Are white male terrorists a bigger threat to our safety than Islamic extremists? | The Tylt

The 9/11 attacks were carried out by 19 men—15 from Saudi Arabia, two from the United Arab Emirates, one from Egypt and one from Lebanon. That catastrophic incident continues to dominate how Americans view the threat of terrorism. The media and the populace continue to cast white male mass shooters as mentally ill loners, a pattern strongly critiqued by Anthea Butler at the Washington Post after Dylann Roof's massacre of eight Charleston churchgoers:

While white suspects are lone wolves...violence by black and Muslim people is systemic, demanding response and action from all who share their race or religion. The Charleston shooting is a result of an ingrained culture of racism and a history of terrorism in America. It should be covered as such.

90 percent of Americans now view ISIS as a serious threat to U.S. national security. And the National Interest pointed out the United States is a definite target of Islamic extremists. In a nuclear age, we can't afford to ignore that.

"[ISIS is] focused primarily on Western liberal democracies that are more open and therefore more vulnerable than other types of political systems."

But the data bears out that women and people of color have far more to fear from family members and right-wing white supremacists than from foreign-born Islamic extremists.

Women in America face more danger from their husbands than they do a Muslim terrorist. 

But many on the right continue to accuse the left of allowing political correctness to get in the way of naming the real threat to American security—radical Islamic terrorism. President Obama was excoriated for refusing to use the phrase, and Trump's supporters applaud him for saying it loud and clear.

But at Newsweek, Kurt Eichenwald says racism and anti-Islam sentiment blind us to the real dangers of homegrown white terrorism.