(New York Daily News) — Mark Anthony Conditt, a 23-year-old white man who self-identified as conservative in a 2012 blog, killed two people in Austin with bombs, apparently targeted for their race, and injured many others. He then blew himself up in an actual suicide bombing, injuring a police officer in the process.
But he’s not being called a terrorist.
If he were Muslim, that label would be a given, long before any evidence was provided of ideological motives. And with him, an entire community would face trial.
For me as a visible Muslim, and for many other members of marginalized communities, every act of violence is a double calamity: We mourn the loss of life and grieve for the victims’ families. We then brace ourselves for the public punishment and collective blame for a crime we didn’t commit if the perpetrator happens to share a dimension of our identity.
