Why Is It When White Men Kill They Are Called “Deranged”
I was watching CNN’s coverage of the Charleston, NC shootings when one of the CNN anchors passed on a tweet which she had received: “When black men kill they are called thugs. When Muslims kill they are called terrorists. Why is it that when white men kill they are said to deranged?” Wow! Sometimes something just grabs my full attention because it is so true. That tweet was one of those things.
I think that the reason this made a big impression me is because I had heard several Republican politicians use the term “deranged” or “mentally ill” when describing the shooter who killed nine people in a house of worship in Charleston. In fact right before the CNN anchor mentioned that tweet she had been interviewing Lindsey Graham and had asked him if gun laws should be strengthened to prevent another tragedy like this one. He replied, “No law is going to prevent a deranged person like this guy from getting his hands on a gun.”
Why is it that when black men and Muslims kill people they are called “thugs” and “terrorists’ – which implies that killing is a normal part of their nature – and when white men kill the assumption is that they must be “deranged”. That implies that sane white men would never do such a thing, that it is not part of their nature. If this is not a case of implied racism, I don’t know what is.
Now perhaps those Republican politicians were using such wording because they were catering to the sensibilities of their conservative constituents; after all Lindsey Graham is a Senator from South Carolina. However, I think that this is giving them too much credit. The simpler and probably more accurate explanation is that this is how many conservative politicians see the world.
To read more: http://www.cajunscomments.com/why-is-it-when-white-men-kill-they-are-called-deranged/
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