Trust in Media
Highland Park Was Likely an Anti-Semitic Attack
Despite the terrorist’s white supremacist views, his proximity to a large Jewish community likely drove his motivation
As we learn more about the terrorist in the July Fourth attack in Highland Park, Illinois, his views have taken center stage. Largely due to the misrepresentation of the shooter’s motivations by punditry in news, social media users began to call news outlets out. As I wrote in a recent article for Latino Rebels, the suggestion that the shooter was simply a nihilist only served to provide cover for the radicalization of white men online with bigotry, hate, and conspiracy theories.
They provided cover for the white supremacist nature of how these men are emboldened with extremist ideology. The terrorist in Highland Park expressed views online that were anti-Black, anti-Latino, xenophobic, and anti-Semitic. But his proximity to a large Jewish community allowed him to act on his beliefs by targeting Jews making his alleged motivations clearer every day.
When a white supremacist terrorist attacked a Walmart in El Paso killing nearly two-dozen people, he was targeting Latinos despite his anti-Semitic views. So we focused on his anti-Latino beliefs and his xenophobia. When a terrorist murdered 10 Black people in Buffalo NY, we focused on the anti-Black nature of his beliefs (we even called out a journalist for suggesting the terrorist attacked Black people because of bad dental work by a Jewish dentist).
Similarly, in Highland Park, it behooves us to focus on the shooter’s anti-Semitism and not his other beliefs. White supremacists are anti-anything-not-white. The radicalization of young white men happens in similar ways as well. It’s a disservice and it’s dangerous to normalize any of those beliefs by labeling them with broader terms such as nihilism.
That’s because there is a level of nihilism in all white supremacist beliefs. Simply writing off a terrorist’s motivations as such is lazy. Doing so allows those making the absurd claim to easily backtrack when they are called out and say, “that’s what I meant!” However, major media continues to double down feeding the public a grossly misinformed message.
It’s important to call this out despite what people may think. Trust in the news is at an all-time low and not calling them out will only make that worse. Doubling down when the public is telling them they’re wrong based on the evidence we can all now see is what does so much damage. It’s up to the public to hold all power to account otherwise we are doomed.
The attack on Highland Park appears to be anti-Semitic because of who the terrorist targeted. If he had access to a Black community, he may have done what the Buffalo terrorist did. But he didn’t. He had access to a Jewish community. That’s where our focus should be. Not some weird narrative put out there by a journalist who was more concerned with being first to report something rather than being correct about what they’re reporting.
That’s the real shame in all of this.
