The problem I have with this thinking is that it shows an us-or-them mentality. There's not much difference to me between Dzhokar Tsarnaev and Timothy McVeigh. By all appearances at this point, Tsarnaev has a lot more in common with McVeigh than he does al-Qaeda. Pending further investigation/information, both are American wackos who got ahold of a radical ideology and came to hate their country -- the ideologies were different, but it's the same sickness that drives a person to embrace radical ideology and engage in terrorism, whatever the ideology is. I really don't see why we keep talking about their race or ethnicity. I didn't read that Slate article that Pat seems to have found so objectionable, but if it's point was that it would be better if the bomber was a white guy so that millions of dark and olive-skinned people weren't subjected to racism by ignorant people, all other things being equal, I'm not sure I see what the fuss is about.
This does seem a little racist. I'll give pat the benefit of the doubt and say that the "lol" means that this was tongue in cheek, but subtract that lol and you have the very ignorance the writer of that Slate article was worried about, I'll wager. I mean, you said it, about Italians ... to look at me now, after a generation of intermarriage with Irish chicks, I look like a pale white guy, but half my family came from southern Italy, and my Italian ancestors looked at lot like the Tsarnaevs. Dzokhar Tsarnaev looks a lot like my younger brother, actually. So Pat sees these guys as some kind of bad weird other ... but we'll look at their kids as white. It shows the emptiness and bankruptcy of the thinking. These dudes are us, bro.
I mean really, they are from the CAUCASUS. Literally. If by 'white' you mean 'CAUCASIAN,' then they are white. IT'S WHERE WE GET THE EFFING WORD.
Are they pale skinned Scandinavians? No. But they aren't black, they aren't Arab, they aren't East Asian, they aren't South Asian. To whatever extent Greeks or Russians are white, these dudes are white.
