Dammit

“Dammit.”

That’s what I said aloud to myself when I found out that one of the shooters names in the mass shooting that claimed the lives of 14 people and injured more than 10 others in San Bernardino, Calif. on Wednesday (Dec. 2) was Syed Farook.

This might sound horrible, but every time there is a mass shooting in this country – and it’s become such an occurrence that there have been more mass shootings (shootings with at least four persons shot) in this country this year than there have been days (351 mass shootings to only 336 days) – I quietly hoped to myself that the shooter wasn’t Middle Eastern (or really any minority for that matter). It’s not because I fear ISIS and believe an attack by Middle Easterners on Americans would signal the beginning of a full scale ISIS attack in this country, but I believe that Middle Easterner shooters give more fodder for the racists who have run amuck about all things Muslim in this country since the tragic France attacks last month.

Syed Farook was an American citizen. We don’t seem to know anything else about him in the short amount of time since he was named the shooter, except for that and that he was a county health inspector. We don’t know that he was a Muslim, despite his name. We don’t know that he was targeting anybody on the basis of either religion or race – but that’s not stopping people from going on an all-out assault against Muslims or even people who they may view as Muslims.

And, that’s one of the problems with this country. The country is blind to its own racism in that many feel Muslims are synonymous with terrorism. The bigots of this country don’t trust an entire religion or race of people simply because of the actions of others.

And, yet when a white Christian perpetrates terrorism for a cause as Robert Dear did at a Planned Parenthood in Colorado Springs, Colo. just last week, that resulted in the deaths of four people and injuries to almost 10 more, people don’t go off in a racist tangent about either Christians or white people.

This is a nation built by white Christians and still run by a majority of white Christians. Because of this it seems many in this country give a pass to killers who are white (as most mass shooters tend to be) and Christian. Some lunatics even build a terrorist (which Dear absolutely is no matter how many want to define him as a “lone wolf” instead) as a hero because of his “stand” against Planned Parenthood due to their beliefs against abortion.

This is America’s blatant racism on stage for everyone to see and yet we still ignore it, because for some reason we aren’t scared of white guys with guns the same way we are about Middle Easterners with guns, despite having every reason to be with the majority of this country’s mass shootings perpetrated by white men.

That’s why I cringe at the fact of a Middle Easterner shooter. It will lead to not only more racism, but will become a religious/race issue when it should remain a gun and gun control issue all along.

“Dammit.”