Loading ...GOP Congressman Insists There is No Group Motivating White Terrorism
BY: Julia Jahanpour/Contributing Writer
Representative Sean Duffy (R-WI) explained how he believes white terrorist attacks are “one-offs” that the government can’t do anything about on Tuesday morning. In the midst of President Trump’s travel ban and spoken condemnation of radical Islamic terrorism, CNN’s Alisyn Camerota asked the congressman why white terrorism wasn’t being brought to the public’s attention, as well. In his response, Rep. Duffy said he believes that the hate crimes and violence perpetuated by white terrorists are isolated incidents, and not fueled by a greater cause.
“You don’t have a [white] group like ISIS or Al-Qaeda that’s inspiring people around the world to take up arms and kill innocents,” Duffy rebutted during the interview.
Camerota fought back with examples of white terrorism, such as the Oklahoma bomber and the Charleston shooter, asking if those incidents matter. Rep. Duffy confirmed, “No, it does matter. It does matter. Look at the good things that came from it. [Then-South Carolina Gov.] Nikki Haley took down the Confederate flag, that was great.”
Instead of understanding the significance of another white-supremacy-based shooting, Duffy immediately went to defending the act.
Despite the existence of a long list of white extremist mass shooters taking innocent lives across the U.S., Rep. Duffy is under the belief that these men have no correlation and are not inspired by similar rhetoric. Duffy also argued that attacks by white people “aren’t as big of a problem.”
The debate between Camerota and Rep. Duffy began when the CNN host asked why the White House left the recent Quebec shooting off a list of terrorist attacks it claimed the media did not cover. President Trump, who always tweets about terrorist attacks, also did not tweet about the Quebec shooting. Camerota argued that the media covers all terrorist attacks, even those perpetuated against Muslims by white supremacists.
White supremacy is a common theme amongst many of the white terrorists who have taken the lives of African Americans, Muslims, and other minorities in America. There does appear to be a clear correlation between mass white shooters and their motivations, which often involves themes of race and power found on fringe internet sites.
White supremacy has persisted throughout society for centuries from colonization to Jim Crow laws. It is a long-standing belief that has inspired many killings for the last century and a half, beginning with the inception of the Ku Klux Klan, a white supremacist group infamous for its lynchings of black youth.
What Duffy fails to understand is that there is a cause fueling white hate crimes. ISIL is not the first of its kind. Referencing it as the only cause for true fear in this country causes misplaced concern and hatred. The congressman speaks about terrorism as if Muslims are at the heart of it all, and refuses to acknowledge the seriousness of the homegrown terrorism taking place domestically. This belief, in itself, is highly Islamophobic. It is placing more blame and fear on Muslim countries and people, than on the white terrorists committing similar crimes. If American leaders are not afraid of white extremist shooters, they should not be afraid of refugees from the Arab and Muslim worlds.
It is this ideology – which views white terrorists as less dangerous and threatening than ISIL – that allows discriminatory treatment of Muslims to continue.
Watch Rep. Duffy’s full interview here:
Camerota: Why isn’t the president talking about white terrorism?
Duffy: There’s a difference. https://t.co/YEgSitUsdS
— Eugene Scott (@Eugene_Scott) February 7, 2017
