That's right. The Atlantic Wire has a summary here (4/19/13), describing the following incidents:
1. A Bengladeshi software engineer was attacked at an Applebee's in the Bronx by three or four men who mistook him for an Arab (as if that would have been okay).
2. A Syrian Muslim woman, and a physician, was in Boston as she pushed her baby in a stroller away from a children's play facility.
3. Anti-Muslim graffiti was spray-painting on the hoardings of a mosque under construction in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Nor is this concern limited to the Muslim community or the east coast. In Redding California, www.redding.com reports (4/20/13) that Sikh Head Priest Amarjit Singh, in a joint statement with Abu Bakr Salahuddin, the imam at the Redding Islamic Center, stated:
Singh said after Americans saw pictures of Osama bin Laden with a long beard and a turban, they considered anyone with those features a Muslim.
However, he said American Muslims don’t typically wear turbans — but Sikhs, do and they are forbidden from shaving their beards.
That misconception has led to attacks before in Shasta County, he said. In 2007, a man high on drugs stole a tractor and demolished part of the Sikh Centre because, the vandal said, it was occupied by foreigners who didn’t believe in Jesus.
Yet none of these concerns prevented Erik Rush, a Fox News talking head,
tweeted that we should kill all the Muslims. He later claimed he was joking. Ha. Ha. And by now many of us have heard the call of Rep. Peter King (R-Teh Stupid, it burns!) for increased police surveillance of Muslims.
One aspect of these attacks is the utter cowardice of the perpetrators. Attacking an outnumbered man by surprise at a restaurant. Attacking a mother as she pushes her baby in a stroller. Sneaking around in the middle of the night with spray paint.
Another aspect of this of course white privilege. When white people commit terrorist acts, one doesn't see them getting blamed as a group. Do the Irish get blamed as a group for IRA or the UDF? I don't see that happening.
Furthermore, the use of a firearm by a white person is much less likely to be denominated "terrorism", which is important insofar as that label affects how we respond to the act. The terrorist label permits shutdown of an entire city and allows legislation such as the USA PATRIOT Act to pass with just a slightest murmur of opposition, if that.
Tim McVeigh used a bomb of course and was clearly and justifiably denominated a terrorist, but does one see white people stigmatized as a result? One can say the same thing about the numerous bombings and attempted bombings perpetrated by whites over the years, from (and before) the Birmingham sunday attack on a church, to the attempted bombing of an MLK parade in Spokane.
The far right has made a heyday out of President Obama's not characterizing the 2009 Fort Hood shooting (committed by a Muslim) as terrorism, but one doesn't hear similar calls to so label the numerous gun massacres committed before and since by whites. Again the reason is that the word "terrorism" has legislative and political weight -- and that that weight should actually fall upon the virtually limitless firearms trafficking in this country is something that can't be allowed.
In the Boston case, we see how the ready access to firearms facilitated a terrorist plot. So if there is any legislative response, one would expect it to address that access. But it won't.