Violence and Terrorism Are Not the Same

The left continues to make noises about how recent violent attacks perpetrated by white people are not being labeled as terrorism because of racism. I think there’s a lot of confusion here, and I’d like to address it.

Racism is obviously real, and obviously a problem. And it’s true that it can lead to groups treating people who look like them better than those who don’t.
The problem is when you naturally assume that when violence committed by whites is always terrorism, and that when it’s not labeled as such it’s definitely because of racism. That’s not a jump that should be made by default.


Definitions and examples

Let’s look at a definition of terrorism (via Google).

Terrorism


/ˈterəˌrizəm/


noun
The unlawful use of violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims.

The “in pursuit of political aims” is key here, and I think it should be expanded to include some measure of scale. If I were to define terrorism I’d add some sort of component of unity in action, i.e., there should be some measure of organization and coordination taking place, either in terms of the message or the attacks.

This is to say that people who are acting alone—as part of their own personal political beliefs—and not part of some movement external to them, should not be in my mind considered terrorism.

That’s just violence.

Here are some examples that show both sides of the issue:

Timmothy McVeigh acted alone but was tapping into a larger militia-based message of anti-government. I’d call that terrorism.
Many years ago two black men went on a sniping rampage around D.C., killing around 20 people. The leader, Muhammed, was part of the nation of Islam, but they were also disturbed and didn’t appear to be tied to any particular group or cause. I would call that violence, not terrorism. Maybe part of his hatred came from his interpretation of Islam. Maybe he was thinking about that while he did the acts. Doesn’t matter. He was not acting as part of any campaign, so he was just a disturbed guy doing bad things.
School shootings are horrific, and they tend to be committed by white people. They produce much the same effects as terrorism, but they’re not terrorism at all in my mind. It’s violence. Again, the causes are school bullying, bad parenting, mental health issues, and general teenage angst. That’s violence, not terrorism.
The white guy who killed a bunch of people in a black church I wouldn’t call a terrorist either because he acted alone and wasn’t attaching his actions to any sort of joint cause. He did tie his actions to a political viewpoint (racism), but it wasn’t linked to anything larger than him and his ideas. That makes it violence and not terrorism in my mind.
The San Bernadino shootings, the numerous attacks in France, and other similar attacks clearly register as terrorism to me. They do so because they’re part of a single narrative of Islam vs. the west, and they represent a joint fabric of ideas that are actively encouraging more of the same. The idea is that there should be a global Caliphate that institutes Sharia and subjugates or murders those who don’t conform. And the leaders of this movement are asking followers to hurt people. So when people do, and give that as a reason, that’s terrorism.

If a devout Muslim guy gets depressed about a divorce and kills some people at work while screaming, “You helped her cheat on me!”, that’s not terrorism.

If we start seeing a Neo-nazi movement that attacks minorities, and has some sort of unified message and campaign, like, “Kill all the immigrants.”, and some white kid—even by himself with no help from others—mentions that campaign while he hurts someone, that’s terrorism. Same if it’s a black or asian person doing the crime.

The difference is the tie to a campaign, and I think it’s an important one.

Summary


Violence and terrorism have similar destructive force.
Terrorism, however, is violence that’s explicitly tied to an active, unified campaign of ideas.
If you hurt people—no matter your race or religion—and your actions were not tied to any such campaign, then you’ve committed violence, not terrorism.

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