Clear As Mud: Hate Crime for Whites, Terrorism for Muslims

Brad Friedman, the host of Radio Sputnik’s BradCast show, invited former FBI Special Agent turned 9/11 whistleblower Coleen Rowley to his show again to talk more about the difference between terrorism and hate crimes.

Turns out, the two terms overlap to a large extent and oftentimes it's quite hard to tell hate crimes and terrorism apart, BradCast said.

"I think it's clear as mud. There are subjective motives for categorizing different crimes in different ways," Rowley said during the radio show, adding that a lot of subjective judgment is applied when charging those involved in terrorism and hate crimes.

What distinguishes the two is intent, Rowley said.

"If you murder somebody what's the difference between murdering them and hating them at the same time and just plain murdering them. And so there was a lot of discussion that the difference is only the intent."

But in the case of Dylann Roof his intent was to terrorize and to start a race war, and therefore he is a terrorist and should be charged as one. Instead, the 21-year-old shooter from South Carolina was charged with murder, attempted murder, the use of fire arms and hate crime. But in reality, there is no difference between Roof and ISIL terrorists, Friedman said.

Last week, Rowly discussed the term "terrorism" that is uniquely set for Muslims and people of Middle Eastern origin. In the aftermath of a crime, perpetrators with an Arab or Muslim background are more likely to be labelled as terrorists than White people. The former group is associated with "the global war on terrorism," meanwhile the latter is said to have mental illness or experience social isolation.