Posted on December 18, 2018

‘Stochastic Terrorism’

Gregory Hood, American Renaissance, December 18, 2018

It’s no secret that since President Trump’s unexpected victory, the mainstream media and self-appointed watchdog groups are looking for ways around the First Amendment to shut down speech they don’t like. Their latest excuse for this is “stochastic terrorism.” This is using mass communications to demonize a target, resulting in violent or terrorist acts that are predictable in general but individually unpredictable. As one blogger put it, it’s “remote control murder by lone wolf.”

Though he has governed like a conventional conservative, President Trump savages his critics in the media, in the Democratic Party, and in Hollywood. This, in the view of his critics, is stochastic terrorism. After explosive devices were sent last fall to prominent Democrats, allegedly by Donald Trump supporter Cesar Sayoc, Eyal Press was given space in the New York Times to blame the president implicitly, since all the targets had been “demonized” by him. After all, President Trump was the one “who has called journalists ‘scum’ and ‘enemies of the people.’” Other publications echoed the charge.

President Trump’s opponents now use the term to interpret his words in the worst possible light.

President Trump recently said he was not worried about impeachment; “the people would revolt.” This is common political rhetoric, like Bernie Sanders’s calls for a “political revolution.” However, social networking exploded with accusations that the president was inciting violence, with evocations of “stochastic terrorism.”

Somehow, the posturing of the #Resistance, with its militant imagery and accusations of “treason” against the president, has not created similar media concern.

President Trump is responsible even when people who don’t like him commit violence. According to Jared Keller at Pacific Standard, Donald Trump was partially responsible for the shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue in late October, even though the alleged shooter, Robert Bowers, is an opponent of the president. “Trump has done plenty to legitimize views previously considered too extreme for political discourse — and that, in turn, has opened the door for political violence,” Mr. Keller wrote.

The phrasing is revealing; journalists consider themselves authorities on what is “legitimate” or “extreme.” White advocacy has become more common in recent years, but so have expressions of hostility or even hatred towards whites.

As American Renaissance recently noted, anti-white hatred, including blunt declarations of “I hate white people,” is common on Twitter. Much of it comes from verified accounts. In academia and the mainstream media, “whiteness” is a social construct that must be destroyed, and “white supremacy” is defined so expansively that practically all white society is said to be tainted by it. Words such as “abolish,” “smash,” or even “kill” are freely used to rally people to fight in this war against whiteness. At least a few college professors — and PBS host Linday Ellis — openly celebrate the idea of white genocide. Is this not stochastic terrorism?

A progressive or anti-racist might retort that the “myth of whiteness” hurts white people too, and that violent imagery is directed against a social construct, not against white people themselves. The problem is that even those who most commonly claim that whiteness is a construct can’t conceal their animus for real people.

After the 2010 elections, “anti-racist educator” Tim Wise, who makes a fine living speaking at universities, fantasized gleefully about old white people dying. After a Republican victory in the most recent Mississippi Senate election, Mr. Wise wrote that Reconstruction should have meant “white property being burned to the ground” and “white folks crushed beyond repair.”

An author at The University Star at Texas State University wrote an article called “Your DNA is an abomination” and proclaimed that “white death will mean liberation for all.” Mainstream publications regularly attack white people, not a construct. “White people are evil,” reads one typical article from The Root, with author Michael Harriot concluding: “I thought white people were evil. I was right.”

Drawing attention to the suffering of whites is already dismissed by many academics and journalists as irrelevant or even offensive. When Angus Deaton and Anne Case wrote up their findings of a sharp decline in life expectancy for working class white Americans, their paper was rejected by prominent medical journals. When the videotaped beating of a white Donald Trump supporter by a black mob was discussed on CNN, CNN contributor and former Bernie Sanders press secretary Symone Sanders mocked the victim: “Oh my goodness, poor white people!”

Anti-racist educators teach that “all whites are racist,” and according to The Root, “white allies,” are the “worst wypipo in the world.” Of course, if “whiteness” is uniquely evil and also inseparable from whites’ “abominable” DNA, it follows that violence against whites is surely understandable. If “stochastic terrorism” means anything, endless, passionate declarations of hatred against “whiteness” and “wypipo” are certainly an incitement to violence.

There have already been casualties. Brittney Watts, a young white woman, was murdered by a black man who explained his action as a way to “spread the message of making white people mend” and was a protest against European colonization. Though journalists worry that President Trump’s rhetoric will lead to attacks against them, journalist Jerry Wolkowitz died after a black man targeted him because of his race. According to the FBI, anti-white hate crimes are the fastest growing hate category. This is a remarkable finding in light of the resistance of authorities to identifying such crimes as racially motivated. Indeed, given that blacks commit a vastly disproportionate share of interracial crime, it is reasonable to assume that at least some of it can be explained by the incitement coming from the mainstream media, academia, and progressive activists.

“Stochastic terrorism,” is, as progressives might say, a “problematic” concept. Linking peaceful speech to acts of violence is a justification for censorship, but progressives should be careful. Biological race denialism, opposition to “whiteness” and “social justice” rhetoric enjoy far more media support than white advocacy does. A look at the crime statistics also reveals it is not “black bodies” that are under physical threat from interracial crime, but the people journalists and academics keep telling us are “racist.” As Jared Taylor has observed, denying race differences is a temptation to violence because if all races are equal, then all inequality must be the result of injustice or exploitation. The refusal to discuss racial reality doesn’t increase social peace; it invites conflict.

President Trump’s statements are often overheated. Perhaps he even bears some partial responsibility for threats or attacks on his enemies. But what of the charges against whites made by journalists, academics, celebrities, and leftist activists and politicians, all of whom have a combined voice that dwarfs even that of the president? There is blood on the hands of those who have declared war on “whiteness.”

Legal speech should not be an excuse to censor anyone. But if journalists and activists are calling for measures to prevent “stochastic terrorism,” the first people who should be silenced are themselves.

About Gregory Hood

View all posts by Gregory Hood
Mr. Hood is a staff writer for American Renaissance. He has been active in conservative groups in the US. You can follow him on Gab.