I always wonder what would make the GOP and the right-wing ecosystem finally care about mass shootings and violent extremism in this country.
A violent insurrection at our nation’s Capitol isn’t enough. One hundred and three mass shootings so far in 2021—40 more than at the same point last year—that have killed 122 people won’t do it. Children killed at Sandy Hook couldn’t bring about gun reform but only led to conspiracy theories and the harassment of the victims’ parents. U.S. intelligence agencies issuing dire warnings about the rise of white supremacists and militias and potential terror plots can’t dislodge Dr. Seuss from the headlines or keep Tucker Carlson from saying white supremacy is a hoax.
What will it take?
I asked this question again on Monday night as Fox News mostly ignored the press conference from Boulder police about the latest mass shooting, the seventh in a week, which killed 10 people. Instead, they focused on Biden stumbling down the stairs of Air Force One. You know, the pressing issues of the day. The identity of the suspect had not been revealed and there was a knee-jerk assumption by some on social media that he would be a white male, like 54 percent of mass shooters in the United States since 1982. It’s an excellent reminder for everyone to always wait for the facts before jumping in with tweets.
But on Tuesday, suddenly, Ann Coulter, Andy Ngo, and the far-right anti-immigrant group VDare were tweeting about the shooter. Fox News host Greg Gutfield even took an interest in the identity of the shooter, complaining, somewhat incoherently, about how “there could be a racial component” to this shooting, “But you sure as hell better not do that especially if you are in the media,” since “yesterday white people died” in the Colorado attack. What changed?
The alleged shooter’s religion and ethnicity. The police named him as Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa, a 21-year-old with a history of violence and paranoia and a man who was not particularly religious or politically Muslim according to his brother. Their family had immigrated from Syria when the shooter was an infant.
This latest tragedy occurred less than a week after the mass shooting in Atlanta, in which eight people, including six Asian American women, were killed by another 21-year-old, Robert Aaron Long. He’s a white evangelical Christian, once active in the Southern Baptist church, who carried a Bible to high school and said his motivation for the attack was to remove sexual “temptation” from his life. In an Instagram post before the shooting, Long summed things up as “Pizza, guns, drums, music, family, and God. It’s a pretty good life.” Since the attack, his church and other Christian leaders have condemned his actions.
But “Christian” didn’t trend after the shooting, and that was good news for Christians. Usually, when an ethnicity or religion trends, it’s bad news: a hate crime, some celebrity or politician saying something bigoted, or someone from that community accused of doing something terrible. It’s never, “Oh, look! Muslim Arab Baker gives away free donuts, cites Islamic tradition of charity.”
I posted a prediction on Tuesday: “Islamic is trending. Don't even have to click on it. Let me guess: Right wing outrage & racism over the identity of the Boulder shooter. Meanwhile crickets on gun reform & white supremacist terrorism, the #1 domestic threat in America. Somehow Trump will be seen as ‘tough.’”
It doesn’t take a genius or psychic to be aware of the hypocritical double standards of the GOP and conservative movement who only seem to care about national security when the suspects are Black, undocumented immigrants, or Muslim. You have just to live in America as a person of color. This isn’t our first rodeo and it won’t be our last. We know that even though white supremacists are the number-one domestic terror threat, Muslims accused of plotting violence received seven times more media attention and much longer criminal sentences. This is life after 9/11 and the endless War on Terror that has turned Muslim American communities into perpetual suspects.
The latest manufactured grievance on the right is that the libs want to cancel white people, take away their guns, and always talk about white supremacy to distract from violence in Black communities and blue cities. Nope!
First, the main proponents of cancel culture are actually conservatives, led by Donald Trump. Second, no one wants to take away people’s guns but, yes, the majority in this country want to remove assault rifles and enact sensible reforms. Third, we want to talk about white supremacy because it’s an ideology of hate responsible for violence, brutality, terrorism, and inequality.
We know nothing will happen to white people when the suspect is white, that there is no white equivalent to what I call the Muslim Drill, a prayer often done by people of color who pray the suspect isn’t from their community because we know all of us will be asked to apologize for violent acts and our ethnicity and religion will be hazed, often leading to oppressive and ineffective policies. We saw it with the Muslim Ban and the widespread surveillance of Muslim communities in New York City after 9/11.
If you’re a white shooter like Kyle Rittenhouse, you are elevated and celebrated as a martyr by many in the conservative movement. If you’re a war criminal like Eddie Gallagher, who killed a defenseless 12-year-old prisoner, you get pardoned by Trump and photo ops with Mike Flynn. If you’re the McCloskeys, the wealthy, white suburban couple who brandished guns at peaceful BLM protesters, you get a plum spot at the 2020 Republican National Congress where you warn about gun-toting Marxists who will “abolish the suburbs.”
Yet currently, a majority of white Republicans are under the delusion they are the most aggrieved victims in this country. They are living in the upside-down where Trump won the election, antifa was behind the Jan. 6 insurrection, and liberals, who are part of the George Soros- funded Deep State, are literally eating their children for dinner.
The same voices who canceled Colin Kaepernick for kneeling against police brutality are doing their best to gaslight a nation and obstruct Democrats' desire to aggressively investigate the violent takeover of the Capitol that left five people dead, including a police officer. Instead, we have Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene actively supporting these insurrectionists after spending her free time previously hounding high school shooting survivors. Congressman Paul Gosar, meanwhile, is out tweeting white supremacist talking points and keynoting a white supremacist conference. In a moment of refreshing racist candor, Senator Ron Johnson recently praised the violent insurrectionists, who were mostly white, and he admitted had they been Black, he’d be worried: “Had the tables been turned, and President Trump won the election and those were tens of thousands of Black Lives Matter and antifa protesters, I might have been a little concerned." Instead of doing anything productive to help Asian Americans suffering from hate crimes, Republican Congressman Chip Roy instead extolled lynching—during a hearing on Anti-Asian violence.
It appears that skin tone and religion determine victimhood and criminality. The Daily Caller ran with that theme yesterday when they wrote an incorrect, sensationalistic piece about BLM protesters allegedly trapping 100 customers inside a Wegmans. In reality, protesters never entered the store. They ate pizza in the parking lot, and nobody was trapped inside.
If anything, I think these last two mass shootings show our commonalities as Americans despite our deep divisions and differences. Race, religion, and tribe don’t matter when it comes to mass shootings. We’re all American as apple pie and hummus when it comes to being contaminated by this disease. Both shooters had easier access to an assault rifle than health care.
If the right wing truly cares about life and national security, then here’s a perfect chance to prove it. Join the Democrats and the majority of Americans, including Republicans, and support sensible and overdue gun reforms. Enough with assault rifles on demand and the promise that comes with those of ever more mass murderers followed by “thoughts and prayers.” If you’re for national security, then be against all violent extremists, not just the ones with Arabic names and Black or brown skin, but stand up and also condemn those with white skin even if they voted for Trump, attend MAGA rallies, and faithfully watch Fox News.
One thing Gutfield was right about in his rant, however accidentally, was when he complained that “they only care about certain victims and they only care about certain suspects.”
That’s Fox News and their friends. It’s up to the rest of us to care about everyone.
