Decoding the Invisible Whiteness In Boston Bombing Coverage - COLORLINES

Decoding the Invisible Whiteness In Boston Bombing Coverage - COLORLINES

“Efforts to try to fit [the Boston Marathon bombing] into the standard racialized narrative didn’t work. That became clear once the names and photos of the Chechen brothers were released and the speculation about whether they were Muslims or terrorists and Caucasian started,” Perry said in a Wednesday interview. “I think it’s a reflection of how [media] language of ‘terror’ registers as the vulnerability of whiteness, because ‘American’ is read as ‘white.” To capture the label of ‘terrorism’ it has to be whiteness threatened by ‘The Other’.”