Call white supremacy by its name: Terrorism
By Sherrilyn Ifill
Updated 4:00 PM ET, Sun March 26, 2017
(CNN)This week a 28-year-old white supremacist traveled to New York for the express purpose of killing a black man. Any black man.
Within hours, Timothy Caughman, a black man from Queens, stumbled to a midtown police station bleeding. He had been stabbed, ultimately fatally, with a 26-inch sword. "What are you doing?" Caughman had asked his assailant.
James Harris Jackson gave police officers his answer: He hates black men and has since his youth. His plan was to kill more people than Caughman. He considered taking an officers' gun and shooting more black men.
The tragic killing of Timothy Caughman is a heinous hate crime. It is also an act of domestic terrorism. And it matters that we begin to name white supremacist murders in this way.
His crime bears eerie similarity to that of Dylann Roof, who committed mass murder in Emanuel AME Church in April 2015. Like Roof, Jackson chose the location for his alleged crime to heighten the public significance of his act. New York, Jackson told police, was ideal because it is the "media capital" of the country. Roof, who lived in North Carolina, chose Emanuel Baptist in Charleston, South Carolina, after he learned about the historic significance of the church. Jackson claims to have left a manifesto, like Roof, on his computer, which he says will "explain" his actions.
Crimes like these certainly seem to be acts of terrorism, but our federal terrorism law doesn't account for prosecution of true homegrown terrorism, that which comes from Americans, against Americans, and without foreign influence.
more:
http://www.cnn.com/2017/03/26/opinions/white-supremacy-is-terrorism-ifill-opinion/index.html
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