The Media, Racist Violence, And False Equivalence

antifainternational:

In the aftermath of the racist terrorist attack in Charlottesville yesterday in which a 20-year-old member of a neo-nazi organization (and registered Republican!) murdered one woman and injured at least 19 other people, Donald Trump and the mass media have been twisting themselves into knots in an attempt to characterize white supremacist violence and anti-fascists’ attempts to defend their community from such violence as the same thing.

False equivalence is a logical fallacy in which two opposing arguments appear to be logically equivalent when in fact they are not.  This often occurs when two things are compared without acknowledging the clear difference in the order of magnitude.

We’ve been doing our best to track bigoted violence in 2017.  So far this year, bigots, fascists, racists, and white supremacists have committed twelve shootings, six arsons, eleven stabbings, six mob beatings, over 41 bomb threats, and an acid attack.  Twenty-eight people are dead because of these bigoted attacks and at least fifty-eight have been severely injured.  If things continue this way, 42 people will be murdered by these terrorist bigots before the end of the year.

Let’s contrast that with the deaths caused by anti-fascist or anti-racist attacks so far this year: zero.

2017 isn’t an anomaly, either.  62 of the 85 deadly terror attacks committed on U.S. soil since 9/11 have been committed by right-wing extremists. The racist right are the biggest terrorist threat to U.S. citizens.

The difference between the order of magnitude of anti-fascist vs. fascist violence makes the relentless attempts by the media and right-wing politicians like Trump to characterize “both sides” as being “just as bad as each other” patently absurd.  The next time you hear false equivalence bullshit like that, take a moment to remember the 28 people that have been taken forever from their family and friends by fascist terrorists so far this year.