On June 17, 2015, a 21 year-old white man, Dylan Roof, joined a prayer group in the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in downtown Charleston, South Carolina, where he proceeded to shoot and kill nine people. Although Roof had written a racist manifesto and his attack was intended to create a “race war,” he was not labeled a terrorist but a mentally ill lost kid.
Now a year since the Charleston Massacre, the media bias to portray violent white men as “misunderstood loners” continues. The persistence of this bias is apparent in the wake of the Orlando shooting and the murder of British Member of Parliament Jo Cox by a right-wing white supremacist.
Almost immediately after the Orlando massacre, 29 year-old shooter Omar Mateen, a native born U.S. citizen, was immediately promoted as having ties to the Islamic State, or ISIS as it is known. However, the media labeling of Mateen as an “Islamic terrorist” overshadowed his history of mental illness, domestic violence, racism and an infatuation with the NYPD, factors which would put him more in the same category with other rightwing, politically motivated mass killers in the U.S.
Since the shooting, questions have arisen about his motives as it has been shown that he had no ties to ISIS, and in fact was so ignorant of the so-called Islamic terrorist milieu that he had variously claimed association with organizations that are in fact at war with each other.
Nonetheless, the damage of such unethical journalism has been done. The terrorist label assigned to Mateen caused panic and became fuel for rightwing vitriol. Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump tweeted “While I greatly appreciate everybody congratulating me for being right on radical Islamic terrorism, I don’t want congratulations, I want toughness and vigilance. We must finally be smart!”
In comparison to the premature labeling of Matten as a terrorist, Jo Cox’s killer, Thomas Mair, has been more sensitively portrayed by mainstream media. Mair, who has affiliation with neo-Nazi groups and subscribes to right-wing politics, was not labeled a terrorist despite that fact that he shouted “Britain first” before brutally murdering Cox. This strongly suggests the attack was politically motivated, as Britain First is the name of a far right Nationalist political party in the UK. Yet, the assailant is being called a misunderstood and misguided lone wolf. Even the progressive British newspaper the Guardian stated in their coverage of the murder that Mair was “quiet, polite, and reserved.“ The same sensitive rhetoric surrounding the coverage of Mair was also used for white terrorists such as Dylan Roof and Planned Parenthood shooter Robert Lewis Dear, Jr.
Charleston massacre shooter Roof was described as a “Loner Caught in ‘Internet Evil’” by major news outlet NBC. The description insinuates that Roof himself was just an impressionable victim despite the racist motive behind the shooting. On Nov. 27, 2015, gunman Robert Dear attacked a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs. He shot and killed a police officer, two civilians, and injured several others. Ironically, violent Planned Parenthood attacker Dear was described as a “gentle loner” by news outlet Salon despite his rampage being a result of his intense anti-abortion views, misogyny and extremist “Christian” ideology. These attacks, motivated by racism and the misogyny are a reflection of rightwing U.S. politics.
The focus on Mateen’s alleged “Islamic terrorism,” while ignoring the white supremacist and misogynist terrorist ideologies of Mair, Roof, and Dear’s is incredibly dangerous and misleading. It encourages Islamophobia when it is hateful, rightwing fearmongering that should be held accountable. Mateen, Mair, Roof, and Dear acted out against oppressed people. Mateen attacked the predominantly Latino people at an LGBTQ club, Mair killed a woman advocate for refugees and Palestinians, Roof gunned down Black churchgoers (many of them women) and Dear shot a young mother along with other civilians. All these violent acts were motivated by reactionary ideologies of homophobia, racism, xenophobia and misogyny.
For example, in a case similar to the Jo Cox assassination, there was another incident in 2010 when a British MP Stephen Timms was brutally stabbed. Unlike Thomas Mair, however, the murder was labeled a terrorist attack. The difference? The attacker was a Muslim woman angry about Timms’ vote for the Iraq war.
The attack became another example of “Islamic terrorism” in the media. Such simplistic explanations of oppressed people acting out encourages a lack of comprehensive understanding that bombing other countries, exploitation, and a lack of opportunities can propel an oppressed individual to take desperate action against these injustices. Sadly, the act of one oppressed person is used in the media to represent an entire group of people. It has become a tragic and infuriating cliché that white men are judged less harshly by the media. When a white man enacts violence and kills, his crime is not used to assign collective guilt to all white men. It is no coincidence either.
Ultimately, this double standard protects the interests of the ruling class and helps to shield their racist, homophobic, sexist, and bigoted agendas from popular criticism, shifting the blame away from their vitriol. In a country where working class people are fighting against injustice and for equality, there is no place for a corporate media that constantly apologizes for bigotry.
