Diversity exists, even in terrorists

After another stimulating conversation with my friend HSCFree last night, I received, yet again, the inspiration for a blog post.

I was lauding Rachel Maddow for her willingness to call Scott Roeder a terrorist for his actions, walking into a church in Wichita, Kansas and shooting Dr. George Tiller for daring to perform abortions. Roeder was just sentenced to life in prison, effectively, for his actions; during his own testimony, he was totally unrepentant for what he'd done.

One of the biggest misconceptions among the American people is that terrorists are Muslim men. In fact, on the gay chat site Bear411, which caters to hairy bearded men and those who like them, one of the members has in his profile "attracted to dark skinned, hairy, bearded men. Terrorists are hot!"

So, I thought I'd do some research to educate people. Of the 22 acts defined by the FBI as "terrorism" from 1990 - 2001:

- 17 of those were committed by American organizations (Animal Liberation Front, Earth Liberation Front, etc).

- 4 of those were committed by White American men

- Only the 9/11 attacks were committed by Muslims

Please don't misunderstand me; I'm not trying to diminish the effects of 9/11. I lost a good friend that day from the actions of Al-Qaeda. And it is the most significant terrorist activity yet on American soil. But to ignore the other acts classified as "terrorism" to plant all terrorists as Muslim men is racial profiling to the extreme. People such as Ted Kaczynski, Eric Robert Rudolph, Clayton Lee Waagner, Timothy McVeigh, Terry Nichols and Bruce Ivins (who allegedly terrorized the country during the month after 9/11 by sending anthrax through the mail) deserve the label "terrorist" just as much as the members of Al-Qaeda. And more modern examples such as John Allen Mohammed and Lee Boyd Malvo, Jim D. Adkisson, James Wenneker Von Brunn, Joseph Stack and, yes, Scott Roeder, also deserve the moniker. (If you want to know more about any of the names listed, it's fairly easy to do a Google search. There are far too many links for me to add without taking all day.)

Terrorism isn't limited to one subset of a racial group. One simply has to ask a Briton or Irishman to determine that. They've been targets of terror attacks for hundreds of years. While I agree that we need to be vigilant as a country to protect ourselves from terrorists, I strongly urge that we not forget the actions of those mentioned above; they don't fit the current racial stereotype that the name "terrorist" is applied to. Forgetting about them leaves us incredibly open to more attacks of the same.

There is much more I could research and say about this topic (but I think I'll leave that to the historians like Free). Suffice to say the resources are out there if you want to know more. Knowledge is a good thing and it leads to an open mind, something the general public is sorely lacking these days.