4

Americans Have a Weak Spot for White, Liberal Terrorists

Siri Stafford/Digital Vision/Getty Images

Let's be clear: Patty was brainwashed. But so is every other terrorist out there, from what I can tell. Very few people are born with an innate desire to utilize beheadings to achieve their political and religious agenda. I mean, I know like six people born that way, but they were really bad babies. And three of them were mine.

Siri Stafford/Digital Vision/Getty Images
This one is hiding a detonator in his fat rolls.

The difference between Patty and, say, I don't know, terrorists with brown skin, is that her conversion time was insanely short and she looks like white America. During her trial her defense went back and forth between her having Stockholm Syndrome and her being "forced" to rob banks and drive getaway cars while her comrades shot civilians dead. Both are bad news for everyone involved, but you couldn't really tell where Patty stood ideology-wise. Especially because she looked like the thousands of young upper-class American girls who were wearing their boyfriends' letter jackets and cheering at the big homecoming game one year and smoking pot and hitching to California with their new Moonie cult the next year.

3

The Most Wanted Female Terrorist in America Is Tupac's Aunt

A year before Patty went rogue, Assata Shakur, black activist and aunt to a newborn Tupac, straight-up shot a trooper during a routine traffic stop. She was arrested for her crime but escaped from jail with the help of the unironically named Black Liberation Army. From there, Shakur escaped to Cuba and has been there ever since. On the 40th anniversary of her victim's death, the FBI got sentimental and put Shakur on their list of most wanted terrorists. They tried to send her roses, but she quickly realized the flowers were a trick to figure out her address.

So the differences between Patty and Assata are obvious: Hearst didn't actually pull any triggers, and she quickly denounced the ideology that took over her mind. Assata still considers herself a political exile, not a murderer. In fact, she calls herself a "20th century escaped slave," and Kanye West is punching himself at this moment for not thinking of that phrase first.

For young, educated white girls, political radicalization is seen as a phase meant to be outgrown, like purple hair streaks and bisexuality. Everyone else: Tread lightly with angry political ideologies, because you will be seen as a threat to the world.

Do you think I'm kidding?

2

White Lady Radicals From the '70s Are Professors Now

1

No One Takes White Lady Terrorists That Seriously

www.thedenverchannel.com

When 19-year-old Shannon Conley was caught trying to join ISIS, her judge, once again, had mixed feelings about what to do with her. He said, "I'm not saying that her decisions were all a product of mental illness. ... But she's a bit of a mess." In the end, he sentenced her to four years in prison but also agreed with a psychiatric evaluation that determined "she is not a terrorist." Apparently, she just wanted the attention.

That's a weird accusation about someone who was once caught sketching pictures of the interior of a pro-Israel church that congregants thought she was going to bomb. It wasn't a kooky whim from some stupid Christians who didn't know any better -- Conley was casing the exact room where a gunman shot kids in 2007. Oh, and she went to church there so she could argue with the staff about Israel. If it was a different year and Conley was a different nationality, she could have found herself at Guantanamo for the next 10 years. But here, she's a silly, mixed-up girl who needs some psychiatric care.

Fifty-year-old Colleen LaRose, who goes by the stage name "Jihad Jane," didn't have the excuse of youth when she was caught conspiring to kill a Swedish artist who drew Muhammad's head on a dog. Since she couldn't work the "I'm a dumb young girl" defense, she went with "I have psychological problems," to which someone should have responded, "Don't we all, sweetheart?" but didn't because that would have sounded sexist. I can say it because I'm a girl.

Yes, LaRose got 10 years, but she could have gotten life. Her blond lady-friend recruit Jihad Jamie got eight years after her team described her as "a 32-year-old single mom from a small town in Colorado," going through "an extremely stressful and overwhelming situation." Which is probably true, but also true of every other person who has knowingly joined jihad. Jihad itself is a "stressful and overwhelming situation," I'm guessing.

The difference between LaRose, Conley, and all these white women dabbling in terrorism and every other terrorist out there is that society will probably conclude that they were only dabblers temporarily brainwashed by their evil brown-skinned boyfriends. But once they do their time and properly make amends with society, they might find themselves at a university teaching your kids, or at a dog show, making your dogs feel bad about themselves. There's practically no limit to what you can accomplish if you're an American girl terrorist!

Kristi is a senior editor and columnist for Cracked. For more from her, check out past articles here and follow her on Twitter or Facebook.

For more from Kristi, check out 6 Vintage Ads Companies Would Never Get Away With Today and Ferguson, Eric Garner, and Why Death Should Outrage Us.

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