Yahoo/AFP
Three Muslim students were killed in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Yahoo/AFP. The suspect, Craig Stephan Hicks, was a self described anti-theist who regularly denounced religion on Facebook. Two of the victims were newly married and the third was the wife's sister. Hicks turned himself in and has been charged with three counts of 1st degree murder. Police have not disclosed a motive for the attack.
My Comment:
Normally a triple homicide would not even merit comment on this blog unless there are extenuating circumstances. In this case there appears to be. Social media, and Twitter in particular, were going nuts about this case. People were claiming that the case was being swept under the rug. I don't see how that is possible since every media outlook I looked at has it either as the top story or displayed prominently on the front page. So that claim is pretty much blown out of the water. But the case does hit pretty much every hot button issue these days and the implications are disturbing.
Before I go any further I have to make clear that I have nothing against the victims in this case and I am in no way defending the killer. By all accounts the victims were decent people (one of them denounced killing on Twitter) and even if they weren't they didn't deserve to be murdered. They of course deserve justice and the suspect in this case, if he is convicted by a jury of his peers, deserves the harshest penalty available under the law. All of that should go without saying but in these times of universal outrage it pays to be clear. That's the theory at least, people looking for outrage will find it eventually.
That being said, I don't like where the media coverage is going in this case. A narrative is forming and it is a dangerous one. The narrative is an angry white atheist killed Muslims. That appears to be true, but what I am afraid of is that this specific combination traits is going to be used to paint people a certain way and silence criticism of other people.
So what do I mean by that? Just because the suspect was an atheist does not mean that all or even most people that are atheist, agnostic or anti-religion agree or condone this attack. Atheists tend to be incredibly unpopular in America so I am somewhat concerned that portions of the American landscape on the right will blame this attack on atheism and try their damnedest to invoke prejudice against the non-religious. At the very same time the left is already trying to make this a race and racism issue. The suspect was white so of course all white people hate Muslims, at least according to Twitter... One tweet I saw claimed that all white male Christians were dangerous because of this case. Because all white males who are avowed anti-theists are automatically Christian...
Neither of these viewpoints have much merit. Craig Hicks, if he did do this, is one person and his evil can not be used to paint everyone that belongs to the same arbitrary categories as he did. Just like not every Muslim is Osama Bin Laden, or not every black person is Christopher Dorner and how not every White/Asian who sucks with women is Elliot Rodgers. All of those people were outliers. Anyone that tries to paint a picture using an extreme example is, quite frankly, an idiot. Just like the people that will try to make this an issue about gun control. Somehow.
To recap, the acts of a lone madman don't really have all that much to do with anything. People trying to make this apply to anything really shouldn't. If you want to have a conversation about atheism, race or Islam, go ahead and do it. I encourage it. NOTHING is immune to criticism and vigorous debate. But don't blow one case out of proportion. The actions of one person do not represent the beliefs and actions of everyone that is in the same group as that person. So many people these days want to use tragedy for their own advantage. Or at the very least to make their group look less bad by comparison.
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