Campus columnist: ‘If [white people] are not calling hate crimes against Black people terrorism, you’re acting as complicit in the system and are thus part of the problem’
A student op-ed in the Stanford Daily written by Mina Shah argues that white people all have a role to play in the systemic fear placed upon the black community in a column headlined: “Dear white people: Please call it like it is.”
“It’s time to call all of these hate acts against people of color what they are: acts of terrorism,” Shah argued. She added:
You may be thinking to yourself: “But…what’s happening in America…that’s a few bad people. They’re racist. I’m not. I’m not part of the problem. And besides, what’s happening doesn’t even fit the definition of terrorism.”
The thing is, it does. Merriam Webster defines terrorism as “the systematic use of terror, especially as a use of coercion.” This definition contains a link to the definition of the word “terror”: “a. a very strong feeling of fear, b. something that causes very strong feelings of fear, c. violence that is committed by a person, group, or government in order to frighten people and achieve a political goal.”
We can break this down piece by piece. Murder is violence. The use of unnecessary force, even if it isn’t lethal, such as throwing around and pulling weapons against kids at a pool party, can be physically violent. It certainly is emotionally violent. So we have the violence part of the definition fulfilled. Is fear a goal? Certainly. Ever since the beginning of colonial history, fear has been a tactic utilized by systems of white authority to keep people of color subordinate. Is there a political goal, though? Absolutely. The maintenance of white supremacy, the reinforcement of structures that keep people of color in marginalized political, economic and social positions and keep white people in positions of power, is a political goal.
… Terrorism seems like a distant thing, a foreign thing. It seems like a thing for which we do not and could not understand the mentality. “They” do it. “We” would never.
Well, not only is it not true that “we white Americans would never,” we white Americans do all the time and have since before this country existed. If you are not calling hate crimes against Black people terrorism, you’re acting as complicit in the system and are thus part of the problem.
Shah sounds about as totalitarian as the police state she criticizes. Read the full column.
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