(ThyBlackMan.com) When Congressman Steve Scalise was shot the gun man was not immediately identified. How many Americans saw the breaking story, and caught fear thinking our congress is under attack? Let’s be honest there were people that saw the news and immediately thought ISIS had attacked our government via this shooting. It’s not a far-fetched idea given what just took place in the UK, and other European countries. If we are being honest there are white people in this country that believe minorities, primarily black people, are the most violent in this nation so they may have expected the shooter to be black or a person of color.
Negative stereotypes run deep in this country except when dealing directly with white males. It was so easy for so many to sit back clutching their pearls waiting for a person of middle eastern decent 
or a black man to be the shooter in this tragedy. No one will care the shooters political affiliation, who they supported for president, whether they were good people, whether they had a troubled upbringing, nor if they were mentally ill. They would be labeled a terrorist without a doubt.
Shootings like the one mentioned, and many others, have left Americans feeling a state of terror however we are not honest about the face of terrorism in this country. When it is revealed there is always a justified reason, or spin, on why the shooter took lives. No one else in this country is protected like the image of the white male…and he is indeed the face of American terrorism. When that is said many that seek to dismiss this fact look to 9/11 as proof otherwise. However, we must acknowledge that white men in this country have engaged in terrorism long before 1776.
The shooter of Congressman Scalise was a white male. Charles Manson, Theodore “the Unabomber” Kaczynski, Adam Lanza (Sandy Hooks shooting), James Holmes (Aurora movie theater massacre), Timothy McVey, slave owners, and at times entities of our government if you are black or brown are handful of examples whereby white males have been the face of domestic terrorism. Why did the media feel it necessary to tell us that James Hodgkinson was a Bernie Sanders supporter? What made Republican Representative Steve King feel it was okay to lay fault at the feet of President Obama for Scalise’s shooting? How does he not see that the hatred his party stirred backfired? It’s necessary because there must be a way to deflect the term terrorism away from this white man regardless of who he shot. If he were to be focused on and labeled a terrorist, then American would have to come to terms with the truth of domestic terrorism…or more so its face.
Black Americans have known nothing but terror in this country since the first slave ship arrived. We understand on a personal, and national, level the reality of terrorism in this country. It is allowed to persist without owning having to own the title. This country was built on terror, and blood…we’ve never had to own the burden of this truth as a nation. It will be necessary to deal with our countries terrorist problem if we are to ever truly have a hand in stamping it our anywhere in this world.
Staff Writer; Christian Starr
May connect with this sister over at Facebook; https://www.facebook.com/christian.pierre.9809 and also Twitter; http://twitter.com/MrzZeta.
