Racial tension in the wake of the AustinBombings: Should we blame the media, Russian bots, or real causes?

Law enforcement at Brodie and Slaughter in Austin on March 20.

My husband and I were glued to the TV news last week watching news reports about a suspected bombing at a store about two miles from our home. Our hometown of Austin had been terrorized for three weeks as a serial bomber left explosives on random porches and sidewalks. The incident so close to home, as it turned out, was not related to the Austin bomber.

Map of where bombs exploded.

But watching the news coverage, I took to Twitter to express my fear about this event hitting close to home. I was dismayed by reply comments that struck a racial tone.

At first, I felt angry at the news media for running speculative stories with racial undertones. The first two bombing victims who died were black men, and people in the Austin community began speculating that the bomber was targeting people of color. The media covered it as fact.

Later, a Hispanic woman was hit. She survived with grave injuries. Next, two white men were injured when they detonated a bomb hooked to a tripwire. He also addressed a bomb to a business owned by two white women. His victims and targets were of all races, suggesting this was an equal opportunity murderer.

After the bomber's March 21 death by suicide as law enforcement pursued him in a car chase, the real facts about his supposed racism motivation came out. He mentioned nothing of the sort in a video he recorded before his death. The investigation is not over, but this early evidence suggested zero racial motivation.

All this evidence did not change much about the racial tensions that the early media reports had stoked, by quoting speculation from community members who did not have real facts to base opinions upon. The media deserves blame for this.

I read an article yesterday that suggested that Russian bots on Twitter helped to spread the myth that the Austin bomber was racist. They purposely stoked racial tensions and discord in my town. Now I wonder if the Twitter comments that upset me so much were not real people, but instead bots. I have no idea how to tell.

The talk about racial tensions in Austin still has not quieted down. On one hand, the media (being irresponsible) and supposed bots (in bad faith) started this discussion. But in reality, there are real Austinites still facing real discrimination and racism in this town, who now have a way to voice their real opinions. There most certainly remains institutional racism here, just like the rest of the United States.

I wish the convo did not start the way that it did, but in the end, I hope it helps my community overall.