The mainstream media’s insistence that the massacre in Chapel Hill was the result of a “parking dispute” is utterly appalling and shameful. The victim-blaming here is nothing new, sadly, nor is it surprising. Even in news programs that seem to be expressing more sympathy for the victims and their family, their framework is about “balance.” In other words, they want to “consider all possibilities” rather than speaking specifically about Islamophobia.
Suzanne Barakat, the sister of Deah Barakat, has been speaking on MSNBC, CNN, and other news networks, emphasizing that the murder should be treated as a hate crime and terrorism. Her words speak for themselves:
I think it’s absolutely insulting, insensitive, and outrageous that the first thing they come and say and issue a statement that this is a parking dispute. I’m not sure who they spoke to because it took me all of 5 minutes of talking to his former roommate – who they had not reached out to – to give me details, information, text messages… I have been here since the morning after the shooting and police have still not reached out to my family… To call it a parking dispute when, in fact, no one was parked in even that visitor’s parking spot that does not belong to him, is outrageous to me, and it’s insulting, and it trivializes their murders.
From the segment on CNN:
The day of the murders, an assemblywoman from the state I live in used the hashtag “stand up against Islam” and it’s currently an open season, a time where it’s an open season against Islam, Muslims in Washington, Muslims in the general media dehumanizing Muslims in movies like ‘American Sniper,’ it’s incredibly inspiring right now to see that Deah, Yusor, and Razan’s love for their country is being reciprocated.
Had roles been reversed, and no one is talking about this, but had roles been reversed and the man was Muslim, was of Arab descent, was of South Asian descent, this would have immediately been labeled an act of terror. I haven’t heard anyone use the term ‘terrorist’ here but it– why the double standard? He has terrorized our families, he has terrorized our lives, he has terrorized our community, locally, nationally, and internationally and it’s time that people call it for what it is.
During an interview with RT, Yusor and Razan’s brother, Yousef Abu-Salha, added:
The main message would be that, first of all, we are peaceful and that’s what our faith preaches. We don’t seek vengeance, we treat our enemies with kindness. But we would like this crime to be labeled as it should be because that’s the only way we can seek justice and solitude and everything that’s happened. It’s what they deserve. We stand in solidarity and we sympathized with all the minorities recently and all that’s going on in the world. We call an injustice when we see it, we call an oppression when we see it, so we really need this right now.
When the family of the victims are calling on authorities and the media to treat this murder as a hate crime and terrorism, it is shameful, disrespectful, and insulting every time the media argues otherwise or makes the speculation about “balance.” You’ll notice how Jake Tapper constantly asked Suzanne Barakat if there was a specific moment when Craig Stephen Hicks said or did something explicitly anti-Muslim. Even though the family members and friends have referenced Yusor as once saying, “He hates us for what we are and how we look,” reporters like Jake Tapper have the nerve to continue pressing for “evidence” of anti-Muslim sentiment.
I cannot speak for the family or the victims. I’m sure there are still more details that have yet to surface about Deah, Yusor, and Razan’s encounters with their hostile neighbor. However, I know that many Muslims, as well as people of color, don’t need “evidence” or “proof” in the form of an explicit Islamophobic statement from the neighbor to know this was motivated by racist, anti-Muslim sentiment. I know my experiences and encounters with Islamophobia and racism are nothing compared to this violence. What I do know is that many Muslims and people of color have experienced (and continue to experience) horrible situations where blatant racial slurs don’t need to be said in order to determine that the discrimination and hostility they’re facing is due to racism.
We take note of how we are singled out. We notice it in the way people look at us. We see it in their eyes. We hear it in their tone of voice. We hear it in the way they talk to us. We feel it in the actions they take against us. As a Pakistani Muslim man, I am aware of how my brown skin makes me a target for racism. However, in the presence of Muslim women who wear hijab, I have only witnessed how the stares, hostile looks, and racist comments and attitudes are more pronounced towards them. I can never fully know what it must feel like to experience that directly on a daily basis. To say the harassment and murder of the three Muslim students, two of whom were Muslim women who wore hijab, had nothing to do with them being Muslim is disingenuous and insulting.
These daily aggressions are overlooked and ignored, not just by the media, but every day in society. They’re dismissed as “isolated incidents” rather than being connected to the larger forces of white supremacy, patriarchy, capitalism, colonialism, and imperialism. Media has no language, no nuance, and no analysis to discuss and address these experiences of Muslim women, women of color, and people of color. It will not make the connections between the demonization of Muslims and Islam in the media, including in films like American Sniper or in TV shows like “Homeland,” and the deadly impact these images have on our community. For a few minutes, they’ll do a report on Chapel Hill, but the rest of the time, the media is back to depicting Islam and Muslim as terrorists and barbarians.
These connections need to be made, not only for the sake of challenging the dehumanization of Muslims in the media, but also the dehumanization of black men and women and other people of color. We know how differently the media’s reaction would have been if a black man murdered three white non-Muslim people, or if it had been a brown Muslim man. Suzanne Barakat’s words about the media’s double-standards and complicity is something society needs to pay more attention to. The “parking dispute” excuse is rooted in the same racism that refuses to talk about Islamophobia and would rather treat this as an “isolated incident,” something to “forget” about.
The need to challenge these irresponsible narratives, the media’s demonization of Muslims, and the Islamophobic hate speech from hate groups, politicians, filmmakers, celebrities like Bill Maher, “New Atheists” like Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris, and other influential figures are urgent and serious. They are matters of life and death.
Muslim Reverie 
The mainstream media of both of our cultures is corrupting the true nature of journalism. Every story is framed to fit a fleeting agenda that is constantly changing. Muslims and Islam in general are not unique in their glib media portrayal, however the fact that the media is labeling these murders as a parking dispute is reminiscent of the Fort Hood murders being labeled workplace violence. The corporate run media machine will cover a story in whatever way they feel will yield a profit (at some point), and then there is always the bigger concern that these odd choices of legal nomenclature are a direct subversion of logic to lead us further astray from true reason for the benefit of a very few. One control device begats another.
That’s a terrible false equivalence you’re drawing there. The “parking dispute” reports are used to deliberately avoid talking about Islamophobia. The term “Islamophobia” is not even used by the president of the United States nor is it recognized as a serious problem. Media coverage about the Fort Hood murders were loaded with Islamophobia and we constantly heard politicians and political commentators talk about “the Muslim threat within.” There is a long history of demonizing Islam and Muslims, and we see it all the time in western mainstream media.