Stern Co-Authors Article on Buffalo Shooting and Factors that Drive Violent Extremism
Jessica Stern, Research Professor at the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University, published an article in Time discussing violent extremism and the importance of understanding all facets of justification for heinous acts of hate.
The article, titled “Three Factors Drive Rightwing Violence. We Can’t Solve the Problem Without Addressing All of Them,” was co-authored by Stern and Megan K McBride, a Fellow at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and a Research Scientist at the CNA Corporation. This article reflects the research Stern and McBride are conducting as part of a team at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health that is seeking to understand how and why people radicalize, commit acts of violence, and deradicalize.
Their article discusses the mass shooting with was perpetrated at a Buffalo supermarket on May 14, 2022. The authors argue that understanding what really motivated the Buffalo shooter won’t undo his actions, heal a community, or make families whole; however, it does offer a chance to help those engaged in the work of preventing these acts before they occur. There are many factors that may have contributed to the shooter’s actions – access to firearms, poor mental health, and radical political ideology – but Stern argues that “there is no single variable that explains why this terrible massacre occurred, and so there will be no single answer,” so we must “reject simplistic explanations” that seek to pin these sort of heinous actions on one factor alone.
The full article can be read on Time’s website.
Professor Jessica Stern is a Research Professor at the Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University. She is the coauthor with J.M. Berger of ISIS: The State of Terror; and the author of Denial: A Memoir of Terror; Terror in the Name of God: Why Religious Militants Kill; and The Ultimate Terrorists. Learn more about Professor Stern on her faculty profile.