War Rhetoric: Murder to Protect White America
Why don’t we see violence in the murder of non-white non Americans?
A recent Buzzfeed article brought to light the violence and banter of a white supremacist in Portland. The man, Jeremy Christian, apparently had murdered two people on a train after the two had tried to protect a Muslim teenager from Christian’s attack. After being brought to court, he went off saying things like, “You call it terrorism, I call it patriotism.” Some of the banter can be seen here.
What troubles me most is that this known white supremacist feels it is okay to use violence to “protect his country.” He backs up his taking a human life as a form of respect and honor to his country, and claims to be acting to preserve these things. As though his race and his nationality are threatened by difference and lack of homogeneity. Somewhere in this murderer’s mind, he is doing the right, righteous thing by protecting his own. In his own eyes he is a hero.
In “The Organization of Hate,” Sara Ahmed makes the point that a lot of hate groups mask themselves as groups of love. In their eyes, just as in Christian’s, any acts of violence or terror are not out of hate, but love for their own. In this logic, the reason somebody would attack a Muslim teenager on a train would be in protection of her perceived threat to whiteness and white people. The reason for murdering two others would be because they stood in the way.
Christian believes that his act, though violent, should not be criminal. He believes he is saving America. He justifies murder in the name of Lady Liberty. Protecting his own. Protecting free speech. Standing up for freedom. Making America great again. He believes his actions are those of patriotism.
However this is not an isolated incident. This rhetoric mirrors that which is used nation wide to legitimize military presence overseas. Violence by the United States military, in the middle east especially, is presented as patriotism. Our military is terrorizing and in many cases also murdering in foreign countries because of the perceived threat that they pose to “Americanism.” Often times, the general public has very little clue what our military is up to in other countries, but there is faith that they will protect American life. The common rallying cry is that we have to protect our freedom.
The problem here is that there is a disregard for the well being of others. It is understandable to love your community, but when this takes the form of violence and hurt inflicted on others it is inherently a problem. This type of “love” leaves out room for everybody that constitutes the out-group, and they are placed in a category that becomes disposable for the bettering of the in-group. It continues and legitimizes the systemic and very real violence against those who are different from the hegemonic form of American: white.
In one of her works, feminist thinker bell hooks writes,
In attacking the otherness, often times the attacker is only thinking of alleviating their own struggle. They fail to take into account what harmful ideologies or systems they may be upholding in doing so. In Christian’s case he was defending his whiteness. In civilians’ eyes, the U.S. military is protecting them from overseas aggressors. However, in doing these things we are also perpetuating a system of violence that calls upon more harm from either party.
In order to make things better for everybody, we need to be able to step back and first and foremost recognize that a system of violence is in place. Then we can take into account how it harms not only ourselves personally and our community, but also the people around us and outside our immediate groups. There needs to be a mass awakening to recognize that it is not an us vs. them situation. We need to be able to recognize the basic humanity in each other and respect life so things such as this double murder do not happen in the future, because that was not an act of love, it was terrorism.
Only after we can see each other as human and equal and deserving of life can we form solidarity to dismantle the systems that made us think otherwise in the first place.
