Read the prelude to this article here.
It causes a great deal of grief to the leftists when they see the two words, ‘Islam’ and ‘Terror’, being used together as ‘Islamic Terror’. They’ve propagated the notion time and again that using this expression is tantamount to painting the entire Muslim community with the same brush (of terrorism). It’s not, and that’s what I’ll explain in this article today.
Consider this case: On August 5, 2012, Wade Michael Page, a white supremacist, opened fire on a gurudwara in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, fatally shooting six people. There was widespread outrage and condemnation of the attack (though none for using the words ‘white’ and ‘supremacist’ together). Clearly, it would’ve been juvenile to assume that using ‘white supremacist’ to describe the perpetrator of the attack meant accusing all the whites of being supremacists. Even to a non-thinking mind, this one was a no-brainer: when factors like religion and race play a role in the motive behind a crime, the usage of these terms is purely contextual and limited to the crime being discussed. It is not an indictment of everyone who belong to the same race or subscribe to the same faith as the perpetrator’s.
Moving on, let’s discuss how terms like ‘White Supremacy’, ‘Black Lives Matter’ and ‘Islamic Terror’ came into being. Whenever there is a repeated occurrence of an event involving a homogeneous group, the said event is given a name, which typically contains (in the name) the attribute that is the cause/is related to this event.
So, ‘White Supremacy’ means a group of white people operating under the notion of their superiority over others because of their body’s inability to produce melanin. The crime committed under this impression is called a white supremacist attack. It only points to the motive/the perpetrator behind the attack and is not intended to insult an entire race of people.
‘Black Lives Matter’ was born due to incessant atrocities against Black Americans by the police forces in the United States. It wasn’t one or two stray incidents that led to this movement being named so, but multiple instances of Blacks being unfairly targeted by the very people who were appointed to protect them.
Similarly, the expression ‘Islamic Terror’ was not born out of a few incidents of Muslims involved in killing innocent people. One attack after another, in country after country, year after year, when innocent blood was spilled in the name of Islam, that’s when ‘Islamic Terror’ started being used to describe these horrific events. Had there been no (Islamic terror) attack after 9/11, nobody would have used this term.
In other words, the terms ‘White Supremacy’ and ‘Islamic Terror’ are not stereotypical of the larger community to which its members belong by virtue of their race or faith, but certainly to the subset they represent. What I mean here is, you can typecast some traits like bigotry and racism to a white supremacist and it’ll be applicable to just its ilk, but NOT to all the whites.
In conclusion, there is a thin line that separates stereotyping an entire community based on attributes like ethnicity, nationality, faith, etc. and the rogue subset that exists within it. It’s crucial for us to understand the difference between the two, not only to engage in a meaningful conversation but to also advance its level by moving beyond offering explanations and instead discussing topics like ways to stop the rise of radicalization among educated youth.
