An otherwise unexceptional Massachusetts man stole a box truck outside Boston on Saturday, crashed it into a home in Winthrop, then proceeded to gun down two Black residents. Nathan Allen passed by non-Black ones, leaving them unharmed (BuzzFeed News):
After crashing the truck, Allen, 28, got out of the vehicle and targeted Cooper, who was shot in the back multiple times, and Green, who was shot in the head, neck, and torso repeatedly, [Suffolk District Attorney Rachael] Rollins said in a statement on Sunday. Green was shot outside his home and “may have been trying to engage the suspect to end the threat,” according to Massachusetts State Police Col. Christopher Mason.
Allen walked by several people who were not Black and left them unharmed, Rollins told reporters during a press conference at the scene on Sunday, the Boston Globe reported. “They are alive, and these two visible people of color are not,” she emphasized.
Allen died after exchanging gunfire with local police.
Is it something in the water?
Rollins said in a statement that Allen “wrote about the superiority of the white race. About whites being ‘apex predators.’ He drew swastikas.” Police are investigating it as a hate crime. Allen is believed to have acted alone.
But Rollins suggested that there were few, if any, outward signs of Allen being a violent white supremacist prior to the killings. She said Allen was legally licensed to carry a firearm and was not on authorities’ radar. “He had nothing in his background check,” she added.
“This shooter was married and employed. He had a PhD and no criminal history. To all external sources he likely appeared unassuming,” she said. “And then, yesterday afternoon he stole a box truck, crashed it into another vehicle and a property, walked away from the wreckage interacting with multiple individuals and choosing only to shoot and kill the two Black people he encountered.”
This is the point in the reportage that we get six paragraphs on Allen’s seemingly normal white life in an effort to understand what triggered him. No prior record. Nothing on his Facebook account except “drinking beer in an American flag-styled shirt with a friend, and traveling in Vienna,” etc. Just a normal, recently married white guy who dreams of being an apex predator and draws swastikas.
Daily Beast gives Allen even more normal white guy backstory. The Black victims’ get respectful mentions from those who knew them, naturally, but the white shooter gets the Hallmark treatment.
The New York Times quotes Rollins as noting there are several synagogues in Winthrop.
“We don’t know where he was going; that is mere speculation,” Rollins said. “We do know he had anti-Semitic rhetoric written in his own hand.”
BuzzFeed News again:
The apparent targeted killing comes amid a rising tide of white supremacist violence in the US. An analysis by the Washington Post found that since 2015, there have been 267 plots or attacks by far-right extremists and 91 fatalities. The Department of Homeland Security has issued warnings this year about potential violence by domestic political extremists and racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists.
Or is it something in the air?
We don’t know yet what set off Nathan Allen (WBZ):
The Anti-Defamation League says to is worrisome to know there are those among us who have been radicalized to hate people because of their religion or skin color. And it is scary and dangerous not to know when they could act on that hatred.
“There are people walking around who they’re motivated by hatred, and have, at some point, been radicalized to target people because of their skin color or their religion. And what’s dangerous, and what’s scary for all of us in the public, is we don’t know when this might happen,” said Robert Trestan of the Anti-Defamation League
We do know a major political party and its propaganda outlets are complicit in stoking right-wing extremism and pretending they are not. Critics tend to blame media platforms: Facebook, Twitter, Fox News. The real blame, however, falls squarely on those holding and promoting such views so as to make them seem mainstream and normal-white-guy.
At a Twitter confab two years ago, an employee asked that if they could ban ISIS content from the platform, why not white supremacist content? Well, because algorithms involve trade-offs that can catch innocent users as well (Vice):
In separate discussions verified by Motherboard, that employee said Twitter hasn’t taken the same aggressive approach to white supremacist content because the collateral accounts that are impacted can, in some instances, be Republican politicians.
And Facebook? What of T. Raja Singh, a politician from India’s ruling party, and his calls to shoot Muslim immigrants and threats to destroy mosques (Business Insider):
Facebook employees had concluded that, in addition to violating the company’s policies, Singh’s rhetoric in the real world was dangerous enough to merit kicking him off the platform entirely, according to the report, but the company’s top public policy executive in India overruled them, arguing that the political repercussions could hurt Facebook’s business interests in the country (its largest market globally).
In Facebook’s home country, similar business interests overrule public safety interests.
“Not too long ago,” writes Dan Kennedy (GBH), “Tucker Carlson would go on vacation — always long-planned, of course — whenever one of his rancid descents into racism and white supremacy made life momentarily uncomfortable for his overlords at Fox News. He’d disappear for a few days, come back once the heat had died down and resume his hate-mongering ways.”
But when the Anti-Defamation League recently called on Fox News to fire Carlson for promoting white replacement theory, News Corp heir Lachlan Murdoch himself defended Carlson (and Fox’s audience share).
Kennedy writes, “This is how it works if you’re Tucker Carlson: You can express vile, unadorned racist views. And as long as you say the equivalent of “I’m not being racist,” you’re good to go. Or, rather, good to stay.”
If you do so as a fringe-right politician, business interests that make money from your audience engagement will help you build your audience by inviting you on the air to spread extremist views. For some outlets, it’s a twofer. They provide both a platform for those popularizing extremist, white supremacist, even fascist views, and reserve time for hosts to do the same with or without guests.
The problem is not the algorithms or the people who program them. The problem is the extremists among us who feel free these days to evangelize.