After the Parkland, Fla., shooting much of the conversation, especially from those on the right, has centered around the shooter’s mental illness as the root cause of the problem. But when the shooter is Muslim or a person of color, “the immediate reaction from those on the right is to try to find a solution...around immigration,” says Francis Maxwell, host of “The Breakdown” on The Young Turks. Take for example the Orlando nightclub shooting in 2016. The Muslim shooter used an AR-15, the same gun used in Parkland, but there was no serious discussion about gun control back then. Fingers quickly pointed at loose immigration policies despite the fact that statistically, “you’re more likely to be killed in a domestic act of terror by a white American on homegrown soil,” says Maxwell. This difference in treatment is also clearly demonstrated in conversations about the movements that rise from these tragic incidents. Today, #NeverAgain has turned into an admirable national movement against the NRA but when #BlackLivesMatter asked for the same things, “their message wasn’t given the platform.” “We need to look at ourselves in this country and think why...is one vilified and looked at as a movement that’s disruptive and disrespectful and the other looked at as empowering?”
