On Feb. 10, 2015, in the city of Chapel Hill, North Carolina, there was a shooting. The alleged attacker, Craig Hicks, is charged with killing three young Muslim students. Deah, Deah’s wife Yusor, and Yusor’s younger sister Razan, execution style.
A lot of major news outlets have been putting out stories on this, and it’s pleasing since Muslims aren’t generally seen in the news in a positive way, but it still took the news stations more than nine hours to do so. For other cases, the news outlets were buzzing almost instantly. Media outlets should consider this story breaking news, like all the other shootings.
Unlike many other murderers, Hicks, a white man, has not been called a terrorist. Instead, the police department issued a statement regarding a parking dispute as a possible cause.
Hicks’ motive no doubt had an element of hate. Hicks’ social media posts radicalized atheist views. Also, before Yusor, who wore the head scarf, moved into the apartment, Hicks didn’t seem to have a problem with Deah. Once Yusor moved in, that’s when he started complaining.
Actions speak louder than words, and although Hicks did not express his hate for their beliefs in words, he ended their lives. Every time he would come to complain to Yusor and Deah about the parking spot and other ‘disturbing’ things they did, he always brought a gun with him.
Seeing the interviews with the family members of victims broke my heart. People don’t go around killing others because of an eight by nine feet piece of land that wasn’t even personal property. Murder is wrong no matter what religion or race you are. It is controversial because if a Muslim were to kill someone, the news would pitch out stories right away and immediately call it an “act of terrorism’’ and the person would be labelled as a ‘radical extremist.’ When a white man kills people with questionable motives, he isn’t described as a terrorist. He is simply a murderer.
Movies such as “American Sniper” are promoting this type of bigotry and hate towards Muslims.
The U.S. government needs to realize that politics aren’t the only thing that drives citizens’ actions.
I hope that people realize that it doesn’t matter what race or religion someone is; committing a crime of any sort is individual, and shouldn’t be imposed on a whole community of people.