Skin color and the Oslo attacks

Breivik, the white, right-wing, Christian fundamentalist,
terrorist suspect in the Oslo attacks.

I wanted to direct you to a good article about the media's coverage of the tragedy in Oslo, in which a white, right-wing Christian terrorist killed 92+ people, including children in a youth camp swimming in the water while he was dressed as a policeman. You will probably never hear those words associated with him because, like Joseph Stack, Jared Lee Loughner, and many others, he is simply crazy and not a terrorist with that background. For the press, it seems only brown people can be labeled terrorists, and only with them can we make sweeping generalizations about their race, nationality, political ideology, or religion.

Thus far, the same is being done with Anders Behring Breivik. While his background is being brought up, few seem willing to say that there might be a problem with right-wing extremists, white supremacists, and extremist Christians, all of which might characterize Breivik. Indeed, much of the press coverage initially jumped to the conclusion that Muslim extremists were behind it...with little evidence. Indeed, even when we found out the terrorist was a white Christian, journalists spent much of their discussion connecting these attacks with Norway's NATO connection to the bombings in Libya, and not to the domestic issues, namely Breivik's anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant views. Also...little mention of him as a terrorist. Only Muslims commit terrorist acts. No surprises so far.

Finally, regarding the outpouring of sympathy, which is the right thing to do... it is interesting that when most of the victims have darker skin color, there is nowhere near the same emotion. You know, like the civilians that are killed by errant bombs dropped from 20,000 feet or launched from predator drones that may or may not be relying on good intelligence. We almost never even hear about those. I'm not saying we shouldn't show sympathy for Norway - quite the contrary. I'm just saying we don't do the same when the victims tend to have darker pigmentation and our own government has complicity in their deaths, whether they be scores of innocent peasants in Pakistan killed by frequent drone attacks, women killed in Afghanistan by overzealous NATO troops who tried to cover it up, civilians mowed down without provocation by Blackwater militiamen in Iraq, or Oscar Grant.