On this episode of BackBeat, the guys examine the disparity in extremism coverage in the media, and how it has contributed to a perception that the biggest threat facing Americans is so-called "radical Islamic terror."
They'll also discuss how the government's own statistics definitively make clear that the frequency of right-wing attacks in America since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks is greater than Islamic extremism, yet much of the public is simply unaware of this fact.
Listen to full episode here:
You'll hear from Michael Conforti, AKA Manny Faces, Christopher Twarowski, and Rashed Mian as they expand on the topics discussed in the most recent News Beat podcast episode: "Radical Caucasian Extremism."
The News Beat podcast episode featured:
- Charles Kurzman, professor of sociology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and co-director of the Carolina Center for the Study of the Middle East and Muslim Civilizations.
- Mehdi Hasan, an award-winning independent journalist, political commentator, broadcaster and author, currently the host of UpFront and Head to Head on Al Jazeera English in Washington, D.C., and a columnist at The Intercept.
- Sammy Rangel and Tony McAleer, co-founders of the anti-hate nonprofit Life After Hate, which is dedicated to inspiring individuals to a place of compassion and forgiveness for everyone, including themselves, and counter the seeds of intolerance and racism.
- LiKWUiD, a New York-based hip hop fusion music artist, DJ, songwriter and educator born Faybeo’n LaShanna A Mickens, committed to using her gift of song to empower the portrayal of women in the entertainment industry.
Here's an except from a feature story that accompanied the News Beat podcast episode:
The actual number of attacks perpetrated by so-called Islamic extremists and right-wing extremists suggests a disproportionate amount of funds and attention is directed at the former, when right-wing zealots have carried out even more attacks in the United States since 9/11, killing roughly the same amount of people, according to the government’s own figures.
From Sept. 12, 2001 through Dec. 31, 2016, right-wing extremists carried out 62 violent attacks, killing 106. At the same time, the 23 incidents attributed to Islamic extremists led to 119 deaths, according to the non-partisan United States Government Accountability Office. Up until the summer of 2015, deaths caused by non-Muslims in extremist attacks dwarfed those in which Muslims were fingered as the perpetrators, 48 to 26.
According to data compiled by The Investigative Fund at The Nation Institute and Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting, there was a combined total of 115 successful and foiled right-wing plots between 2008 and 2016, one-third of which were thwarted. During that period, there were 63 cases of Islamic domestic terror.
