5879... A White American, Let’s Hope The Boston Marathon Bomber Is

That is the headline that Salon, it is on online newsmag, dropped on Tuesday.

The thesis that Salon follows is in the sub headline:

                                                           There is a double standard: 

White terrorists are dealt with as lone wolves, 

Islamists are existential threats

David Sirota, the writer of the piece, goes on to quote Tim Wise who writes that “White privilege is knowing that even if the bomber turns out to be white, no one will call for your group to be profiled as terrorists as a result, subjected to special screening or threatened with deportation...White privilege is knowing that if this bomber turns out to be white, the United States government will not bomb whatever corn field or mountain town or stale suburb from which said bomber came, just to ensure that others like him or her don’t get any ideas. And if he turns out to be a member of the Irish Republican Army we won’t bomb Dublin. And if he’s an Italian-American Catholic we won’t bomb the Vatican.”

Mr. Sirota goes on to keyboard that "If recent history is any guide, if the bomber ends up being a white anti-government extremist, white privilege will likely mean the attack is portrayed as just an isolated incident — one that has no bearing on any larger policy debates. Put another way, white privilege will work to not only insulate whites from collective blame, but also to insulate the political debate from any fallout from the attack..."

A darker shade of pale will be not the same by a longshot according to Mr. Sirota:  "It will probably be much different if the bomber ends up being a Muslim and/or a foreigner from the developing world. As we know from our own history, when those kind of individuals break laws in such a high-profile way, America often cites them as both proof that entire demographic groups must be targeted, and that therefore a more systemic response is warranted. At that point, it’s easy to imagine conservatives citing Boston as a reason to block immigration reform defense spending cuts and the Afghan War withdrawal and to further expand surveillance and other encroachments on civil liberties."

Racism rears its ugly head yet again.

WFDS