Domestic terrorism must trump hoax

Make no mistake. Jesse Smollett’s alleged scheme was despicable.

In manufacturing his hoax where red-capped MAGA thugs fleshed out violence on the streets of Chicago, Smollett cheapened the plight of countless victims of hate crimes who have endured derision and terror – especially when they have bravely come forward.

Why then did the media give more attention to a con executed by a narcissistic Hollywood TV thespian than the imminent danger of a high-ranking U.S. Coast Guard officer – who was recently arrested for domestic terrorism – targeting mostly Black critics of President Donald Trump?

Federal authorities took professed white supremacist Christopher Paul Hasson into custody on Feb. 15. Investigators discovered a stockpile of illegal drugs and weapons in his home that they allege were part of a plot to commit acts of mass terrorism.

Hasson’s hit list reportedly included several outspoken Trump critics: Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, of New York, Sens. Chuck Schumer of New York, Cory Booker of New Jersey and Kamala Harris of California, as well as Trump-skeptic TV hosts like Don Lemon, Van Jones and Joe Scarborough.

In contrast to the Smollett farce, the arrest of a certified Caucasian domestic terrorist received widespread media coverage for a mere couple of days. The disturbing reality that this trusted staffer at U.S. Coast Guard headquarters in Washington was able to assemble a veritable arsenal to target prominent Democrats has largely disappeared from national headlines.

“Mental illness” was the term thrown out to explain Hassan’s active online searches – which included “what if trump illegally impeached” and “civil war if trump impeached.” Yet, if this assembler of an arms cache were of an African or Arab background, and such computer files were found at his suburban Maryland home, the conservative and mainstream press would be quick to dub the moniker “terrorist.”

A Caucasian man willing to kill African-American politicians constitutes as much of a terrorist threat as an ISIS jihadi. In fact, arguably, an active duty Coast Guard sailor assembling the tools to execute such a ‘kill list’ should have dominated the news cycles for weeks.

A self-aggrandizing lying actor makes better newspaper copy, though, than a trained member of the UST armed forces ready to follow in the footsteps of the Ku Klux Klan and other racist groups. It’s journalistic malpractice not to warn of such a danger. People’s lives were at clear risk.

But, hey, Hassan was a white man in a MAGA hat out to commit violence. No story there.

This article originally published in the March 4, 2019 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.