This piece was originally posted to Facebook in response to This Article from NBC 7 San Diego.
My initial MA research was about how white nationalist extremists use online spaces to propagandize, recruit, indoctrinate, radicalize, and activate youth. The trail leads back to Columbine.
Columbine was carried out by two Neo-Nazis who specifically planned to kill “minorities” and staff who pushed back against their hateful behaviors. We still claim they were the victim of bullies, but they belonged to multiple Neo-Nazi and white nationalist extremist message boards and two webrings in particular. They still have a devoted fan club.
I’d argue Columbine was not the Digital Age’s first ideologically motivated act of mass violence, but investigators in the late 90s through the mid-00s rarely considered the perpetrator’s internet life relevant beyond a superficial mention.
As an example, a man killed himself in 1996 after digitally and physically stalking the Icelandic singer Björk for years and his actions were dismissed as typical fan psychosis or the delusions of a man struggling with body dysmorphia and abandonment trauma. You might know the name Ricardo Lopez, but not the fact he was a white nationalist involved with racist message boards–even though he was triggered by Björk’s relationship with a Black man.
San Diego had our own shooting prior to the one in Colorado and it appears the shooter’s ideological motivations were never seriously considered; he is also still presented as the victim of bullying pushed too far. Unlike the Columbine shooters, the Santana High shooter did not die and is currently seeking parole.
The suppression of ideological criticism in favor of the mental illness narrative allowed the extremists doing the targeting to develop even more refined techniques and platforms to suit their purposes while the majority of people were told it was a mental health crisis.
Anti-Islam and Anti-Arabic sentiment has steadily increased over the past three decades since the first attack against the Twin Towers in 1993. This is partly why we witnessed the massive wave of anti-Arabic and anti-Sikh violence after the attacks in 2001; zionists and christofascists were waiting for an excuse to shift all blame à la WWIII anti-Japanese campaigning.
The US spent the past two decades as a colonial power focusing propaganda on the victimhood of Israel and the evil of Islam. We weren’t allowed to mention the increasing “anti-Islam” or “anti-Arab” violence because that was considered “antisemitic.” Never mind the dozens of students and faculty arrested across the country for protesting against genocide, or the people deported for decrying anti-Arabic hostilities on campuses.
Hell, Israeli lobbyists got everyone to change their spelling and definition of anti-Semitism without a second thought by claiming the non-hyphenate is more accurate because *antisemitic* violence is really just anti-Jewish and we are being *antisemitic* by arguing against the conflation and redefinition.
This shooting is the fruit of our indifference and complicity.