Don't Worry, America. He Was White.
The terrorist at FSU wasn't an "illegal." He was a white sheriff's son.
Yesterday, a white dude named Phoenix Ikner walked into the student union at Florida State University and opened fire. Two dead. Six injured. Brought a shotgun that jammed, then switched to his stepmom’s old service weapon like this was some kind of twisted Call of Duty DLC.
Now, you might think: surely this will be labeled what it is—a domestic terror attack committed by a radicalized white supremacist Trump bootlicker who had been kicked out of political clubs at school for having too big a boner for Nazis. Right?
Bless your innocent heart.
Nope. CNN leads with: “troubled childhood.”
Oh, of course. Poor baby. Maybe he just needed a hug. Or a therapist. Or a sticker chart. Because apparently, if you’re white and angry and armed and you fucking kill people, the only question anyone asks is: “But how did we fail him?”
Let’s Be Honest About What This Is
This is not a “mental health crisis.” It’s not a “lone wolf.”
It’s a pack problem. A cultural rot problem. A “how many times do we have to do this before someone admits this country has a white guy with a gun and a Newsmax addiction problem” problem.
And if I sound pissed, it’s because I’ve lived this pattern before.
I was a staff writer at The Boston Globe and the LA Times. I saw how the story sausage got made. The "objective" headlines that somehow always made white killers sound like misunderstood violin prodigies, while Black and brown folks got the journalistic version of a mugshot and a one-way bus to hell. If I pointed out the double-standard, I was told I was “playing the race card,” which, as far as I could tell, meant I… um… thought non-white people were also people.
I’d submit stories grounded in facts and context and be told to “keep emotion out of it.”
But surprise: the decision to call someone a “disturbed loner” instead of a “domestic terrorist” IS an emotional one. It’s just that in this country’s media and, now, White House, only Nazi feelings matter.
Meanwhile, Back at the Imaginary Border Crisis…
Every election cycle, like clockwork, we get The Great Imaginary Migrant Panic.
They're coming! They're invading! They’ve got drugs, gangs, babies, salsa! The horror.
Cool, I guess? Except... it’s not true. None of it.
Let’s run the stats:
In Texas—the only state that actually tracks immigration status in arrest records—undocumented immigrants are arrested at HALF the rate of U.S.-born citizens for violent and drug crimes.
Property crimes? One quarter the rate.
Border encounters in 2024? Down 77%.
That’s right. There’s no invasion. There’s no crisis. And those folks who are moving here from somewhere else aren’t doing anything but the jobs all y’all don’t want, like data analysis at Dell. But Trump and Fox News get their concepts of ideas about immigrants (and all the Latinos they conflate with immigrants) from the ficitonal movie Sicaro.
But yeah, let’s keep wasting enormous amounts of money funding tank rollouts in El Paso while white dudes in Tallahassee are turning college campuses into warzones.
So Who’s Actually the Threat?
Not immigrants. Not refugees. Not the tamale lady. Not the family in line at your local panadería.
It’s people like Phoenix Ikner.
It’s the guy in the Punisher hoodie with a manifesto, a crusty sock on his nightstand, and mommy issues.
57% of all domestic terror attacks between 1994 and 2020? Right-wing extremists.
In 2019? Two-thirds of all domestic terror plots.
But when they shoot up a church or campus or mall? “He had a hard time growing up.”
Meanwhile, a 14th-generation American named Sanchez, whose family literally founded Santa Fe 300 years before JD Vance’s first ancestors arrived on this continent to spawn fake hillbillies, gets pulled over for a broken taillight and Fox News does a three-day special on "The Invasion."
Make it make sense. Oh wait—you can’t. Because it doesn’t. But that hasn’t stopped the media from trying.
Speaking of Hypocrisy…
Let me introduce you to Kilmar Abrego Garcia.
He’s a Maryland dad. A legal U.S. resident. No criminal record. Just trying to live, work, and not get kidnapped by the government.
Spoiler: He got kidnapped by the government.
Kilmar was sent to a torture prison in El Salvador. For nothing. No charges.
No due process. Just a one-way ticket out of the country because he looked “suspicious” to a Border Patrol agent whose main credential was probably owning a belt buckle bigger than his empathy.
Then the Supreme Court—all 9 justices—unanimously ruled Trump had to bring Kilmar back.
Trump said: Nah.
His press secretary? Made jokes about it.
His supporters online? Called Kilmar a “criminal alien.”
Even though he’s not. And never was.
This is what authoritarianism looks like when it comes in khakis and smiles.
Not jackboots—just bureaucracy, lies, and a dash of “Don’t Tread on Me” merch.
So Let’s Review:
Phoenix Ikner, white supremacist terrorist, gets to live, gets to trial, gets national coverage soft-pedaling his motives.
Kilmar Abrego Garcia, Latino father and U.S. resident, gets renditioned to hell for literally existing.
One is “disturbed.”
The other is “illegal.”
One gets sympathy.
The other gets torture.
One is white.
One is not.
That’s the America we’re living in. And if you think these aren’t connected, you’re not paying attention.
It’s Not Just Racism. It’s Design.
This isn’t “oops.” This isn’t a bug in the system.
This is the system.
Built to protect the violent and punish the vulnerable.
Built to elevate white rage and erase brown survival.
Built to call men like Phoenix victims—and men like Kilmar criminals, even when they're literally both the opposite of the label they get.
This country will spend $100 million chasing a fake border crisis and hand-deliver hardworking Latino dads to a torture chamber—while letting homegrown Nazis walk free until they pull the trigger, and, in the case of Kyle Rittenhouse and all the cop-killing January 6 fuckwits, even after.
So What Do We Do?
We tell the truth. Over and over. Loudly.
We stop letting media outlets frame every white shooter like a Shakespearean antihero.
We stop letting politicians use “border crisis” as a polite way of saying “brown people scare me.”
We say their names. We call this what it is.
It’s racist.
It’s dangerous.
And it’s getting worse.
📣 If you’re pissed, you’re paying attention.
Hit that share button. Email it to your uncle who watches Newsmax. Scream it from your TikTok.
And if you want more of this kind of thing—truth, teeth, and receipts—
subscribe to ALISA WRITES.
We’re not waiting for permission over here.
And we’re not obeying Nazis in advance.
Or ever.
👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼 Bravo! First real story I have read ever! (and plan to share) I’m sick and tired of media betraying the opposite of what’s happening. Those of us who can’t write as eloquent as you, must share. Thank you for your hard work.
“Excitable boy they all said”