White Supremacy is Terrorism

, by Michael Darer, Opinion Editor

On March 20, James Harris Jackson attacked Timothy Caughman in New York City, stabbing him multiple times. Though originally from Baltimore, Jackson had traveled to Manhattan, as he told police, for the purpose of killing Black men. He explained that his choice of location was a ploy to make a statement, to ensure the publicity of his killings. Though Jackson turned himself into the police, he was entirely unrepentant, stating he had hated Black men for around a decade. Caughman died from the injuries sustained in the attack.

By all standards, Jackson’s behavior is clear cut terrorism: violence against a civilian for the purpose of making a political point. It was premeditated and horrific. So, why has this attack not been widely defined as terrorism? If you’ve studied American history even casually the answer should be quite obvious. Jackson is white.

When a Muslim commits any sort of violence, it is immediately labeled as terrorism and held up as proof of the hatred inherent in Islam. It is the product of a system which itself must be eradicated to prevent any further harm. On the off-chance that Islam as a whole is not immediately condemned, it falls to members of the Muslim community to demonstrate their opposition to the action, to perform American-ness as vigorously as possible, and to give the nation a reason to not see them as monsters who are in line with the ideology of the worst criminals that happen to hold the same religious beliefs.

We witness none of this in cases of white terrorism.

A white terrorist is not a terrorist. He is a lone-wolf, a random derangement. He is a troubled young man, who is perhaps dapperly dressed. He is not a symbol of anti-Black violence embedded in the fabric of American whiteness. No other white Americans must loudly denounce him for fear of being seen as this vile attacker’s compatriots. His actions are reprehensible and unfortunate, but nothing more.

There is little reason to make these distinctions. Terrorism is a cultural term, a descriptor but not frequently a legal charge. As such, the distinction speaks not to any technicalities of prosecution, but to a cultural mindset: the desperate desire to exonerate whiteness, to sever the clear historical linkage between whiteness and white supremacist violence, and the embedded need to perpetuate violence against People of Color.

Viewed through a political, social, and historical lens, white supremacy is inherently terroristic, especially in its most obvious iterations. Slavery sought to render the Black body less than human, to violently punish that body for trying to achieve or display humanity. The repeated rape of female slaves accomplished this just as much as whippings by contextualizing the Black body as a site of worthlessness, valuelessness.

In the wake of slavery’s abolition, lynching continued this pattern. People of Color were murdered for expressing emotion and desire, rendered in the public imagination as rapists and criminals. Photos of lynchings expressly depicted this violence as a means of instilling fear, of perpetuating the social, cultural, and political aims of anti-Blackness. They served as warnings to People of Color as to what the price of trying to gain autonomy or political humanity was. For white Americans, they served as tokens of celebration: the canonization of white supremacy and its “justified” violence.

If we are honest about our definition of terrorism, then segregation, too, was terroristic. Once more the inhumanity of Black Americans was enshrined through political doctrine and reinforced through violence, both physical and emotional. Signs designating “Colored” bathrooms and water fountains were not questions of logistical designation but statements of an overarching political ideology: that People of Color were not worthy of personhood in the eyes of whiteness.

These may seem like particularly dramatic examples, but they serve to emphasize a trend: whiteness has historically intertwined itself with terrorism, and that terrorism has been accepted and renamed. Even when history comes forward to denounce the specific evils of these practices, it rarely acknowledges them as terroristic. It might criticize and shame them, but it repeatedly fails to properly define them.

Certainly, there are examples of non-State white supremacist terrorism—Timothy McVeigh and the Oklahoma City bombing; Dylann Roof and the mass shooting in Charlestown—but the fact remains that honest appraisal must name the American state as the greatest agent of terrorism in American history.

Such is the case with police violence, which has always existed as a means of enforcing ideas of humanity and criminality. In December of 1969, Fred Hampton—chairman of the Illinois Black Panther Party—was assassinated by the FBI and the Chicago Police Department, shot while asleep in bed. When the efficacy and rationale for the raid that killed Hampton was questioned, officials released photos that depicted the results of a shootout, walls riddled with bullet holes. The purpose of such photos is obvious: show Hampton (and by extension the BPP) as violent and criminal, equate Black power and Black pride with animalistic violence in order to excuse the refusal of the American state to make space for Black empowerment. This agenda is only more obvious when one considers that such a shootout never occurred; those bullet holes were nail heads meant to perpetuate a false narrative.

Killings of young Black men such as Michael Brown and Philando Castile and the stories told in their aftermath occupy the same trend. Despite evidence against the necessity of these killings, these men have been rewritten as monsters, unreasonable, and dangerous. On the one hand, these descriptors and rewritings vindicate the officers and protect them from consequences, but they also reinforce a cultural narrative that is essential to the project of white supremacy.

Because if People of Color are indeed inhuman, and violence against them is justified, there is no need to call white supremacist terror what it is. In narratives of “Radical Islamic Terror,” murdered Americans are innocent victims of a bloodthirsty ideology whose very existence is predicated on violence. In narratives of white supremacist terror, the killers and enslavers are the innocent ones, simply looking to defend themselves from unreasonable savages. Their slaughter and dehumanization is a necessity, an expression of a fundamental natural truth about racial and social hierarchy. This disingenuous and horrific distinction allows these white supremacist terrorists to avoid the moral stain of the terrorist label. It allows state and civilian actors alike to say: “terrorism is monstrous; terrorists are monsters; we are not monstrous; therefore…”

There is no greater terroristic threat to the United States than white men, despite the anti-Islamic fear-mongering constantly highlighted in narratives of what terrorism is. Attacks like those committed on September 11 are indeed horrific and do fit the definition of terrorism, but by equating terrorism broadly with “radical Islam,” it allows the agents of white supremacy to readjust the lens and draw the focus away from their own actions. By making American-ness (which historically is synonymous to whiteness) the victim of terrorism, whiteness can be exonerated.

One might even go further. One might argue that whiteness—the social and historical concept that was invented for the perpetuation of white supremacist ideas rather than the demographic classification—is ultimately terroristic. If we acknowledge that whiteness is a tool of the project of white supremacy then we must acknowledge their mutual link to violent anti-Black terrorism.

No, this does not mean being white automatically makes you a terrorist.

It does mean that engaging uncritically with the idea of whiteness as a bastion of civilization and humanity tasked with defending the world from the savagery of People of Color amounts to allowing, if not engaging, in terroristic ideas and actions, and continuing a narrative of white supremacy used to justify violence and designed to rob others of their humanity, instilling them with fear and despair.

That’s the mission of white supremacy. That’s the mission of terrorism. They are interlocked. White supremacy is the greatest terroristic enterprise in the world.

And it always has been.

  • Arafat

    Wow! Someone drank the Wesleyan Kool-Aid.

    Let’s ignore all the charity, all the medical advances and technological advances WHITE men have made that have benefited all. Let’s forget about western laws and their embrace of equality as opposed to Sharia law with its emphasis on Muslim superiority. Let’s forget about how Judeo-Christian values have slowly allowed for greater equality between women and men. (Elizabeth Warren being an exception because she still pays her women staff less than her men.)

    Yes, yes, yes! Let’s focus all our guilt and angst against the WHITE man and ignore how barbaric Indian tribes were against one another. Let’s ignore Islam’s barbaric history of jihadist conquest across Asia and Africa. Let’s ignore what black tribes have done against black tribes across Africa, or how much worse the Islamic slave trade was (and still is) than anything WHITEs have done. Let’s ignore what the Japanese did to other Asians and vice-versa. Yeah! Let’s blame it all on WHITEY because that’s the in-thing to do these days.

    How is it Wesleyan allows this and even encourages these sorts of biased, hateful opinions to thrive? It amazes me that parents pay tens of thousands of dollars to have their kids become indoctrinated with this sort of hateful misinformation.

    • john dicarlo

      The author, which we see nobody reads, is an anti-White activist, and most probably a jew. He misuses the term White supremacy to smear all Whites, even those self-hating White useful idiots who have bought into the anti-White Koolaide.

      Today’s negative meaning attached to the term, “White supremacy”, is a creation of the real supremacists, the jews, as it is taught in their Talmud with the purpose of generating hatred for Whites from the other races and enlist these nonwhites as allies in their age old war against the White race.

      The term, “White Supremacy” wasn’t always a negative term. The definition has been changed to accomodate the antiwhite climate jews have created. Over recent decades, the term, ‘White Supremacy’ has been twisted to mean that Whites sought to rule over other races. Of course, that’s obviously a lie, as anyone can see, Whites seek only freedom and a safe homeland for their families.

      When the term, White Supremacy, was originally created, it merely referred to the supremacy of White values, which were based on both moral, and Christian values — the rule of law, loyalty to Race and Nation, respect for authority and elders, keeping to your word, honor, monogamy, marriage between men and woman, ensuring that a high moral standard was kept in order to inspire the other races to follow. This is what the true definition of White Supremacy is, and plainly, nonwhite races find these high moral values which are common among White men, repugnant to them. Of course, it’s not about the subjugation of other races as the prime race baiters would have you believe. If we want to find a race that is interested in, in fact is subjugating all other races, we LOOK TO THE JEWS! — and the direct evidence this is true is OVERWHELMING!

  • Arafat

    So let’s get this straight…

    How many examples can you give is of white men killing blacks in the name of white supremacy? Was Jackson an aberration or an every day occurrence? Tell me about how significant the KKK or neo-Nazis are today. Or am I being too narrow in my definition of white supremacism- too disingenuous like you – for your liking?

    On the other hand Muslims are considered Muslim terrorists because they embrace this. They read chapter and verse from the Qur’an before beheading journalists. They shout out “Allahu Akbar” before burning infidels alive. They kill infidels on a daily basis because their interpretation of Sharia law says this is the right thing to do.

    You are so badly misguided and I hold Wesleyan in no small part responsible for your intellectual and moral confusion.

    I am not arguing that white Christians have not done immense barbarism for to do so would be as disingenuous as your article. White men have done and continue to do terrible things through both legislation and through actual violence, but the good that white men have done should not be ignored and this is exactly what you are doing. The great literature, art, charity, medical, technological advances that have come out of Judeo-Christian values are anything but trivial.

    Your ability to write and publish your horrendous article is a by-product of technological advances enabled by white men. Hot water showers, modern transportation, the elimination of polio, small pox and other horrible illnesses were due to white men. The heating in your house and the air-conditioning you should not use either if you think white men are so horrendous for white men have largely been responsible for making these common to most regions where needed. Clothes that breath that protect you on your fancy ski trips are products of white man’s advances. Advanced care for third degree burns, for pregnant mothers with complications, for children suffering from water-borne illnesses are almost all products of white men.

    If you are so enthralled with your skewed, unreasonable and unfair characterization of white people than move to Somalia or Pakistan and live there instead. Maybe that will assuage your guilty conscience made guilty, no doubt, by a lifetime of parenting that has taught you the sort of black-and-white worldview that has perverted your ability to reason.

    • john dicarlo

      “White men have done and continue to do terrible things through both legislation and through actual violence,”

      While certainly this statement is true of ALL races, it’s important to point out that jews are not WHITE. They are jews, and pretend to be White when it is their interests as jews. Jews own and control the mainstream media which incites blacks to murder and cheerleads for foreign wars. Jews control the money. And jews control the US government, and this is not anything new by any stretch of the imagination. But don’t take it from me. I’m White.

      “We are not hyphenated Jews (i.e., German-Jews, Italian-jews); we are Jews with no qualifications or reservations. We are simply aliens; we are a foreign people in your midst, and, we emphasize, we wish to stay that way. There is a wide gap between you and us, so wide that no bridge can be laid across. Your spirit is alien to us; your myths, legends, habits, customs, traditions and national heritage, your religious and national shrines, your Sundays and holidays… they are all alien to us. The history of your triumphs and defeats, your war songs and battle hymns, your heroes and their mighty deeds, your national ambitions and aspirations, they are all alien to us. The boundaries of your lands cannot restrict our movements, and your border clashes are not of our concern. Far over and above the frontiers and boundaries of your land stands our Jewish unity… Whosoever calls the foreign (Gentile) land a fatherland is a traitor to the Jewish people … A loyal Jew can never be other than a Jewish patriot… We recognize a national unity of diaspora Jews, no matter in which land they may reside. Therefore, no boundaries can restrain us in pursuing our own Jewish policy.” — Jakob Klatzkin, Crisis and Decision, 1921

      “In everything, we are destroyers–even in the instruments of destruction to which we turn for relief… We Jews, we, the destroyers, will remain the destroyers for ever. Nothing that you will do will meet our needs and demands. We will for ever destroy because we need a world of our own, a God-world, which is not in your nature to build. Beyond all temporary alliances with this or that faction lies the ultimate split in nature and destiny, the enmity between the Game and God. But those of us that fail to understand that truth will always be found in alliance with your rebellious factions, until disillusionment comes. The wretched fate which scattered us through your midst has thrust this unwelcome role upon us. — Maurice Samuel A Jewish and Zionist author & intellectual

      • john dicarlo

        Of course the author is deleting comments because he doesn’t want to be exposed as a jew himself, nor does he want the truth known. Right jew?

        JEWS:

        You have not begun to appreciate the real depth of our guilt. We are intruders. We are subverters. We have taken your natural world, your ideals, your destiny, and have played havoc with them. We have been at the bottom of not merely of the latest war [WWI] but of nearly all your wars, not only of the Russian but of every other major revolution in your history. We have brought discord and confusion and frustration into your personal and public life. We are still doing it. No one can tell how long we shall go on doing it…Who knows what great and glorious destiny might have been yours if we had left you alone.

        – Marcus Eli Ravage, member of the staff of the New York Tribune, in “A Real Case Against the Jews,” Century Magazine, January-February edition of 1928.

      • Arafat

        You’re sure your name isn’t Adolph Hitler?

      • john dicarlo

        Apparently, you don’t know a damn thing about Adolph Hitler. To be called Adolph Hitler like, is a compliment. But, how would you know, whatever you are ….

      • Arafat

        Not surprising you would consider being described as Hitler a compliment. No doubt you also like being compared to Pol Pot too.

      • john dicarlo

        Apparently, you can’t hold a conversation. Don’t know why you found disagreement with the author of the article. Did you cut and paste your response? As I said, you know nothing about Hitler if you think that Pol Pot represents anything similar to AH. Why don’t you get an education, MORON?

      • Steven Lewis

        It’s evident that Arafat has no argument and is incapable of debating you by calling you Adolf (sorry to be picky but this is the correct spelling) Hitler. Jews always out themselves by resorting to the Hitler reference. By the way, Jews ran the slave trade. Jews portray themselves as the defenders of the minorities yet never reveal publicly they do so for themselves.

        To this date Jews are still trying to convince the world that Leo Frank didn’t kill 13 year old Mary Phagan who worked in the pencil factory Frank managed. They continue to blame a black employee despite the evidence that proved Frank was the killer. Using the media they controlled they launched a scathing attack on the people of Georgia. Georgia’s governor commuted his sentence, but Georgians would not be denied, as they took him from the jail and hung him. Apparently in 1986 they succeeded in convincing the Georgia State Board of Pardons and Paroles. However he wasn’t officially absolved of the crime. Jewish control is out in the open, one only need to open their eyes. This case also launched the hate group, ADL.

      • Arafat

        Are you sure your name isn’t Ad*lph H*tler? You would have made an excellent collaborator to the German master race. {Sic}

      • john dicarlo

        Master race? Evidently, you know nothing about jews, and have a problem with your reading skills. Those quotes were uttered by jews, moron.

        “Our race is the Master Race. We Jews are divine gods on this planet. We are as different from the inferior races as they are from insects. In fact, compared to our race, other races are beasts and animals, cattle at best. Other races are considered as human excrement. Our destiny is to rule over the inferior races. Our earthly kingdom will be ruled by our leader with a rod of iron. The masses will lick our feet and serve us as our slaves.” — former Prime Minister of Israel, Menachim Begin, in a speech to the Knesset, quoted in Amnon Kapeliouk, ‘Begin and the “Beasts”, New Statesman, 25 June 1982

      • john dicarlo

        MASTER RACE

        “Wir alle ahnen, daß in ferner Zukunft Probleme an den Menschen herantreten können, zu deren
        Bewältigung nur eine höchste Rasse als Herrenvolk, gestützt auf die Mittel und Möglichkeiten eines
        ganzen Erdballs, berufen sein wird.”

        TRANSLATION: “We all sense that in the distant future mankind may one day be faced with problems which only the highest race [Rasse] — become a master folk [Herrenvolk] and supported by the means and possibilities of an entire globe — will be equipped to overcome.” (Volume II, Chapter 1)

        So there you have it: Adolf Hitler felt that the German people (das deutsches Volk), as members of the “highest race” (the Aryan race — die arische Rasse) should become or evolve into a Master Folk (ein Herrenvolk).

        Hitler was calling to the German people, as Aryans, to become a Master Folk; he was NOT saying that they were already there.

        Truth is not the answer that some people expect or want to hear, but it is the correct answer. Everything else is just misunderstanding or ignorance of ubiquitous jewish deceptions.

  • john dicarlo

    Today’s negative meaning attached to the term, “White supremacy”, is a creation of the real supremacists, the jews, as it is taught in their Talmud with the purpose of generating hatred for Whites from the other races and enlist these nonwhites as allies in their age old war against the White race.

    The term, “White Supremacy” wasn’t always a negative term. The definition has been changed to accomodate the antiwhite climate jews have created. Over recent decades, the term, ‘White Supremacy’ has been twisted to mean that Whites sought to rule over other races. Of course, that’s obviously a lie, as anyone can see, Whites seek only freedom and a safe homeland for their families.

    When the term, White Supremacy, was originally created, it merely referred to the supremacy of White values, which were based on both moral, and Christian values — the rule of law, loyalty to Race and Nation, respect for authority and elders, keeping to your word, honor, monogamy, marriage between men and woman, ensuring that a high moral standard was kept in order to inspire the other races to follow. This is what the true definition of White Supremacy is, and plainly, nonwhite races find these high moral values which are common among White men, repugnant to them. Of course, it’s not about the subjugation of other races as the prime race baiters would have you believe. If we want to find a race that is interested in, in fact is subjugating all other races, we LOOK TO THE JEWS!

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