My Take on Islamophobia

The Facts 

Two days ago, three Muslims were shot and killed near the University of North Carolina. A man from Chapel Hill has been arrested and charged for three counts of murder in the first degree. The names of the victims are Deah Shaddy Barakat, Yusor Mohammad Abu-Salha and Razan Mohammad Abu-Salha. The alleged shooter's name will not be printed here.

The triple homicide allegedly happened around 5 p.m., EST. There initially was very little coverage from the mainstream media outlets. One tweet pointed out that only one of four major news organization had the story posted on their website, but it was only a piece on the sideboard and not a headline, even nine hours after the shooting occurred.  

Though the mainstream media may have been slow to report the story, the internet was anything but. As of the time this was written, the hashtag #ChapelHillShooting has been tweeted over 1.2 million times. The slow reaction to the news of the shooting also spawned another prominent trending hashtag, #MuslimLivesMatter. It is clearly a reference to the similar trend, #BlackLivesMatter, which grew to prominence last year from the deaths of Trayvon Martin and Eric Garner.

There have been many critics quick to point out the media would not have reacted so slowly if the victims weren't Muslim. This political cartoon has made the rounds on some social networks and news sites. 

My Take

Firstly, I want to wish my condolences to the families of the victims. This should not have happened to them. This shouldn't happen to anyone.

Secondly, I have to confirm Islamophobia is still all too common in 2015. I have seen it in person myself with my own eyes. There are far too many stories like this one, which only took place a few hours ago. Prejudice, of all kinds, is disgusting all on its own. It is one of the worst characteristics of humanity. Religious prejudice is especially egregious, no matter what religion it is.

Islamophobia has been bothering me for some time. I have several Muslim co-workers at my place of work, and on occasion, I’ve seen some my customers look at them with fear, distrust, suspicion, and dislike in their eyes. That is nothing short of despicable. Nobody should be judged by their ethnicity or by their religion. 

When American Sniper came out, I saw some particularly disturbing opinions from some who had seen the movie. It made me have doubts about the actual film before I eventually saw it. For all I knew, the film encouraged Islamophobia. Thankfully, I learned that wasn't the case when I did get the chance to see it. These people were racists long before they had anything to do with American Sniper. I have enclosed some of those tweets here. 

At this very moment, you can go online and find more of these completely appalling sentiments on Twitter and Facebook and various other social networks. There are some horrendous people that say things like the shooter who killed these three people should have been given a better gun and more ammo. That's just one of several revolting examples of Islamophobia on the internet at this very moment. These people are nothing short of scum. They are just as loathsome as any member of the Ku Klux Klan.

On the subject of the media, it is definitely questionable that this story took so long to get the attention it deserved. Yet it may not be so much an inherent bias, and more likely a knowledge of their audience. The news directors and editors have to choose the stories they know will get good coverage in order to make sure they improve the bottom line. Perhaps the general consensus among the decision makers behind the news is that this story wouldn't be that essential.

Considering how massive this story has become, they have most definitely been proven wrong. As of the time I'm writing this, the #ChapelHillShooting remains the number one trending subject in the United States, even two days later. If #MuslimLivesMatter takes off as much as #BlackLivesMatter has over the past year, it's unlikely the mainstream media corporations will make that same mistake twice. Well, maybe not Fox...but that was to be expected.

As I said earlier, Islamophobia is real. I've seen it myself, and I've had to stand up for my friends when a bigot or two opened their mouths and said something nasty about them. I personally have no patience whatsoever for any kind of racial, ethnic, or religious prejudice. Just because someone looks different from me or believes in a different god than the one I grew up believing in, doesn't mean that I automatically have to hate them or treat them any less than anyone else. Much like the late Martin Luther King Jr., famously said, we should judge by the content of a person's character and nothing else. Though this country has come a long way, it's clear from this incident and the media coverage around it that we still have a long way to go.