Terrorist threats (Things that worry me, part 2)

The day after I saw the Andy Slavitt's health care thread, I saw this one:

https://twitter.com/EmilyGorcenski/status/988817474689929216

It doesn't have the same wealth of links, and there are a lot of abbreviations, so I am going to elucidate. The incel was the first item, but I am saving that for last.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/23/us/sovereign-citizen.html

A sovereign citizen killed four people at a Waffle House in Antioch, Tennessee on April 22nd.  He was the same person who tried to get onto the grounds of the White House, because as a sovereign citizen he had the right to inspect it. Although mental illness was acknowledged, his guns were returned to him, which is odd given how the NRA likes to scapegoat mental illness as the source of all gun problems. Still, he is white and male (that's not just being snarky; it totally relates).

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/va-man-charged-first-degree-murder-heather-heyer-death-article-1.3698829

A neo-Nazi killed Heather Heyer with his car in Charlottesville. Neo-Nazis espouse Nazi ideology now, which mainly emphasizes white supremacy.

https://www.adl.org/blog/florida-white-supremacist-group-admits-ties-to-alleged-parkland-school-shooter-nikolas-cruz

The Parkland shooter had ties to a white supremacist group.

https://www.npr.org/2018/03/06/590292705/5-killings-3-states-and-1-common-neo-nazi-link

Atomwaffen are white supremacists as well, but their name refers to atomic weapons and they are more apocalyptic in their desire for violence. At that rate, it might seem odd that the run of the mill white supremacist had a higher body count, but there are some things that strike me about these deaths. First, one victim was gay and Jewish, two categories that face a lot of prejudice. Another couple were the parents of a girlfriend and they did not approve of the relationship. A lot of mass shootings have to do with the desire to control women and have access to women.

(The third killed his roommates, he says because they were bugging him for converting to Islam, and to prevent attacks. I believe the press coverage focused more on his converting to Islam, which would go along with some other things.)

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-43818059

Lots of militias are anti-government and white supremacist, which is not at all mutually exclusive. This particular group wanted to kill Black Muslims.

https://www.theroot.com/ferguson-activists-are-dying-and-it-s-time-to-ask-quest-1794955900

There should be some questions there, but then the overall point stands, BLM and Antifa get vilified by conservatives and the media, but they are fighting the violence, not committing it. Yes, there has been property damage associated with Antifa, and some people linked the Dallas police shootings to BLM, but that shooter was interested in at least three actual hate groups. Also, if you don't understand the difference between criticizing police and calling for their deaths, you are sadly in step with the zeitgeist of today but still wrong.

It reminds me of reading something a while back (and there is no way I am going to find it) but they had pictures of eight cop killers. I had heard of all of the cases, I had seen the picture of only one, coincidentally the only Black man in the bunch.

Okay, that is crafting a narrative. It's a racist one, and that it feels right to a lot of people who are probably not actively trying to be racist gives you an idea of the depth of the structural racism in this country's foundation. However, it is not only wrong in what it promotes, but in what it misses. An astonishing number of the white cop killers had iron cross tattoos.

https://www.adl.org/education/references/hate-symbols/iron-cross

Yes, a lot of people aren't being deliberately racist, but many people are, and the deliberately racist also tend to be misogynist. They tend to be violent. They tend to be horrible people, and they tend to feel aggrieved when marginalized people approach anything like equality. They tend to be white men, but then you say that and white men who haven't killed anyone get mad, regardless of whether their attitudes otherwise support the system. And we have a government that is supporting that by attacking marginalized people.

That is why seeing those two Twitter threads so close together was so disturbing; we are rapidly approaching our worst-case scenario.

And I didn't even get to the incel yet. Maybe I can fit it in with tomorrow's post; maybe I will need another day.