a badge of honor.

So in that case, if you ever meet Mel Gibson, pray you are not a British Jew!