Crazy White Guy With a Gun Not a Terrorist

by Sidney Traynham · 2010-03-05 13:56:00 UTC
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BeerSo authorities have now confirmed: the shooter at the Pentagon was not connected to a larger terrorist plot.

This is a great relief, because now we know it was only a crazy white guy running around with a gun and not some Arab-looking militant extremist. I will sleep easier the next time I am at home in the U.S. within spitting distance of the Pentagon. (In all seriousness, I am glad that no innocent civilians or police were seriously harmed, and I regret that this gunman has now succumbed to his injuries.)

However, this issue might ask a larger question: are standalone crazy white guys with guns terrorists? Initially, I think yes, because they instill terror. However, Merriam-Webster does suggest otherwise. Terrorism is “the systematic use of terror especially as a means of coercion.”

It’s funny, because America seems to have stereotypes for guys with guns for every race.

Black man with a gun = gang member
Latino with a gun = drug dealer/gang member
Asian with a gun = Chinese mafia underworld
Arab/South Asian with a gun = terrorist
White guy with a gun = likely crazy individual

So apparently, white guys don’t get a cooler stereotype. Personally, I think this isn’t fair. Hopefully the increasing right-wing militant extremist groups and the Minuteman Project can strengthen their media engagement activities so that white guys with guns can get a better stereotype like “radical militia member.”

Until then, I can only hope for a day when the Muslim community in the U.S. doesn’t feel like it has to pray that a shooter is not an apparent Muslim at the first news of a significant incident. And I also hope for a day when the rest of America will stop immediately wondering if a crazy crime is connected to fundamentalist (un)Islamic terrorism.

Better yet, I hope for a day when violence is no more.

Photo credit: Paull Young (Special note: The guy depicted above is not related to the Pentagon shooting.)

Sidney Traynham is an aid worker and writer working in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
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