Islamophobia and the Victim Narrative: How the Liberal-Left faces inconvenient facts

There is growing outrage in the United States over how the media has handled the Boulder mass shooting that was carried out by a Muslim immigrant from Syria named Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa.

Immediately after the shooting, prominent Americans with a large presence on social media jumped to the conclusion that the attack was carried out by a white man. To be more precise, they claimed that the perpetrator of the shooting was a white supremacist. However, the moment the name of the shooter was revealed, there was absolute silence.

Victims of Boulder shooting

The liberal media is now working on an angle of mental health issues and the lack of gun control, which is apparently what led to the shootout that killed ten people, including a police officer at a Kings Sooper grocery store in Boulder, Colorado. But the most prominent spin to give covering-fire to the killer’s motive is the narrative of Islamophobia, which not only made the Boulder shooting disappear from the American news-cycle but also the shooter’s anti-Trump and pro-Muslim posts on Facebook. The 21 year-old shooter’s Facebook has since been deleted.

For a long time, the American media and its various offshoots around the globe have lost their sense of bearing. All media is about narratives, and this has only amplified after Donald Trump became the US President.

The likes of CNN, MSNBC and other left-leaning news outlets literally stopped talking about the Boulder shooting ― unlike other mass shootings that received 24/7 coverage ― once their narrative of a white supremacist shooter fell apart.

What is more interesting is that the shooter Aliwi Alissa was on the radar of the FBI, but still managed to pass a background check to purchase a firearm.

America may have a problem with gun violence but this incident is not about gun control. Several Democrat lawmakers are also strong advocates of the First Amendment which gives Americans the right to bear arms. The ugly subterfuge in this tragedy is the sinister and cowardly act of trying to cover the crime of an individual who happens to be a Muslim.

Apologist for Islamic terrorism Congresswomen Ilhan Omar, in a tweet, said “The shooter’s race or ethnicity seems front and center when they aren’t white”. Vice President Kamala Harris’s niece, Meena Harris had to delete her tweets when she jumped the gun and tweeted that the shooter had to be white.

But what is even more fascinating is that the colour of the skin of this shooter has now become the focal point of discussion. Under normal circumstances, Aliwi Alissa would be considered Caucasian. So, some Muslim commentators are saying that Aliwi Alissa is white and hence the mass shooting must be treated as an attack carried out by white supremacist.

‘Muslim feminist’ and co-founder of the Women’s March, Linda Sarsour, tweeted, “No, I didn’t want the Boulder Police to murder the shooter. I want him to be held accountable. Even this mass murderer deserves due process. I wish Police would treat Black people the same. Time & time again, police prove that they can take in a suspect alive even when armed”, giving a new twist to the crime and scoring major points with liberals.

Tariq Allah Nasheed, an American film producer and social media commentator, said, “White supremacists are trying their hardest to deflect from the fact the Boulder suspect is WHITE. Syrians in America are legally, politically & socially WHITE. Their white status is well documented in court cases Terms like “muslim”, “Arab”, “islamic” doesn’t change whiteness”.

Nasheed had once termed black women who date interracially as “bed wenches”, a historically derogatory term to describe black women who were raped by their white masters during slavery.

There is also a cleanup job being done on Aliwi Alissa’s social media accounts. His Facebook account, where he proclaimed himself a faithful Muslim and shared a lot of pro-Muslim posts, now stands deleted. It appears that he had imbibed the narrative of being a Muslim victim who lived in a white supremacist America, which is enough to arouse sympathy in this era of cancel culture and hard-left political correctness.

Reports also confirm that the shooter was sympathetic to the terrorist organisation ISIS.

It seems if a Muslim commits an act of terror, it is because he is persecuted and his actions are therefore righteous. However, if the shooting had been done by a white man, it is white supremacy and racial terrorism.

The fact of the matter is one must not make false equivalency when it comes to hate crimes because the killing of innocent people by anyone, no matter which religion or race they belong to, should be seen as an act of terror. One must not obfuscate.

In India, the media is quite good at making the aggressor a victim if they happen to be a Muslim and salivates at the prospect of a Hindu carrying out an act of violence.

Both the left media in India and the US have now become amped up ambulance-chasers who make news but not report it.

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