#5SmartReads - March 19, 2021

On aspirin, Yunseo Choi, and why it matters if you're Black or White

Are White Men America's Biggest Terror Threat? We Checked (The Root)

“WSEs [White Supremacist Extremists] were responsible for 49 homicides in 26 attacks,” said a May 2017 joint brief from the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI. “[M]ore than any other domestic group.”

We have a White terrorism problem in this country. And if you are White and reading this makes you feel uncomfortable…well, welcome to the club.

Middle Eastern and South Asians were targeted in the months and years after 9/11. Hate crimes against Asians have spiked since the previous president referred to the pandemic as the “China virus.” And let’s not even get into the countless innocent Black Americans who lost their lives at the hands of the police.

In short, we have been and are still uncomfortable. But we keep dying at the hands of White supremacist terrorists, and these murders won’t even be called a hate crime.

This is not an easy read. But it’s an extraordinarily important one.