Last month there were three murderous attacks that were treated very differently: the Charleston church shootings, the killings at a beach hotel in Tunisia, and the beheading of a Frenchman in Grenoble. The reaction from politicians, the media, and ordinary people can be summed up as follows: Dylann Roof’s attack represented the sins of all white people but Islam had nothing to do with the killings in France and Tunisia.

After Seifiddine Rezgui Yacoubi shot dead 30 sun-bathing Brits in Tunisia, Prime Minister David Cameron stated flatly that “these attacks are not in the name of Islam.”

There were other, more confused versions. On Facebook I saw a post that received thousands of likes: “No one believes the Ku Klux Klan is representative of Christians so why do so many people think Islamic State is representative of Muslims?”

When was the last time the KKK committed an act of terror against non-Christians in the name of Christianity? Christ opposed all violence. By contrast, devout Muslims waging jihad are following the example of their prophet Muhammad.

Dylann Roof’s attack got very different treatment. Internet commenters–both black and white–claimed the shooting proved that it doesn’t matter how blacks behave; they still get shot by white racists. Of course, statistics prove that the biggest threat to black men is other black men, not white racists.

Many people wondered why Roof wasn’t labelled a terrorist the way Muslim jihadists are. Muslims carry out hundreds of attacks and identify themselves as members of groups such as ISIS, Al Qaeda, Hezbollah, Jabhat al-Nusra, Hamas, and Boko Haram, which are routinely classed as terror organizations. Dylann Roof was a solitary psychopath. Members of black and Hispanic gangs are not called terrorists, even when they deliberately target people of a different race.

I also noticed that no blacks or Muslims made any excuses for the actions of Dylann Roof, unlike the many white people who look for the social causes of black or Muslim violence. Roof was living in a trailer park at the time of the killings, but no liberals blamed “poverty.” No one wondered if he’d been the victim of black crime or race preferences. No one thinks up “root causes” to explain someone like Dylann Roof.

But when Islamic violence was foiled at the “draw Muhammad” cartoon contest in Garland, Texas, the organizers were accused of “provoking Muslims.” When Muslims demonstrated earlier at the same venue in support of the jihadists who murdered eleven people in the attack on Charlie Hebdo, no one called that a provocation.

Dylann Roof was accused of committing a hate crime even before he’d been arrested. Why are Muslims who kill infidels because of their religion not accused of anti-religion hate crimes?

The disparity is clear: When a single white person commits murder it proves the existence of widespread white racism. (When Michael Brown commits strong-arm robbery, attacks a policeman, tries to take away his gun and gets shot, even that is supposed to prove racism.) When white people in Texas are targeted by jihadists intent on murdering them, it’s because they were provoked. And when Muslims kill white people who haven’t provoked anyone, you can’t blame Islam because jihad is a perversion of Islam.

The leftist website Salon.com expressed this view in its purest form. Two days after the Charleston shooting, it tweeted: “White America must answer for the Charleston church massacre.”

White America must answer for the Charleston church massacre https://t.co/c6GfsUOirB

— Salon.com (@Salon) June 19, 2015

On April 22, 2013, after the Boston marathon bombing, it was equally emphatic: “Muslims don’t need to apologize for the Tsarnaevs.”

Muslims don’t need to apologize for the Tsarnaevs https://t.co/ApzG0Gtxrn via @WajahatAli

— Salon.com (@Salon) April 22, 2013

White people are held to a ridiculous standard that serves only to make some of them feel guilty. Whipping up hysteria over a white lone wolf will do nothing to stop black-on-black violence. Young black men will continue killing each other in cities across America every week to the sound of indifference. Black lives matter, but only when white people kill them.

But it may be even more dangerous to continue denying the reality of the Muslim threat. It only emboldens the jihadists when people in the West repeat to themselves that “Islam is peace.”

We are crippled by the fatal flaw of scapegoating white people for the sin of racism while excusing everyone else. Our civilization is under attack. And unless both political and community leaders are prepared to fight back it will spell the end of the West as we know it.