Terrorism is in the news again today. Yesterday it was a bicycle riding bomber hitting Times Square early in the morning. This is a clear sign of terrorism in my book, the bomb like two others before it weren’t powerful enough to do any sort of real damage, nor were they placed at times when the there were likely to kill people. These explosions were meant to scare, the very definition of terrorism.
Potential terrorism makes its way into the headlines again too, as US military commanders warn al-Qaida may be targeting big US targets to meet recruiting goals and and maintain their street cred. While it would have been nice to get some warning on 9/11 I think we overdo it sometimes with all the reporting. I barely here it anymore. On the other hand I am not sure why al-Qaida feel the need to hit big targets. There goal has always been to instill fear and chaos, but there are much easier ways to scare lots of people than hitting big heavily defended targets. Frankly, I think far more people would be scared and for a longer period of time with far more chaos if they would hit a series of small town targets. Think of what would happen if a dirty bomb went off at your kids grade school spring performance, a biological agent released at a mega-church in the burbs, or a vest bomb filled with shrapnel let loose at a crowded high school dance. These are the kinds of things that scare me.
The UNC Student Body President was found shot to death in the street. Police believe it to be just another random act of senseless violence. If this is random violence, why is it news worthy? In the wake of other school shootings it should be noted, but why is it worth mention in a Yahoo Insider headline? The reason it is big news is she was a pretty blond white girl. While I don’t deny my own attraction to pretty blond white girls, it in no way makes me forget or deem the murders of non-whites as less important. Every time you see this story in the coming days take a moment and think about these statistics. Black and Hispanic women are more likely to be murdered than white women, Asian women are most likely to be the victims of domestic violence, and Native American women who are raped on a reservation by a non-indian almost never have their attack investigated. When you see the picture of pretty blond Eve Carson, take just one moment and think about all the women who are raped, murdered and abused that don’t look like her.
On a side note to this there is a good post from Holly on her blog, Menstrual Poetry, about unreported crimes against women.
Thanks a lot for plugging my site, I really appreciate it and I couldn’t agree with you more–What the hell does being a pretty blond white girl have to do with how newsworthy violence against her is? For every one report of crime about a pretty white woman, there are most likely 10 others about non-white women or men, for that matter, whose stories simply get swept under the rug.