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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWhy are we so obsessed with the religion/ethnicity/race of these killers?
There have been several discussions about the race/ethnicity/religion of the killers. Why? Why are we so pre-occupied with finding this fact? So that we can hold an entire race/religion/ethnicity accountable?
Let's say that we find out that the killers are muslims. What are we going to do with that information? Go to war with all Muslims all over the world?
Can someone please explain?
we can do it
(12,180 posts)treestar
(82,383 posts)And how they will obsess over it or use it to advance their agendas.
Stretch714
(90 posts)A few nut jobs with guns kill people and we think all gun owners are nut jobs. We do it with religious groups all the time.
Dont_Bogart_the_Pretzel
(3,273 posts)msongs
(67,381 posts)snagglepuss
(12,704 posts)were they NRA freaks, KKK, neo fascists.
Fumesucker
(45,851 posts)And they seem to qualify as extremists.
kelliekat44
(7,759 posts)Dreamer Tatum
(10,926 posts)by the legions who assured us it was the Tea Party.
Dyedinthewoolliberal
(15,562 posts)or maybe unenlightened human nature to seek this kind of thing out. Then we have a focus for our blame and fault finding.
"they are all that way", "it's what we expect from them" etc
TwilightGardener
(46,416 posts)Yavin4
(35,431 posts)snagglepuss
(12,704 posts)Stretch714
(90 posts)Warpy
(111,227 posts)Everybody wants to know exactly what loosened their screws to the point they though blowing up women and kids would be a good idea.
Besides, finding out they're "others" means we don't have to be suspicious of friends and neighbors who are not.
Yeah, right.
cali
(114,904 posts)people always want to know motive. And religion may have been motive or part of it. Are you saying we shouldn't examine why because you're afraid it will be used as a pretext? (a reasonable fear)
Yavin4
(35,431 posts)The DC Beltway snipers were an African American father-son team. Their race had nothing to do with their actions nor did it motivate their deeds.
If anything, the fact that they weren't White may have hampered the investigation.
cali
(114,904 posts)It sounds like you are fearful that if these acts were perpetrated in the name of Islam, the U.S. will do something ugly/stupid. I think that's an understandable concern.
I said nothing about religion being a pretext for the motives of the suspects. I said that it is natural to want to understand motive and that religion or ethnic background could figure into that. For instance, if we were talking about an attack on a march on MLK day (and that was planned a couple of years back), race might indeed be part of the larger picture.
snagglepuss
(12,704 posts)Bin Ladin and others of his ilk made it clear they wanted the US out of Islamic lands. Islamists are the ones have defined their violence in terms of religion. Ethnicity is in play because some Islamists are fighting an ethnic battle eg Chechynans.
Response to Yavin4 (Original post)
cthulu2016 This message was self-deleted by its author.
kentuck
(111,074 posts)and that after actions.
We saw that incident used as a flag to rally Americans to support two needless wars. Wars which have brought this country to its knees financially, along with all those tax cuts for the rich, the new DHS and TSA...
That would be my first thought, is that people are worried what this incident might be used for.
Those of us who were paying attention remember the demonization and attacks on wide swaths of people and are worried it will happen again. At least they come from a country we won't start a war with. Who knows, maybe we'll attack another country... hmmm... I wonder which one.
Zorra
(27,670 posts)LeftInTX
(25,209 posts)olddots
(10,237 posts)I can't explain why but it seems the news bizz profits from war and fear almost as much as munitions companies .
Wars have been based on religion/ethnicity/and race =works every time.
CountAllVotes
(20,868 posts)I don't give a damn what race they are or where they are from.
They are killers!
May they both rot in f'ng HELL!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Quantess
(27,630 posts)I have not been proud of DU for the past couple of days.
The Straight Story
(48,121 posts)Either religion made them do it, they were kept down by the man and sought revenge, guns filled with magical demon power dragged them out and made them do it, they were abused by someone and that person is to blame, etc.
One we assign a cause we can either rush to war or run out yelling for more laws. Never mind it could be less than 0% (ie 0.3%) of a group/etc act in that way, we want to use it to rally the troops to our biases.
And anyone who does not agree hates america and is a nut.
It works that way on the left and the right.
Liberal_Stalwart71
(20,450 posts)<snip>
The Right, hours after Monday's bombing, was already casting the blame on Muslims. As Steven Rosenfeld notes in AlterNet, "Almost immediately predictable hysterical right-wing voices jumped into the debate and surprisingly were featured on liberal Salon.com including the anti-Muslim media hound Pam Geller, who immediately blamed a Jihadi for the bombing." The Langar Hall website reported on Monday, "Some right wing pundits have been even more blatantly racist this afternoon in response to the explosions. Fox News commentator Erik Rush went so far as to tweet this afternoon that Muslims are evil, and 'Lets kill them all' after immediately blaming the explosions on Muslim terrorists without any evidence."
In his latest commentary, Terrorism and Privilege: Understanding the Power of Whiteness, anti-racism writer and educator Tim Wise underscores how, even as we grieve the victims, the Boston Marathon bombing is a powerful lesson about race and white privilege. But I dare say there is more; a much less obvious and far more uncomfortable lesson, which many are loathe to learn, but which an event such as this makes readily apparent, and which we must acknowledge, no matter how painful. It is a lesson about race, about whiteness, and specifically, about white privilege. I know you dont want to hear it. But I dont much care. So here goes. White privilege is knowing that even if the Boston Marathon bomber turns out to be white, his or her identity will not result in persons like yourself being singled out for suspicion by law enforcement, or the TSA, or the FBI.
White privilege is knowing that even if the bomber turns out to be white, no one will call for your group to be profiled as terrorists as a result, subjected to special screening, or threatened with deportation.
White privilege is knowing that if the bomber turns out to be white, he or she will be viewed as an exception to an otherwise non-white rule, an aberration, an anomaly...White privilege is knowing that if the Boston bomber turns out to be white, you will not be asked to denounce him or her, so as to prove your own loyalties to the common national good. It is knowing that the next time a cop sees you standing on the sidewalk cheering on runners in a marathon, that cop will say exactly nothing to you as a result.
White privilege is knowing that if you are a student from Nebraska as opposed to, say, a student from Saudi Arabia that no one, and I mean no one would think it important to detain and question you in the wake of a bombing such as the one at the Boston Marathon. And white privilege is knowing that if this bomber turns out to be white, the United States government will not bomb whatever corn field or mountain town or stale suburb from which said bomber came, just to ensure that others like him or her dont get any ideas. And if he turns out to be a member of the Irish Republican Army we wont bomb Dublin. And if hes an Italian American Catholic we wont bomb the Vatican.
In short, white privilege is the thing that allows you and me to view tragic events like this as merely horrific, and from the perspective of pure and innocent victims, rather than having to wonder, and to look over ones shoulder, and to ask even if only in hushed tones, whether those we pass on the street might think that somehow we were involved.
It is the source of our unearned innocence and the cause of others unjustified oppression.
<snip>
More here:
Source: http://www.war-times.org/node/562
MaineLinePhilly
(72 posts)John King described the suspect as being "dark skinned" so thats the only thing I have said in regards to this. The implication had far reaching effects, and now that they have turned out to be quite light/white/fair skinned, this is the part of the conversation I bring up. I hope John King apologizes for his shoddy journalism (and I use the word journalism loosely).
Trajan
(19,089 posts)These blanket statements are your choice ...
There is no we ...
Stop putting words into MY mouth ...
RevStPatrick
(2,208 posts)Our tribe = Good.
Their tribe = Bad.
Many of us have evolved past this, but tribalism still gets eyeballs in front of the advertisements.
Phlem
(6,323 posts)Because we are a country obsessed with reality TV shows (that aren't reality at all) and are being conditioned to make snap judgments based on what we see.
We never get a chance to know the real history of each participant and they aren't around for the next season for us to get to know.
Superficial information is all we need to make what we think is an informed decision. No critical thinking here.
They're all game show contestants.
-p
Scootaloo
(25,699 posts)If they're Arabs / Muslims, then any depth if broad-brushing bigotry is absolutely okay, as per the non-application of the ToS. In this case we will be regaled with what horrible fucking people all Arabs and Muslims are, how we need to blow up Mecca, and other charming statements, paired with a slew of "just saying's" and "I'm only asking questions's"
On the other hand if the attackers were white, black, Christian, gay, Jewish, or Asian, DU would wring its hands about the lack of easy access to mental health care, since all of these groups are inherently good and wonderful, unlike Arabs and Muslims, and so any violation from within their ranks is not an expression of natural inherent evil - like Arabs and Muslims - but rather a psychiatric problem that could have been solved with some single-payer and sympathy.