How quaint and somehow unsurprising. When Fort Hood gunman Hasan committed his despicable act, the term “Muslim” was immediately used as an adjective to describe him. “American Muslim” — as if that somehow balanced things out: yes, he was an American, so this wasn’t really a terrorist attack, but on the other hand, he was a Muslim, so…
Fast forward 24 hours, and Jason Rodriguez opens fire in an office in Orlando, Fl. Much news coverage, many parallels drawn about the horror etc. etc. But not a single mention of the Mr. Rodriguez’s religion. I’ll go out on a limb here and assume he’s a Catholic (or, as Fox News’ Shepard Smith insisted in an interview with Senator Hutchinson when it was all about Hasan: “his name should tell us a lot.”) So, why aren’t we hearing about this horrible act committed by an American Catholic?
Yes, Hasan was a muslim, and he may have spouted all sorts of religious nonsense before, during and after his crime. But using “Muslim” as shorthand for terrorist is really shallow, and simply pushes the legitimate American Muslim community further off to the fringes of society — which is, of course, where the Xtian evangelists and their xenophobic wingnut allies want them. Michael Yaki at SF Gate picked up on this and wrote a piece about it. Nice to see.
