Metropolitan Police Commissioner Cressida Dick and Prime Minister Theresa May were quick to call Darren Osborne’s June 19 attack in London an act of terrorism. Osborne allegedly shouted “I’m going to kill all Muslims” as he drove a van into the crowd leaving the Muslim Welfare Centre, killing Makram Ali and injuring ten others. May explained that the attack was “declared a terrorist incident within eight minutes” of the first emergency call, and Dick commented that “this was quite clearly an attack on Muslims.”

Their statements came as a relief to some. For years, people have challenged the clear double standard applied to the word terrorism. While the media and officials quickly apply it to attacks perpetrated by those identified with or identifying as Muslims, restraint usually prevails in the wake of other violent crimes, particularly those with white perpetrators.

Moreover, politicians and the media often depict Muslim extremists as representatives of the Muslim community, which subjects Muslims to collective suspicion and requires them to apologize for crimes with which they had nothing to do. On the other hand, white perpetrators — including those who commit violence in the name of a race or nation — receive a wait-and-see approach, often based on the assessment of their individual psychological state and social status. As a result, they’re often depicted as mentally unstable or socially inept loners, and therefore not representative of their communities.