Stephen Paddock’s whiteness has already afforded him many outrageous protections in the media. Privilege always stands in contrast to how others are treated, and it’s true in this case, too: White men who resort to mass violence are consistently characterized primarily as isolated “lone wolves” - in no way connected to one another - while the most problematic aspects of being white in America are given a pass that nobody else receives. For centuries, when an act of violence has been committed by an African-American, racist tropes follow - and eventually, the criminalization and dehumanization of an entire ethnic group.Ī bloodied victim lies on the ground during a mass shooting at the Route 91 Harvest country music festival on Oct. When an individual claiming to be Muslim commits a horrible act, many on the right will tell us Islam is the problem.
The privilege here is that the ultimate conclusion about shootings committed by people from commonly nonwhite groups often leads to determinations about the corrosive or destructive nature of the group itself. And that simple fact changes absolutely everything about the way this horrible moment gets discussed in the media and the national discourse: Whiteness, somehow, protects men from being labeled terrorists. Paddock, like the majority of mass shooters in this country, was a white American.
