I Googled the phrase “Germanwings crash” and “Andreas Lubitz” in the hopes that the results I was looking for would enable me to solidify the rant that I am ready to unleash. Needless to say, I was not disappointed. Let’s take a look at the following articles–

Crash Victim’s Father Calls for More Focus on Pilot Welfare – ABC News

Andreas Lubitz, Germanwings co-pilot: The tortuous trail to ‘Why?’ – CNN

Excerpts from the CNN article:

“The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, citing unnamed sources, reported that Lubitz suffered from mental illness.”

“Officials say he passed a psychological test when he was hired, had no known ties to terrorism and showed no sign of medical distress during the flight.”

Germanwings plane crash: Co-pilot ‘wanted to destroy plane’ – The BBC

Germanwings Crash Raises Questions For Pilots Taking Depression Drugs – Forbes

Depression. A focus on pilot welfare. No ties to terrorism. Mental illness.

WHY IS THIS MAN NOT CALLED A TERRORIST?!

This is not an attempt to deviate attention away from the horrors of this event. I am not trying to push a political agenda or force my opinions down anyone’s throats. I am not excusing the heinous actions committed by terrorists over the years. I just want events like this to shed light upon other, real issues that have ties to ones like this.

Why, why is it that media outlets have no qualms about stamping a terrorist label upon individuals with a darker shade of skin or some sort of Islamic background who are involved in terrible situations like this? I have no problem in believing that the Germanwings pilot possessed some sort of mental illness–after all, what sane person would have the ability to commit such mass murder? (Don’t answer that.)

Of course, that first question was rhetorical. Much of the public is well-aware, or so I hope, of the strings attached to maintaining a firm “colored people/Muslims/people who fit in our ‘other’ category only” theme for a number of reasons–political power, financial gain, swaying public opinion for private purposes, etc etc etc.

It is a seemingly unrelenting phenomenon that people will try harder to excuse the actions of Caucasian terrorists by digging into mental histories and historical backgrounds dating from birth: anything to find a reason, none of them being terrorism. Where is this sort of reasoning when it comes to the popular opinion of terrorism? Do we consider the upbringing, the background or the mental histories of these individuals? Where is the equality there? Don’t all lives matter?

Now, the term terrorism is commonly understood to mean something along the lines of “one who uses terror (read: violence) to for political means.” According to a Yahoo! News article, pilot/murder Andreas Lubitz was quoted telling his ex-girlfriend that he was worried “health problems” would dash his dreams and vowed one day to do something to “change the whole system”. Hmm, commit an act in order to gain ground in his beliefs? Sounds kinda like the media-touted definition of terrorism, don’t you think?

But it’s OK folks, he is white after all. No need to jump the gun here, he clearly poses no threat as a terrorist.