This article draws from key insights developed in Caroline Mala Corbin’s essay “Terrorists Are Always Muslim but Never White” (Fordham Law Review, 2017), and the 2018 study “Who is a Terrorist? Ethnicity, Group Affiliation, and Understandings of Political Violence” by Dr. Vito D’Orazio and Dr. Idean Salehyan, published in International Interactions. While these studies are U.S.-based, they shed light on broader global dynamics regarding the racialized and politicized use of the word “terrorist.”
The First Time I Heard ‘Terrorism’
Terrorism. We all have heard this word being repeated constantly on the television and in daily conversations at work or at school or in any other social setting – or even just in our own minds.
My first memories of this word date back to 2001, when I was only 4 years old, but the images of the violent attack against the Twin Towers by al-Qaeda, the media coverage, and the adults’ conversations have marked me forever. From that moment on, whenever I would hear the word terrorism, I would immediately think of a possible violent attack carried out by a Muslim man.
The irony is: I am Muslim myself.
But beyond my personal perception, what is the broader perception? Who do we picture when we hear the word “terrorist”? What shapes how we understand terrorism? And who decides who gets the terrorist label? What are the real-world consequences of this perception?
Who Is a Terrorist? When Perception Beats Facts
In 2019, Dr. Vito D’Orazio and Dr. Idean Salehyan conducted a study titled “Who is a Terrorist? Ethnicity, Group Affiliation, and Understandings of Political Violence.” The research aimed to assess public perceptions of a perpetrator based on their ethnic identity.
Participants were presented with a fictional scenario involving a mass shooting and asked whether they considered the suspect a terrorist. Each scenario varied in terms of the suspect’s ethnicity (white, Arab-American, or unspecified) and whether the individual acted alone or was affiliated with an extremist group.
The findings revealed that participants were significantly more likely to label the shooter as a terrorist when he was identified as Arab-American. They were also more likely to support mental health treatment when the suspect was white, whereas they favored counterterrorism measures when the suspect was Arab-American.
This study highlights how bias and subjective perception influence the way people judge identical acts, depending solely on the identity of the person committing them.
The Role of Media: Repetition, Stereotypes, and Bias
According to Caroline Mala Corbin, Professor of Law at the University of Miami, when people hear the word terrorist, they are unlikely to picture a white person. In her 2017 essay, “Terrorists Are Always Muslim but Never White,” she explains how the term is routinely associated with a racialized group now termed “Muslim” – including both Muslims and those perceived as Arab or Middle Eastern.
She gives several reasons for this association, based on findings from different studies:
- Muslims are rarely portrayed as everyday people in films and television. Instead, they are often shown as terrorists, villains, or fanatics.
- Terrorist attacks perpetrated by Muslims receive, on average, 449% more media coverage than those by non-Muslims, as found in a 2017 study titled Why Do Some Terrorist Attacks Receive More Media Attention Than Others? by Erin M. Kearns and colleagues.
- Around 75% of news stories about Muslims focus on ISIS or other militant groups, according to a 2017 report by Meighan Stone titled Snake and Stranger: Media Coverage of Muslims and Refugee Policy (Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics & Public Policy).
One clear example of this bias was the 2017 Quebec mosque shooting, where six people were killed. Early media reports falsely identified the Moroccan man who called the police as a suspect. The actual gunman was a white French-Canadian. Despite his political motive and attempt to instill terror, he was not labeled a terrorist.
This systematic misrepresentation has serious consequences – it distorts public opinion, reinforces unconscious associations through repetition, and shapes public policies that disproportionately target Muslim communities (e.g., the NYPD spying program, CVE programs).
Why “White” Violence Isn’t Called Terrorism
Building on Corbin’s analysis, white privilege also reinforces the implicit narrative that “terrorists are Muslim.” As Peggy McIntosh wrote, white privilege is like “an invisible package of unearned assets that I can count on cashing in each day, but about which I was meant to remain oblivious.”
Most white individuals are unaware of the privileges they hold: being able to find your skin tone in a makeup store, going to a restaurant and seeing many people who look like you, taking an airplane without being looked at suspiciously… or committing a violent act without being labeled a terrorist.
When white perpetrators commit mass killings, media portrayals often humanize them. We see their childhood photos, hear about their hobbies, and read sympathetic narratives that try to understand their psychological distress.
In contrast, Muslim perpetrators are often stripped of any backstory or complexity – their actions are reduced to their religion.
This creates a damaging and dangerous shortcut: Islam = violence, while white extremism is treated as tragic but exceptional.
Yet many white supremacist attackers – like the perpetrator of the 2015 Charleston Black church shooting – were clearly motivated by ideology. He left a manifesto, wanted to start a race war, and explicitly said so. He told one survivor that he was letting her live so she could tell the world about him. He didn’t just want to kill – he wanted to instill terror. Still, he wasn’t charged with terrorism.
As Corbin puts it, the point isn’t that white perpetrators are never mentally ill – but that neither are all Muslim ones. The key difference is in how they are represented, judged, and remembered. And understanding those differences is key to addressing the root of violence itself, not just its symptoms.
When we acknowledge these biases, we can stop reacting with assumptions and start asking deeper questions:
What drives someone to such acts? What patterns are we ignoring?
Only then can we begin to address the roots of violence, rather than just responding to its outcomes.
The Psychology of Stereotypes and Mental Shortcuts
Corbin’s work helps explain how repeated images and stories in the media shape our thinking through unconscious biases and influence how we interpret the world – often without us even realizing it.
To process overwhelming daily stimuli, the human brain creates categories. For example, when we categorize wearing a suit as a sign of professionalism or success, we tend to assume the person is educated, wealthy, or trustworthy – even if we know nothing about them.
This helps us function – but it also opens the door to stereotyping. Once a group is consistently portrayed as dangerous or violent, we unconsciously associate them with those traits, even without intending harm.
As Corbin explains, once these unconscious associations form, the confirmation bias sets in, meaning that we tend to notice, process, and remember information in a way that confirms our pre-existing beliefs.
For example, if someone already associates terrorism with Muslims, every media report confirming that image will strengthen their belief – while they may completely ignore or forget attacks carried out by non-Muslims.
It’s not always a conscious choice, but rather an automatic way our brain filters information to fit into what it already thinks it knows. It’s a cognitive error.
This is how even people who don’t hold overtly racist views end up perpetuating dangerous stereotypes – including journalists, filmmakers, and everyday citizens.
Naming the Violence: Who Deserves the Word ‘Terrorist’?
This distorted logic doesn’t just shape how we perceive violence – it also shapes how we name it.
I’ve personally been told: “Not all Muslims are terrorists, but all terrorists are Muslim.” I’ve even been asked: “How do we know you’re not one of them?”
Such remarks are not just hurtful – they are rooted in a widespread narrative fueled by media and political figures who portray Muslims as conspirators whose aspiration in life is to impose their religion.
But this narrative does nothing to make anyone safer. By linking terrorism directly to Islam without deeper analysis, we obscure root causes, ignore real threats, and push vulnerable people closer to radicalization through stigma and exclusion – and we put Muslims at risk by failing to recognize how this bias fuels hostility, misreporting, and indirect hatred against them.
A recent case in France proves how these dynamics persist. On Friday, April 25, Aboubakr, a young Muslim man, was murdered in a mosque by a white French man who, as seen in surveillance footage, shouted slurs against Islam during the attack. When I first heard the news that same day, the journalist claimed the attacker was another Muslim. This error was almost immediately corrected, as the police quickly identified the aggressor as a non-Muslim French man. However, no media outlet acknowledged the mistake or issued a correction.
This kind of mistake stems from cognitive biases – mental shortcuts shaped by stereotypes that lead to distorted assumptions.
Moreover, even after the truth emerged, key political figures avoided using the term Islamophobia, choosing instead vague phrases like “religious hatred” or “heinous crime.”
And of course, this act will not be labeled as terrorist.
This kind of linguistic reluctance is not neutral. It is political. It invisibilizes Islamophobia, showing a reluctance to portray Muslims as victims when they are, or to acknowledge the violence and hatred directed at them – yet it never hesitates or puts things into perspective when portraying them as terrorists.
The Colonial Logic Behind the Terrorist Label
This bias is not new – it is rooted in centuries of Orientalism, colonialism, and the fear of the “Other.” That fear has long shaped how white Western societies perceived the people they encountered during colonial expansion – and it still does.
The same logic persists today: the belief that we, and those who resemble us, live the right way – with the right traditions, values, and intellect – while they are misguided, uncivilized, or even barbaric.
While this logic may exist in human nature – a tendency to fear what is different – and while other nations have also acted upon it, Western powers have historically been – and often remain – its primary drivers, enforcers, and beneficiaries (as seen in the transatlantic slave trade or the colonization of Africa and the Middle East).
This logic allowed Western powers to position themselves as masters (through colonization), leaders (through puppet regimes), or saviors (through Christian missionary work). The same mindset underpins many modern political ideologies – from Nazism and white supremacy to the ideological use of Islamophobia.
In the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, a modern example of colonialism supported by the West, Israeli officials have referred to Palestinians as “animals,” while much of Western media has uncritically echoed the Israeli government’s framing of the conflict. Palestinian resistance – whether violent or peaceful – is routinely branded as terrorism, while state violence from Israel, a colonizing power, is rationalized as self-defense.
However, when Ukrainians resist Russian occupation using similar tactics, they are more often referred to as freedom fighters.
And this isn’t just about Gaza or the association of Muslims with terrorism – even though that is the most widespread and deeply rooted bias.
Another example of how the label terrorist is misused can be found in Egypt or Russia, where it is routinely used to silence political opposition under authoritarian regimes.
Around the world, the term is selectively applied – almost always in ways that protect the powerful.
Terrorism: A Definition That Depends on Power
Legally, the United Nations defines terrorism as:
“Criminal acts intended or calculated to provoke a state of terror in the general public, a group of persons or particular persons for political purposes… and are in any circumstance unjustifiable.”
The Oxford Dictionary defines a terrorist as:
“A person who uses unlawful violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims.”
Based on these definitions, we could objectively categorize many of Israel’s military actions, several U.S. interventions in the Middle East, and white supremacist attacks as acts of terrorism. They involve force, intimidation, civilian casualties, and political goals.
Yet we rarely see them labeled that way. Why?
Because the use of the term terrorist has nothing to do with legal consistency – and everything to do with who holds the power to define it.
It’s not a neutral word. It’s a narrative weapon, used to protect the status quo, condemning some while excusing others.
Why the Label Matters
There are clear, objective definitions of what terrorism is and who a terrorist is. Yet in practice, subjectivity, unconscious bias, and political agendas often distort how these terms are applied.
Today, the word terrorism is overwhelmingly – and almost exclusively – used to describe acts of violence committed by so-called Muslims. Rarely is there space to explore root causes or even consider mental health factors – as if a Muslim who commits violence must automatically be acting from a healthy mind, simply following ideology, not psychological distress.
As a result, all Muslims become potential threats – because that type of violence is no longer seen as exceptional, but rather as the natural outcome of someone strictly following their faith.
These biases, amplified by political rhetoric and media framing, are not just unfair – they are dangerous. They prevent us from addressing the root causes of violence, focusing instead on its surface symptoms. They foster fear, suspicion, and hatred toward Muslim communities, who are too often portrayed as threats, extremists, or inherently conservative – and almost never as full human beings with families, jobs, hobbies, or dreams.
This dehumanization runs so deep that recognizing Muslims as victims – when they suffer the consequences of this hate – is treated as a concession, or as something exceptional, and often still comes with conditions that limit their full recognition as victims. We saw this dynamic again recently, in France.
If we are serious about justice and safety, we must confront not only acts of violence – but also the systems, labels, and narratives that define them.
Terrorism should describe what is done, not who does it. But as long as power, prejudice, and selective empathy define the label, it will remain a tool of fear – not of truth, protection, or justice.
Recognizing these patterns doesn’t weaken the fight against real threats – it strengthens it. By insisting on accuracy and fairness, we can build a more just, united society.
Instead of fueling hatred and division – and endlessly fighting symptoms – we can begin to address violence at its roots, and move toward a world that is fairer and safer for everyone.
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