Language is critical in its nuances, especially when we are confronted with the apologists and denials of this weekend’s terror attacks in Charlottesville, VA. While there are times for diplomatic tact and mincing of words for propriety’s sake, that time is not now.
A person, a terrorist, rammed a crowd of innocent people with a car as a weapon. PLEASE, let us drive the narrative of reality, and stop merely saying that “a car drove into a crowd of people.” The latter only fans the flames of false-equivalency and minimizes responsibility for this heinous act.
Looking through diaries and headlines, I’d like to credit DK’s MeteorBlades with his blog about the incident, one of the few calling it for what it is. Yes, a car crashed into the crowd, but a driver drove it there. But CNN, the NY Times, and other mainstream and legitimate news sources have been failing to underscore the terrorist nature of the attacks, largely by ascribing motives to an inanimate object, or at least glossing over the deliberate activity of its navigator.
Headlines we have not seen:
“Torches march on campus as voiceboxes intimidate churchgoers”
“Pistol claims lives of 3 in concert shooting.”
“Bomb sneaks up on crowd and explodes itself, killing several.”
“Knife fatally cuts policeman on London Bridge.”
While this may bring accusations of facetiousness and crass rhetorical sensationalism, is it any less so for us to abrogate our responsibility to point fingers at the guilty and declare the reprehensibility of these actions?
OK, NRA fanatics, if guns don’t kill people, then neither do cars.
Let’s stop with the egregious bullshit and pussyfooting, all of us, and make sure that the world knows that a vulgar white-supremacist, a terrorist, murdered a woman in broad daylight after being incited to do so by a head of state.
“An American terrorist plowed into a crowd of people on Saturday, killing one woman and injuring at least 20.” That’s the headline. Tweet it, post it, comment with it, but don’t sugarcoat it, it was a terrorist murder, and we have to shout it out, lest the hatefulness drown us out.