I am male. But I am NOT white. And I'm certainly not defending the shooters actions. You probably ought not to assume too much about faceless names on the internet and start insulting people.
Read the Atlantic article I linked. It's about the San Bernadino attack. I quote a paragraph below.
No wonder Bowdich didn’t yet feel comfortable asserting that the attack had the political intent stipulated in the law: to intimidate or coerce civilians, or to influence the government. “It’s way too early to speculate on motive,” he said. In particular, investigators are struggling to understand why, with many pieces of evidence pointing toward radical Islamism, Farook and Malik chose the target they did.
Read that last sentence. 2 radical Islamist kill 14 people and injure 22 and it is NOT IMMEDIATELY CLEAR to the FBI that the 2nd condition was met. If that was not clear, how is this clear?
White Americans aren't considered terrorists by default when they kill people for political or religious reasons, rather, they're revolutionaries, or patriots, or lone wolves. Were the shooter an immigrant or Muslim, the need to be technically precise about the definition of terrorism would suddenly disappear.
I'd buy that.
> White Americans aren't considered terrorists by default when they kill people for political or religious reasons, rather, they're revolutionaries, or patriots, or lone wolves.
There are lots of white terrorists: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domestic_terrorism_in_the_Unit...
Maybe people should stop assuming too much about others without some evidence?
I tried to argue the statistics of risk with her and said that we should've also avoiding traveling to the US based on her risk assessment given the risk of being killed by mentally ill people with guns or white supremacist terrorists.
Ultimately, in my opinion, she is just more comfortable with risk if it comes from white people than from brown -- I choose to call her a racist to try and demonstrate just how wrong I perceive her thinking to be. Its very depressing to watch the reasonableness and kindness of Germans that I used to perceive to be common and widespread so in decline... Racists really do seem like they are everywhere these days ...
It's not quite enough to completely deter myself from getting on the plane or going into the city, but I don't truly feel relaxed and comfortable, usually, until I'm no longer in that situation.
Hell, thanks to that Aurora, Colorado theater massacre, I even feel that way in movies now (I actually had tickets to see Dark Knight Rises the day after that happened...that was a surreal experience).
I should also state that, despite my obvious fear of terrorism, I do think governments have been using it as a bogeyman in order to get all sorts of draconian policies passed and do some horrible things in the guise of protecting their citizens from terrorism.
I know you were calling her that to demonstrate a point, but it's not necessarily as deep as that. It can just be a fear that you understand is irrational but feel it anyway. I think as long as you acknowledge it's irrational and don't let it dictate your behavior too much (definitely not channel it towards feeling you have to attack someone), then it's not necessarily a bad thing and just a consequence of being a fragile human with survival instincts.
Once we've uploaded our consciousnesses and disposed of our biological containers, maybe then we can stop feeling fear about these things.
What matters is whether you understand and acknowledge this fact, and what you do about it. If you resist it and attempt to compensate, you're good. If you give in to it and embrace it, not so much.
Another point she made during our (far ranging) discussion which I didn't mention, was that she regards Islam as part of the cause of terrorism. In my mind, (as a non-religious person who thinks all religions are crazy but not all religious people have to be) -- this is an idea which is pointless. Its an idea which is dangerous if many people believe it or basically harmless if most people don't. I tried to argue that the relationships between muslim communities around the world and Islamic Terrorism were cultural rather than religious but she rejected that, suggesting that something specific about the terms of the religion as dictated in their holy texts/rituals were an important part of the Islamic Terrorism phenomenon. She disagreed with me when I argued that terrorist attacks in the west were primarily the result of people with random assortments of psychotic mental illnesses pattern matching against propaganda on the internet to find 'reasons' for conducting their attacks -- much more so than from some fundamental aspects within one of the largest religions in the world ...
My preferred hobby is rock climbing which involves a fairly direct dialogue with the fear response. Accurate risk assessment is a visceral part of the process of maintaining safety in rock climbing. I tend to be sensitive to scenarios where over-estimating risk actually has counterproductive effects on safety. Not only do I disagree with her because of my perceived errors in her personal decision making -- but its also my opinion that this error is too common and should be called out for what it is, because mis-allocation of fear becomes increasingly dangerous as it becomes more common.
I think the capacity for the fear of terrorism to justify horrible decisions is clear and supported by historical evidence (second Iraq war). Playing to fear of terrorism -- by condemning the party in power for failing to be hard enough, by things like muslim bans, and by attempts to kill them over their so we don't have to kill them here are real phenomenon whose real world cost far exceeds the actual damage from terrorism. Us not going to France for holiday because of fear of terrorism ultimately supports other much worse irrational actions ...
I think the way she justifies her fear of muslims and the way that she prioritizes that over other forms of fear is racist ... I think I'm reading in the responses to my comment that maybe the takeaway sentiment is that -- (a) she isn't alone in feeling an irrational fear as she does, (b) she should strive to acknowledge that her fear is irrational and (c) she should try to work to not let it govern her actions. So ... does that mean that we should travel to France or not?
Nevertheless, there are several people that use it (as people do with all religions) as a justification to further their own malicious ends.
I think you pretty much understood my point fully with your takeaways.
Personally, I have no desire to go to France, because I would be nervous about the potential for things to go wrong there. I also avoid planning trips to Mexico for a similar reason, or anywhere in the Middle East (not that I can really afford it anyway). My desire to see these places at this time is not strong enough to counteract my wariness about the potential for bad events to happen.
I would like to visit France at some point, because I studied French for two years in high school, but other countries are much higher on the priority list, and France was knocked down, in part, because of the slim, but potential danger that's there right now.
No country is truly safe. Like the top country of my list to visit is Japan, and North Korea tries to make sure it threatens Japan at least half as often as it threatens South Korea and the US, plus it had the nuclear reactor disaster, as well as regular tsunamis and earthquakes. But I don't care, at some point I'll visit it.
I know a woman in the US who almost didn't go vacation in Peru last year with her Peruvian husband, at the height of the Zika virus scare, but they still went. Now she's glad she went before this immigration ban bullshit, since he might had trouble getting back into the country. She still freaked out about Zika for awhile, though.
So I guess my point is, I don't know whether you should go to France or not, but I can understand why she might be hesitant to go. Generally speaking, though, if it's something you really want to do, you should do it sooner than later, because you don't know what the future will bring. It might be harder to afford it or enjoy it in the future, or something could happen and it wouldn't be the same experience.
It's possible to feel fear due to prejudices against certain people, be aware that is irrational, but still be powerless against the fear.
I personally harbor a certain dislike against the french due to past work relationships. I however always aim to be aware that it is an irrational prejudice and actively keep myself from having it influence my interactions with french negatively, while still trying to avoid such interactions just for the sake of my own mental health.
As everyone knows - but these people don't want to admit - the vast majority of terrorist acts are not in fact committed by Caucasian Westerners.
As for so-called 'hate crimes', it seems that label is only applied when the victim is non-white, and the perpetrator is white - even when a non-white perpetrator is clearly and openly shouting racial invective at a white victim before, during, and/or after the crime itself.
Sure sounds like racism to me!
A ridiculous statement to make, especially given your lack of actual data. You've been trying to divert and deflect from what actually happened from the point you started posting in the thread.
Racially motivated crimes against whites certainly qualify as hate crimes. In 2012, for example, 22% of hate crime victims were classified as "victims of an anti-white bias": https://ucr.fbi.gov/hate-crime/2012/topic-pages/victims/vict...