Austin
Police Chief Brian Manley briefs the
media, Wednesday, March 21, 2018, in
Round Rock, Texas. The suspect in a
spate of bombing attacks that have
terrorized Austin over the past
month blew himself up with an
explosive device as authorities
closed in, the police said early
Wednesday. (Ricardo B. Brazziell/Austin
American-Statesman via AP)
Sympathy
for
white
Austin
bomber
stirs
debate
about
race
By
DEEPTI
HAJELA
APNews.com
When
a law
enforcement
official
described
a
cellphone
recording
left by
the
Austin
serial
bomber
as “the
outcry
of a
very
challenged
young
man,”
the
remark
caused
an
outcry
of its
own.
Because
the
bomber
was
white,
some
people
almost
immediately
questioned
whether
the same
level of
compassion
would
have
been
afforded
a person
of
color.
“Here
you have
a case
of a
young
white
male who
killed
and
injured
people
of
color,
and
we’re
culturally
more
concerned
about
his
story,
about
his
life,
about
what led
him to
take
these
lives,”
said
David
Leonard,
professor
in the
department
of
critical
culture,
gender
and race
studies
at
Washington
State
University.
“It’s a
striking
reminder
of a
racial
empathy
gap that
persists.”
For
many
observers
and
activists,
the
comments
about
Mark
Anthony
Conditt
were
just the
latest
example
in which
a white
suspect
seemed
to
receive
an
injection
of
humanity
that is
less
often
extended
to
blacks,
Muslims
and
others.
Conditt
kept the
Texas
capital
in a
state of
fear for
weeks,
planting
five
bombs
that
killed
two
people
and
badly
wounded
four
others.
The
23-year-old
community
college
dropout
died
Wednesday
after
setting
off a
bomb
inside
his SUV
as
police
were
about to
arrest
him.
Investigators
said his
motive
was
still
unclear,
despite
the
discovery
of the
25-minute
cellphone
recording
in which
he
talked
about
the
bombs.
Authorities
have
avoided
calling
the
attacks
terrorism,
which
can have
specific
definitions
in law
enforcement
contexts.
U.S. law
defines
a
terrorist
as
having
ties to
a
foreign
entity,
such as
the
Islamic
State or
other
known
terror
groups.
Homegrown
extremist
groups
such as
neo-Nazis
and the
Ku Klux
Klan are
not
labeled
that
way,
even if
they
employ
similar
tactics
of
violence
and
intimidation.
Similarly,
when
Stephen
Craig
Paddock
was
identified
as the
gunman
who
rained
bullets
down on
a Las
Vegas
concert
last
fall,
the
white
retired
accountant
was
characterized
as a
“lone
wolf.”
That
label
has also
been
attached
to other
mass
killers
who
acted
alone,
including
Aurora,
Colorado,
movie
theater
shooter
James
Holmes,
a white
man who
killed a
dozen
people
in 2012.
On
the
recording,
Conditt
“does
not at
all
mention
anything
about
terrorism,
nor does
he
mention
anything
about
hate,”
Austin
Police
Chief
Brian
Manley
said.
“But
instead,
it is
the
outcry
of a
very
challenged
young
man
talking
about
challenges
in his
personal
life
that led
him to
this
point.”
The
reaction
on
social
media
was
swift.
“Remember
how they
talked
about
innocent
black
children”
like
Trayvon
Martin,
Tamir
Rice or
Freddie
Gray,
tweeted
Sherrilyn
Ifill,
president
of the
NAACP
Legal
Defense
and
Educational
Fund.
“I
believe
passionately
in
acknowledging
the
humanity
of those
who
commit
even
terrible
crimes.
Reading
this
police
chief’s
empathy
for this
young
white
man
highlights
the
awfulness
— the
plain
awfulness
— of the
persistent
refusal
to
extend
this
empathy
to young
black
people,”
Ifill
added.
Those
young
black
males
were
described
as
“thugs”
by some
authorities
and in
popular
discourse.
Another
case
often
cited is
that of
Michael
Brown,
an
unarmed
black
18-year-old
fatally
shot by
a white
officer
in
August
2014 in
Ferguson,
Missouri.
The New
York
Times
described
Brown as
“no
angel”
in a
profile,
a phrase
that
drew an
angry
response
from
readers
and was
criticized
by its
own
public
editor.
Brown
got into
a
scuffle
with
then-officer
Darren
Wilson
after
Wilson
yelled
at Brown
and a
friend
to get
out of
the
street
where
they
were
walking.
Wilson
said
that
when he
shot
Brown,
the teen
was
moving
menacingly
toward
him.
Some
witnesses
said
Brown
was
surrendering.
The
initial
unrest
erupted
after
Brown’s
body lay
in the
street
for
hours in
the
summer
heat.
More
protests
gripped
the
Missouri
town
after a
grand
jury in
declined
to
charge
Wilson,
who
later
resigned.
The
Justice
Department
also
cleared
him, but
an
investigation
by that
agency
uncovered
patterns
of
racial
bias and
profiling
in
Ferguson’s
police
and
courts.
Some
critics
have
also
taken
exception
to media
coverage
that
included
Conditt’s
friends
and
family
describing
him as
nerdy
and
kind.
“Language
is
always
shot
through
with
power
dynamics.
What
this
shows us
is the
way that
we can
talk
about
people
determines
how we
can
treat
them,”
said
Koritha
Mitchell,
an
associate
professor
in the
English
department
at Ohio
State
University.
“Because
we are
determined
to treat
white
men as
citizens
no
matter
what, to
treat
them as
people
who
belong
in the
fold no
matter
what,
that is
the
reason
we will
not use
words
like
‘terrorist.’”
The
Rev.
Yvette
Griffin,
a black
Detroit
pastor,
said
blacks
and
Muslims
don’t
seem to
get the
same
presumption
of
innocence
as other
suspects.
“The
words
are
kinder
and
gentler”
for
whites,
she
said.