To clarify, white people are actually slightly underrepresented in terrorism per capita; they simply constitute a significant majority of the population and therefore do most of the terrorism. Therefore, while this tweet is technically correct, it should not be taken to mean that white individuals are more likely to be terrorists—it’s an ironic reflection on the skewed, racially motivated reality presented to us by media and politicians.
Source:
https://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/fbi-releases-lone-offender-terrorism-report-111319
https://www.statista.com/chart/19968/the-race-ethnicity-of-lone-offender-terrorists/
https://www.theroot.com/are-white-men-americas-biggest-terror-threat-we-checke-1830175112
https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/08/14/fbi-and-dhs-warned-of-growing-threat-from-white-supremacists-months-ago/
For it to be terrorism it has to be motivated by political or religious ideology. So all the highschool kids who snap and murder a bunch of their classmates: not terrorism. However: the IRA or Timothy McVeigh or the Unabomber: definitely terrorism.
I think that’s an unnecessary splitting of hairs, because both the Unabomber and the school shooter become political in the aftermath
So if someone has a heart attack while driving and their car plows into a busy shopping street. Then whether or not they are regarded as a terrorist depends on whether or not someone tries to ban old people from driving because of it?
Or to ask a different question, how would you define terrorism? Because the Oxford English dictionary definition is:
“The calculated use of violence or threat of violence to inculcate fear. Terrorism is intended to coerce or intimidate governments or societies in the pursuit of goals that are generally political, religious, or ideological.”
That last bit sort of discounts the majority of gun violence generally. And yes in terms of the result, it is splitting hairs. But, knowing the motivation behind a crime is important. You’re going to have more success preventing school shootings by investing in mental health services than you will in anti terrorism policing.
Also if two separate people wake up one morning and person A decides to kill the first person he sees. Person Bdecides to kill the first black person he sees. They both end up killing a black man, and both end up in prison. During rehabilitation, if you treat both as a hate crime, then you’re not properly addressing the violent impulses with person A and if you only address the violent behaviour then you aren’t addressing the underlying racism in person B. Motivation matters in how things are handled generally.
This is not quite accurate. One definition of terrorism from the FBI:
You are correct that many (not sure about percentage) school shootings would not be considered terrorism by this definition, though, and I agree with you on that. White people do a lot of terrorism outside of schools though and that’s the point of the post.
My point is that noone is looking at the IRA and crying mental illness. Furthermore, if you look at the Wikipedia pages for people like Anders Behring Breivik, Ted Kaczynski, and Timothy McVeigh, they all refer to them as terrorists. Whereas people like James Holmes are listed as mass murderers because their crimes were not politically motivated.