Racialization and Gun Violence of underrepresented Groups: Continuing “If Conservatives were actually Pro-Life”

See the origins of this blog, here.

It is important to note the overinclusion of certain identity groups and the lack of mention of other identity groups. The current mass shooting debate is often framed by the most visual groups: white shooters (visual through their majority of the population) and those of Middle Eastern/Islamic descent. Shooters of other racial identities are harder to fit into this debate over national security. One is that of African American shooters and Asian shooters. As mentioned above, African American citizens have been politicized and thus regulated as second-class Americans, Americans that do not fit into and do not pursue or continue the American ideal. When national security is seen through the lens of racialized nation building, it questions the role of African Americans in security; they were excluded from the nation building narrative because they were not truly part of the nation, so how can they be expected to maintain and protect the ideals of the nation? In articles from Fox News and CNN, a police-targeting, manifesto-writing shooter is described by his last name; CNN discusses how it was both shocking and unsurprising that he had done what he’d done, while Fox News goes into details of the events that transpired during and between the shootings. An African American police officer meant to uphold Anglo-American values that were created through racialized nation building policies does just the opposite, but is he a terrorist? He doesn’t quite fit into the gun control/gun rights narrative.

Neither does Virginia Tech Shooter, Cho Seung-Hui. According to Haney Lopez, the process of citizenship naturalization originated as restricted only to white persons, but that category has been hard to define; depending on the era and need for different quotas of different types of workers, the US has categorized races as white at certain times and at other times not white; this was especially true Asians trying to immigrate. This mixed with the acceptance of South Korea as a close US alley during and after the Cold War creates an understanding of acceptability. This doesn’t fully fit with the model either; he is an accepted outsider, but still not American and doesn’t look American enough to perpetuate American ideals. In an article by CNN, Cho is referred to by his name and provides information on his manifesto, yet this wasn’t prescribed a terrorist attack. A Fox News article following the attack also referred to him by his name and did not use the word terror. Interestingly, both articles used the word “rage” in describing the murderer’s feelings and plans. In both cases of an African American and Asian murderer, white versus other defines their actions. The African American murderer was expected to uphold white normalcy, while the Asian murderer was expected to be a surrogate white person. Terrorism, or an act of terror, is much broader than the terms are seemingly applied. Literally, terrorism is the use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce. Using the word “terrorism” a lot to describe more events means the word may lose meaning, but failing to use the word to correctly classify events does a grave injustice not only to the people who were injured, but also to American democracy.