BURSTEIN: Stop humanizing white terrorists

Robert Lewis Dear opened fire in a Planned Parenthood clinic Friday in Colorado Springs, Colorado. He wounded nine people and killed three, including one University of Colorado police officer who had two young children, The New York Times reported.

When I first read about the victims of the shooting and officials confirmed that a police officer had indeed been killed, I wondered how some of the presidential candidates would respond. To me, there seemed to be a conflict of interest.

Some conservative candidates have been vocal about praising the work of police officers and emphasizing their importance. They have also strongly denounced the Black Lives Matter movement due to its supposedly anti-police rhetoric. But such candidates have also been vehemently opposed to services offered at Planned Parenthood, such as abortion, and have called on Congress to federally defund the organization entirely.

When these candidates made their statements about the shooting in Colorado, their words were disappointing, and followed the same pattern we often see after a gun-related tragedy, especially when the shooter is white. Donald Trump called Dear “mentally disturbed,” while Ben Carson called the shooting an act of “extremism.”

Carly Fiorina even qualified that, “Any protesters should always be peaceful. Whether it’s Black Lives Matter or pro-life protesters,” and denounced the use of “typical left-wing tactics” that blamed the anti-choice movement for creating an environment where violence is acceptable.

Senator Ted Cruz called Dear a “transgendered leftist activist” after records showed that Dear was registered to vote as a woman. Cruz also refused to label the shooting as domestic terrorism, instead calling it “a multiple murder of what appears to be a deranged individual.”

If there was ever an event that proved the power of diction used by people in power, this was it. “Deranged.” “Mentally disturbed.” But never “terrorist” or “thug.”

In an all too familiar cycle that occurs after a shooting, conservative politicians choose to blame the shooter’s mental health problems for violence, while ignoring any other factors, like the fact that Dear was able to obtain a gun to carry out his attack, or the fact that he chose a women’s healthcare center that carries out abortions as his target.

We saw this back in June when a white man named Dylann Roof shot and killed nine people at a historically black church in Charleston, South Carolina. Roof, who had created a racist manifesto that was accessible online, was written off as “having some mental issues.”

On the other hand, black victims of murder like Michael Brown and Eric Garner were deemed to have made “bad decisions,” and these decisions were the main reasons for their deaths.

At this point, there can be no more questioning or doubt of the existence of a double standard when it comes to domestic terrorism. Politicians are quick to defend the country from supposed Islamic State members hiding among Syrian refugees, or black Americans apparently vowing to kill police, but they dismiss white mass-murderers as victims of an unfair system. They humanize them and offer them cheeseburgers.

In this case in particular, the denial of domestic terrorism hurts the women who receive their health care at Planned Parenthood the most. Just like how the shooting in South Carolina targeted black Americans who were trying to worship in peace, this tragedy sent a message to women that taking care of their bodies and making their own choices could result in their unfair and violent death.

Besides, could it not be clearer that Dear had political, anti-choice motives for opening fire when officials said that he uttered the phrase “no more baby parts” while in custody? One of Dear’s acquaintances even said that he often praised violent anti-choice extremists, saying that they were doing “God’s work” and were “heroes.”

It does not matter what a candidate’s stance is, or even what a party’s stance is. In a clear act of violence toward women’s rights, it is of utmost importance for politicians to be proactive.

Politicians and people who have powerful voices in this country must no longer present wishy-washy stances when it comes to the safety of their constituents. They must no longer turn tragedies into political debates in which one side blames the other. Whenever unjustified violence and terrorism occurs in this country, it is our leaders’ jobs to do their best to prevent it from happening again.

Watching politicians change their opinions or mold their statements to fit their current platforms has become simply exhausting. We must no longer allow people in power to express certain views when it is convenient, and other views when it is not.