According to White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, a recent spate of serial bombings targeting prominent African-Americans in Austin, TX, has “no apparent nexus to terrorism at this time”. I want to make a pedantic lexicographic point about the definition of terrorism (and terrorist) regarding this. There is certainly a sense of terrorism which just involves random lethal violence against civilians, and by that definition this absolutely qualifies. But, that is not the definition used by the state (or mass media). Rather, they favor an alternative sense which emphasizes the way in which the violence undermines the authority of the state. This is in fact encoded in the (deeply evil) PATRIOT Act, which defines terrorism as an attempt to “…to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping.” Let’s assume, as seems likely though by no means certain, that the bomber(s) are white supremacists targeting African-American communities. You’d be hard-pressed to argue that terrorizing people of color undermines the authority of a deeply racist society and its institutions any more than say, trafficking crack cocaine in African-American communities to support right-wing death squads abroad. Terrorizing people of color is absolutely in line with US domestic and foreign policy, and the language chosen by the White House (and parroted by the media) naturally reflects that.
Interesting both from the linguistic and the political point of view, thanks.
I have a similar example from Israel: here the media calls acts of violence performed by Palestinians against Israeli citizens (*and soldiers*) “terrorism”, while acts of violence performed by Israelis against Palestinians are euphemized as “Price Tag” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_tag_policy).
I sometimes admire the media/government for planting thoughts in people’s minds in such a subtle way, such that most of us don’t notice we’re fooled most of the time.
I’d never heard that expression “price tag” in that context but it gives me the chills 🙁