SHAUN KING
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Friday, February 17, 2017, 11:06 AM
If the Florida man arrested for a plot to plant bombs was Muslim, Trump would’ve had an explosive impromptu press conference on the matter.
A Florida man was arrested Thursday for a plot to plant bombs in Target stores up and down the East Coast. He had already made at least 10 improvised explosive devices and planned to disguise them in food packaging. He had already paid someone $10,000 to support him in the endeavor, but the partner opted to call police instead of going through with the plan. This man was in the final stage of implementing this attack.
Strangely, though, Donald Trump, his co-President Steve Bannon, Mike Pence, or Steve Miller haven’t said a thing about this attack. You and I both know why.
This man isn’t a Muslim. He isn’t a refugee. He isn’t an immigrant. He isn’t tan or brown or black. He’s white. And by virtue of his white skin, he pretty much gets a pass from the Trump administration.
And all of us know, good and well, if this man was a Muslim, if his name was Ahmed instead of Mark, if he was from Yemen or Syria instead of Florida, Trump would’ve had an explosive impromptu press conference on the matter. If this man was just a shade or two darker, Trump would be midway through a tweetstorm on just how dangerous people like this man are.
Mark Barnett is not the only white man with a deep criminal record who was arrested for plotting a deadly attack on American soil. Benjamin McDowell (r.) was just arrested for planning an attack “in the spirit of Dylann Roof.”
But, Mark Charles Barnett is not a Muslim. He is not from one of the countries on Trump’s ridiculous ban list, he did not arrive in the United States as a refugee fleeing war. Nah, Mark Charles Barnett is a good ol’ American — born and bred here.
Not only that, but, according to ABC News, Barnett “was already on probation and wearing a court-ordered GPS monitor for a number of felony offenses, including kidnapping, multiple counts of sexual battery with a weapon or force and grand theft.”
Again, if this man was anything other than a white man from Florida, he’d be used as an example of how the criminal justice system failed to protect us from dangerous thugs and criminals. We’d be hearing about how men like him should’ve never been let out of jail or prison in the first place.
But here’s the thing: Mark Barnett is not the only white man with a deep criminal record who was arrested for plotting a deadly attack on American soil. Benjamin McDowell, who had known ties to white supremacist gangs from his time in prison, was just arrested for planning an attack “in the spirit of Dylann Roof.” Roof, as you no doubt recall, was a white supremacist who shot and killed nine black churchgoers in a Charleston, S.C., church in 2015. That attack was the deadliest hate crime against African-Americans in at least 80 years.
Again though, stone silence from Donald Trump and his team on the arrest of McDowell.
Can we be real? If two different Muslim men, particularly two Muslim men with records of violence anywhere in the world, were arrested in a span of 48 hours for plotting two different attacks like this, it would be the new conservative obsession. Alex Jones, Breitbart, Rush Limbaugh, and every single member of the Trump administration would be out in front of the issue and using it to justify every bigoted ban and policy they could think of.
And the only reason we don’t have that right now is because these men are white. I feel ridiculous for having to say this, because it should be obvious, but that’s wrong. It’s wrong that the President, his staff, and his most vocal supporters, in and out of the media, are virtually silent about the arrests of Mark Barnett and Benjamin McDowell. That these bad men, and that’s what they were and are, have been given such a pass from the Trump administration, when we all know that if they fit virtually any other profile, that they’d be plastered all over the news, and all over Twitter timelines and Facebook pages, is wrong.
What about their families and friends? Are they going to be investigated? Are these men Christians? Are they Trump supporters? Are they a part of a broader network? We’ll likely never hear anymore about them. That’s what white privilege does. It even protects these men, and their families, from the deep scrutiny that would inevitably befall any Muslim or immigrants or refugees had they been implicated in a plot for mass murder and mayhem.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/king-donald-trump-remains-silent-white-men-terrorize-america-article-1.2975405
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Friday, February 17, 2017, 11:06 AM
If the Florida man arrested for a plot to plant bombs was Muslim, Trump would’ve had an explosive impromptu press conference on the matter.
A Florida man was arrested Thursday for a plot to plant bombs in Target stores up and down the East Coast. He had already made at least 10 improvised explosive devices and planned to disguise them in food packaging. He had already paid someone $10,000 to support him in the endeavor, but the partner opted to call police instead of going through with the plan. This man was in the final stage of implementing this attack.
Strangely, though, Donald Trump, his co-President Steve Bannon, Mike Pence, or Steve Miller haven’t said a thing about this attack. You and I both know why.
This man isn’t a Muslim. He isn’t a refugee. He isn’t an immigrant. He isn’t tan or brown or black. He’s white. And by virtue of his white skin, he pretty much gets a pass from the Trump administration.
And all of us know, good and well, if this man was a Muslim, if his name was Ahmed instead of Mark, if he was from Yemen or Syria instead of Florida, Trump would’ve had an explosive impromptu press conference on the matter. If this man was just a shade or two darker, Trump would be midway through a tweetstorm on just how dangerous people like this man are.
Mark Barnett is not the only white man with a deep criminal record who was arrested for plotting a deadly attack on American soil. Benjamin McDowell (r.) was just arrested for planning an attack “in the spirit of Dylann Roof.”
But, Mark Charles Barnett is not a Muslim. He is not from one of the countries on Trump’s ridiculous ban list, he did not arrive in the United States as a refugee fleeing war. Nah, Mark Charles Barnett is a good ol’ American — born and bred here.
Not only that, but, according to ABC News, Barnett “was already on probation and wearing a court-ordered GPS monitor for a number of felony offenses, including kidnapping, multiple counts of sexual battery with a weapon or force and grand theft.”
Again, if this man was anything other than a white man from Florida, he’d be used as an example of how the criminal justice system failed to protect us from dangerous thugs and criminals. We’d be hearing about how men like him should’ve never been let out of jail or prison in the first place.
But here’s the thing: Mark Barnett is not the only white man with a deep criminal record who was arrested for plotting a deadly attack on American soil. Benjamin McDowell, who had known ties to white supremacist gangs from his time in prison, was just arrested for planning an attack “in the spirit of Dylann Roof.” Roof, as you no doubt recall, was a white supremacist who shot and killed nine black churchgoers in a Charleston, S.C., church in 2015. That attack was the deadliest hate crime against African-Americans in at least 80 years.
Again though, stone silence from Donald Trump and his team on the arrest of McDowell.
Can we be real? If two different Muslim men, particularly two Muslim men with records of violence anywhere in the world, were arrested in a span of 48 hours for plotting two different attacks like this, it would be the new conservative obsession. Alex Jones, Breitbart, Rush Limbaugh, and every single member of the Trump administration would be out in front of the issue and using it to justify every bigoted ban and policy they could think of.
And the only reason we don’t have that right now is because these men are white. I feel ridiculous for having to say this, because it should be obvious, but that’s wrong. It’s wrong that the President, his staff, and his most vocal supporters, in and out of the media, are virtually silent about the arrests of Mark Barnett and Benjamin McDowell. That these bad men, and that’s what they were and are, have been given such a pass from the Trump administration, when we all know that if they fit virtually any other profile, that they’d be plastered all over the news, and all over Twitter timelines and Facebook pages, is wrong.
What about their families and friends? Are they going to be investigated? Are these men Christians? Are they Trump supporters? Are they a part of a broader network? We’ll likely never hear anymore about them. That’s what white privilege does. It even protects these men, and their families, from the deep scrutiny that would inevitably befall any Muslim or immigrants or refugees had they been implicated in a plot for mass murder and mayhem.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/king-donald-trump-remains-silent-white-men-terrorize-america-article-1.2975405
