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To clarify, white people are actually slightly underrepresented in terrorism per capita; they simply constitute a significant majority of the population and therefore do most of the terrorism. Therefore, while this tweet is technically correct, it should not be taken to mean that white individuals are more likely to be terrorists—it’s an ironic reflection on the skewed, racially motivated reality presented to us by media and politicians.
Source:
https://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/fbi-releases-lone-offender-terrorism-report-111319
https://www.statista.com/chart/19968/the-race-ethnicity-of-lone-offender-terrorists/
https://www.theroot.com/are-white-men-americas-biggest-terror-threat-we-checke-1830175112
https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/08/14/fbi-and-dhs-warned-of-growing-threat-from-white-supremacists-months-ago/
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A similar statistical anomaly is that more men are sexually assaulted in the armed forces than women, but it's just because there are much more of them overall. An individual woman is still more likely to be assaulted than an individual man.
As always, the takeaway is that demographics are not what must be addressed when addressing violence. The systemic artifacts that enable and foster terrorism or SA are the problem, never simply structures like gender or race.
The conservative mindset ignores this and just introduces more violence to the equation, saying “let’s ban women from spaces” and “let’s deport brown people.” And act surprised when those solutions make the problem worse, not better.
And when they do raise issues like sexual assault against men, it's pretty much only ever as a counterpoint to derail discussions about sexual assault against women and avoid doing anything about either, which I would argue is also pretty disrespectful towards men.
Absolutely. “Men can be victims too” is such an important truth and it’s nauseating when the phrase is leveraged in support of radical apathy toward SA.
What do you mean by systemic artifacts? Real question, id like to understand better
Great question! With that I refer to structures, attitudes, policies, norms, or institutional practices. Here are some examples.
For SA:
- societal attitudes like rape culture/“boys will be boys”
- institutional coverups that protect perpetrators rather than victims
- weak or bad laws that discourage reporting
- sex education failures
- support and recovery system failures
- economic failures where victims may be unable to escape abuse due to financial dependence or other inequities
- harmful media representation
- and more
For terrorism a lot of what radicalizes people has to do with alienation—people who feel violently disconnected from their social context are more likely to act violently:
- corruption
- poverty
- educational failures
- overly agressive counterterrorism like mass surveillance
- racism
- religious or ethnic discrimination
- human rights abuses
- mental health treatment failures
- physical health treatment failures (look at Luigi Mangione)
- and more
Just like how “boys will be boys” never excuses SA, of course, none these systemic artifacts excuse the resulting violence. These artifacts are simply what a society needs to address in order to mitigate the violence and protect its people.
Thank you for writing that out. Mission accomplished
Yay! Glad to help.