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.
Likewise, in the context of terrorist attacks, such privilege means white non-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, non-white or developing-world terrorism suspects are often reflexively portrayed as representative of larger conspiracies, ideologies and religions that must be dealt with as systemic threats — the kind potentially requiring everything from law enforcement action to military operations to civil liberties legislation to foreign policy shifts
“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,” writes author Tim Wise. “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 don’t get any ideas. And if he turns out to be a member of the Irish Republican Army we won’t bomb Dublin. And if he’s an Italian-American Catholic we won’t bomb the Vatican.”
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 stopping war to reducing the defense budget to protecting civil liberties to passing immigration reform, you should hope the bomber was a 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.
Yes, those 'white dudes' have certainly killed a lot more Americans than jihadis, according to Sirota. So if the bombers turn out to be whitey, let's make sure we demonize that group too, to make up for that awful White Privilege.
That's why Sirota obviously hopes the bombers were White Tea Party Republicans, because it would be a political assist to the Left's agenda. He's actively calling for the Tea Party and its adherents to be demonized. The horror of hoping that one of your own countrymen murdered a bunch of his fellow citizens as opposed to a radicalized foreigner escapes this tool totally.
Now that its obvious that the Boston Marathon bombing was jihad, here's what he tweeted today:
Muslim jihadis setting off bombs in our cities? We have to make sure we don't dare do anything like profiling at airports or being more careful about whom we issue visas to. But if it had been the Great White Terrorist, he would have been perfectly happy to use it to destroy the Second Amendment, demonize the Tea Party and advance the Left's agenda - yes, to use his own words, predicate our reaction to terrorism based on the demography of the terrorists.
As long as it's you know, the right one.
The worst enemy is always the one inside the gates.
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