Why can't white people be terrorists?
Current events: In the United States, mass murders by white people are rarely classified by the news as terrorism, even when the attack is politically motivated or the attacker uses what the press calls “terrorist-like tactics”. There are some interesting ideas as to why this is the case.
#1: Terrorism is essentially a tactic used by the weak against the powerful. It’s typically used by minority factions who lack the manpower, training or equipment of a nation state, and as a result can only attack weakly-defended targets with whatever weapons are available to civilians.
When a white American launches a terror attack, one reason it’s not called terrorism is that whites are not a political minority. White Christians are very much the ruling class in the United States, so when one of that group exerts power even in an extremist manner, it’s still only asserting the status quo. It’s not an act of rebellion, at least not in the big picture.
#2: Terrorism, generally, requires either the ability to avoid being caught, or a complete disregard for the consequences of one’s actions. Getting away with terrorism in the US today would require an uncommon level of skill and/or the protection of a powerful group like a foreign country. It’s much more common that the attacker is either a reckless psychopath or some kind of fanatic, and thus isn’t discouraged by being caught or killed.
White Americans don’t normally have cultural links to foreign states that would fund, train, protect or exfiltrate them, and even then it’s extremely difficult for anyone to operate a domestic terror group inside the US. There are essentially no white radical groups motivated enough to operate or support a campaign of violence against their own country. This limits most white American terrorists to solo, one-off attacks that end in the attacker being killed or captured.
It’s hard for the public to consider “lone wolf” attackers as terrorists because terrorism is generally thought of as a series of well-planned attacks performed by a known group who pose a persistent threat. Once a lone wolf attacker is caught, his micro-rebellion is considered defeated and his motives are usually explained as derived from mental issues or personal delusions of grandeur rather than a genuine threat to the state.
#3: Terrorists frequently use bombs, either as a suicide attack or a planted bomb in order to kill as many people as possible instantaneously or destroy some piece of infrastructure, while the bomber expects to avoid capture simply by not being there once the attack happens.
“Lone wolf” attackers tend to use semi-automatic guns instead, readily available in the United States where there’s a strong culture associating firearm ownership with personal liberty and self-reliance. Bombs are thought of as the weapon of cowards and terrorists, whereas gun owners are considered brave and heroic. It’s difficult for the American public to break that mental association.
#4: There are other well-known templates for mass killings that fit patterns other than terrorism. An attack which could both be described as “terrorism” and as a “mass shooting” may be considered primarily as a mass shooting, simply because this fits the pattern well. Likewise, a white person killing black people is widely understood in the US as a “hate crime”, so it’s easy for the public to think of an attack as a massive hate crime rather than terrorism.
#5: Of course, 9/11 also had a considerable influence on the modern American idea of terrorism. Muslim attackers, Middle-Eastern attackers and suicide attackers are more likely to be considered terrorist by mental association with 9/11, whereas Christians, US citizens, white people and gun attackers are not associated with 9/11 and do not fit the terrorist archetype so strongly.
Even if an attack fits the technical definition of a terrorm, the public may not consider it such if it doesn’t match their mental image. The attackers’ race and religion are factors in that, but they’re only part of the picture.
Update (August 2025): With the UK government’s recent designation of activist group Palestine Action as a terrorist group, and willingness to assert that any given pro-Palestine protester is a member of that group even if they have never formally joined or expressed support for the group, it is now trivially easy for white people to be designated a terrorist. Progress!