Point-Counterpoint: Armed Oregon militia deserves terrorist label

According to cable news, “terrorism” is behind everything wrong with the world these days — unless, of course, the suspects happen to be white. Those people don’t seem to fit the profile.

On Saturday evening in Oregon, about 150 people occupied the Malheur Wildlife National Refuge building after a much larger rally. At first glance, the indictment of two ranchers for arson charges on federal property incited the occupation.

But this isn’t a response to the charges. It is something much more dangerous.

The occupying group, which is heavily armed, has publicly declared its plan to build a refuge for people to flee from the government and are willing to kill and be killed if anyone gets in its way to grab this land.

An armed separatist movement occupying a federal building and threatening violence? Sounds like an act of extreme, domestic terrorism to me.

Yet, the media outlets and police handling the occupation do not seem to share my sentiment or my fear. This lax treatment of the militiamen testifies to white privilege in the United States.

The mainstream media has been largely absent from the occupation, especially at first, when less than a dozen cars made up the vehicles of both the militiamen and reporters. Frustration, as people struggled to find cable channel coverage of the occupation the following day, produced a viral hashtag.

Instead of treating the militiamen as dangerous terrorists, the media has viewed them as an afterthought.

The limited media coverage stands in stark contrast to the around-the-clock coverage Black Lives Matter protests receive. Additionally, while the media over-emphasized the violence of the Black Lives Matter movement, it has downplayed the threats of violence involved in the Oregon insurrection.

The media bias is evident in its description of the participants.

Multiple news sources, including ABC News and the Associated Press, described the event as a “peaceful protest,” despite Ryan Bundy, a leader of the group, telling reporters that the protestors were prepared to “kill and be killed.”

While Fox News personalities like Martha MacCallum and CNN’s Erin Burnett have consistently referred to Black Lives Matter protesters as “thugs,” they have called the white militiamen “activists.”

Some media representatives defend this disparity in coverage by citing the looting of some Black Lives Matter protests, but this does not justify the overwhelmingly implicit racist coverage.

While the majority of Black Lives Matter protests were truly peaceful, the media focused on and ridiculed unrepresentative riots. Fox News even called it “the murder movement” at one point.

The media drew connections between an alleged upswing in racial violence and the movement, dubbing it the Ferguson effect. This goes against the repeated cautioning of national criminologists, who warn that there is no evidence of a national rise in crime or connections between crime and Black Lives Matter.

These differences in media coverage parallel the discrepancy between police responses toward the occupation, which is all white, and other actions done by people of color.

Over Christmas, peaceful Black Lives Matter protests elicited intense police responses — police responded to the Christmas Mall of America protests instantaneously and in full riot gear.

The National Guard appeared for largely unarmed Black Lives Matter protests in Ferguson and Baltimore, but not for an armed takeover of a federal building that involves direct threats to others’ lives and fits neatly within the definition of terrorism.

This disparity doesn’t just exist in the comparison between the Oregon conflict and the Black Lives Matter movement.

In 2003, the Dann sisters, members of the indigenous Shoshone tribe in Oregon, conflicted with the government over similar issues involving the armed militia. Their unarmed group had legitimate claims to the land it was defending, as the government seized the land illegally in violation of past treaties.

Yet the government responded with force and urgency, seizing cattle with backup from helicopters. Why did our government treat this unarmed group with real grievances as a greater threat than an armed militia with illegitimate claims?

In Oregon, the police have acted slowly and carefully, waiting until Tuesday to cut off electricity and road access to the building. Unfortunately, this patience is not afforded to minority protesters.

People took to social media to point out how the media response would also have been different if Muslim Americans staged the occupation — we would not refer to these militiamen as activists, but “terrorists” — which is exactly what the militiamen are in this situation.

It is unlikely the media will investigate how these militiamen were radicalized, and it is unlikely that white Americans will feel the need to denounce this act in the face of backlash.

We cannot continue to allow skin color to dictate our media coverage and police actions. We must determine labels and treatment for terrorists not by the color of their skin but by their actions.

Terrorism only has one definition. It’s one size fits all —regardless of appearance.

Alyssa primarily writes on social justice and political issues for The Pitt News.

Write to her at aal43@pitt.edu