We know now that the man who shot up a grocery store Monday in Boulder, Colorado, is an immigrant from Syria named Ahmad al Aliwi Alissa. In the context of recent history, this means there’s reason to think he might be a Muslim terrorist. But saying that aloud will get you called a racist by the media.
For now, we’ll just have to pretend that this is another “lone wolf” who in no way fits into the totally not-real pattern (according to the media) of mass violence perpetrated by Muslim extremists in places as far-flung as Mumbai, Rouen, and Chattanooga and as close as Orlando, San Bernardino and New York.
If Aliwi Alissa were white, we could at least assume, without any evidence, like the media are doing with the recent killing spree in Atlanta, that this was an act of white supremacism. Instead, it looks like we’re back to square one.
Of course, before the shooter was identified by police, liberals had been very eager to draw early conclusions about him. They were 100% certain he was white and perhaps even an anti-masker — i.e., a Trump supporter.
I’m serious. Liberal journalist Kurt Eichenwald mused on Twitter that the details might reveal that the shooting, which left 10 people dead, was an episode of “anti-masker violence.”
Meena Harris, the niece of Vice President Kamala Harris, tweeted immediately after the shooting that “violent white men are the greatest terrorist threat to our country.” She anticipated that Aliwi Alissa might be a real terrorist, but not the kind that Democrats would rather not acknowledge.
Harris later deleted the tweet but followed up with another one to explain that her initial blurt was “an assumption based on [the suspect] being taken into custody alive and the fact that the majority of mass shootings in the U.S. are carried out by white men.”
Even that assumption is wrong, depending on what any given organization wants to count as a “mass shooting.”The Trace, a website dedicated solely to news and information about gun violence, reported in September that “nearly 50 percent” of mass shootings that year “took place in majority-Black” neighborhoods.
A 2016 report in the New York Times looked at more than 350 mass shootings that each had four or more casualties. “Over all,” the report said, “nearly three-fourths of victims and suspected assailants whose race could be identified were black.”
Shortly after news of the shooting in Boulder took place, liberal author Amy Siskind had what she believed was a safe assumption (because it was about a white man, and liberals always feel safe making assumptions about those). “The shooter is was [sic] taken into custody,” she said on Twitter. “In other words it was almost certainly a white man (again). If he were Black or Brown he would be dead.” Right.
The next day, we found out the shooter’s name is Ahmad. Siskind suddenly had a change of heart about sharing thoughts on his identity. “Let’s mourn the victims, but not glorify the killer with the attention of having his name widely known,” she tweeted.
Ah, yes. Let’s not say “Ahmad” out loud. That might lead to some dangerous assumptions.
