It is tough to be an atheist in the South. You finally start pretending you go to this or that church, just so you have an answer when people constantly ask. However, I think guys like this will always have something to be angry about. It’s just a matter of what and when they will go over the edge.
A nieces ex husband is a paranoid schizophrenic, with all sorts of ideas. And nobody seems to be able to relieve him of his weapons or pit bulls. I hope he stays on his medications.
Funny you said that, because I was thinking about my CA friend who moved to TX, and told me they started going to church because everyone has to go to church there. I thought that was weird at the time.
Someone who gets hit with road rage - while going 5 mph?
humanity has become disgusting WE NEED REAL HEROES LIKE GANDHI AND MLK who are willing to speak thee truth at any cost! My condolences goes to those families. NC better do something about this if they really are against this man!
In my opinion he is a terrorist. Anyone who promotes terror by killing innocent people due to differences in beliefs is a terrorist. He is no different than the Charlie Hebdo attackers. And I doubt a dispute over a parking lot space was his motivation to killing them, he got in many disputes before but killed none.
To be fair, it’s also very difficult to be a Muslim in the South too. One hijabi girl said she was followed while she was driving; when she stopped, a man got out of the car behind her and waved a gun in her face.
I don’t think it’s fair to brush this off as mental illness. Schizophrenia, contrary to popular belief, doesn’t lead you to be more violent. Schizophrenics are far more likely to hurt themselves in the midst of a delusion than someone else.
We can’t brush this off as mental illness because that treats the shooting as if it is an isolated incident–a “just one crazy” kind of deal. But it’s not. Violence against Muslims is something that occurs with alarming frequency in the South, and by brushing this off as mental illness we pretend there isn’t a systemic issue of islamophobia here.
I’m not saying there was/wasn’t mental illness involved (that has yet to be confirmed or denied) but we need to keep in mind that’s not the only issue.
I don’t really feel like debating, I just wanted to put that out there.
I was thinking of his wife, whose comments seemed to me to be defending him to this extent, anyway.
I think it must be extremely difficult to be a Muslim woman anywhere in the world.
I think that when something as senseless as this happens, we have a tendency to try to make sense of it. For some, this means arguing that the accused “must be” mentally ill or have a brain turmor because no sane person would do such a thing. Others will argue that it “must be” a hate crime because why would this man kill 3 young people if it weren’t because they are Muslims.
The thing is…lots of people who are sane do bad things to other people who don’t belong to any group the perpetrator was biased against. That’s hard to accept but it’s true. Some crimes are senseless.
Of course, this is hitting the Muslim community hard. It is for reasons quite similar to the ones that made the parents of daughters who post on this site get upset when Heather Graham disappeared or when we followed the trial involving that young women at Vanderbilt who was raped while unconscious. It hits close to home because it involves people like us.
But we shouldn’t jump to the conclusion that this incident was about the victims’ faith. Until he married, the murdered man shared an apartment with a roommate. The roommate said the accused came to the door about once a month to complain about something they had done–where they parked being one of his complaints. Yet, not once during these “discussions” did the accused say anything derogatory about Muslims.
What would the police do? He had a license to carry the gun. No law broken. I haven’t heard anything to suggest that he threatened the victims in any way other than the implied threat of showing up at their door with a gun. The male victim’s old roommate said the accused made them feel “uncomfortable.” Believe me, I’d feel uncomfortable too! But that said, if the accused ONLY complained while wearing a gun in a holster and did NOT actually say something threatening, I think it’s unlikely that is a crime and I doubt the police would have taken any action.
I haven’t seen statistics that show that violence against Muslims is any more common in the South than it is in the rest of the country. It’s important to remember that the South is not one monolithic culture. Certain small communities in rural Texas are as different from Atlanta (or even Austin, for that matter) as certain small communities in Idaho would be from San Francisco. Regardless, any violence against anyone because of his/her religious/non-religious beliefs is abhorrent, no matter where it is. I agree with you that this shouldn’t be brushed off as mental illness, although his attorney will probably make that argument.
@Hunt: No one will know what he was thinking unless he comes out and says so. He may have killed them because they were Muslim or he may have been in a rage against everyone and struck out at who he perceived to be the latest parking offender. Between his anti-religion views and the women’s Muslim attire, hatred of Muslims certainly seems to be a real possibility. However, that may be difficult to prove in a court of law, given his anger toward everyone else around him and the other (non-Muslim) neighbors’ fear of him. I’m sure that the Chapel Hill police will scrutinize everything, and they may find more evidence of a hate crime.
I agree that it must be extremely difficult to be a Muslim woman, though there are certainly some places where it would be easier than others. In particular, perhaps some countries in Europe, Canada, and some of the more culturally mixed cities in the US.
If I was a Muslim woman in the US, and felt threatened by my visibility, I would not wear the head scarf. I do not believe that Islam requires it, it is a choice, am I correct? I would follow the example of the beautiful Queen Rania of Jordan. I personally like to blend in and not stick out. Most people would walk by me and not look twice, I purposefully dress this way accordingly.
@busdriver11 As a muslim woman yes I agree with you that the headscarf is not an obligation, although many will disagree with me.
Sending my prayers out to all the families involved in this senseless tragedy. If my S doesn’t want to take college classes online it’s best for him that I don’t watch college campus violence news reports. I keep up on the news till it depresses me then I take a break from the news. Every time I return the reports are worse than the last time I checked in. I just need the weather reports, the positive stories and to make sure we’re not being invaded by anyone. More and more I find myself agreeing with people who have no tv in their homes.
I am afraid that is indeed a choice, but not necessarily a choice made without pressure. And pressure that amounts to a combination of brainwashing or physical threats. As many things in religion, the origins are plain nebulous, and mostly a matter of interpretation by clerics with vested agenda.
Again, it must be incredibly hard for Muslim women to live in a world torn between different cultures and degrees of civilization.
Okay, that’s just silly. I don’t go to church anymore. I know a LOT of people who don’t go to church. I have never ONCE been told I have to go to church, nor have I ever been given vibes by people that I should go to church. I know many many people who go to church sometimes or rarely or never.
I own a home in a small rural town and nobody’s ever told me to go to church there either. Where does this friend live?
When I asked the rhetorical question " who does this", it was before I had read that he seemed to have an anger management problem.
As far as I can tell, while the religion of the victims may have pushed a button, I think if that was not known, that he easily could have seized onto something else as permission to lose control.
I don’t know if his Facebook page is still up, but when I first looked at it, there wasn’t anything that indicated targeting of certain religious groups &/or ethnicities.
I agree that legally, it does not seem like this could have been prevented.
If it is legal to open carry, then wearing a weapon while talking or arguing, is not illegal.
I wonder if a restraining or protection order had been filed, since this seems to have been an ongoing conflict.
It is not hard to be an atheist in Chapel Hill. This guy is not representative of atheism. It was hard for him because he is a jerk. It’s also not difficult to not go to church in the south. At least not in my part of the south.
Nrdsb4,
I agree that it is silly. Obviously she and her family truly felt pressure to go to church while living in TX, otherwise she wouldn’t have brought it up. I don’t remember where she lived (Plano, maybe?) but she told me about the experience after she had moved back to CA.
I highly doubt your friend’s experience is very typical. Plano is a large, affluent city with MANY educated professionals, as well as a high number of “transplants” from all over the country. A lot (and I would venture to guess most) of these people understand the concept of freedom of and freedom from religion.
When we lived in Plano, the only negative vibe we ever got was from a couple of neighbors who didn’t understand why we sent our girls to a private school in Dallas rather than utilizing the very good public school district. But even that wasn’t “pressure.”
Here is an interesting WP article I found which relates the incident to particular “tensions” between atheists and Muslims that I did not know existed: http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/local/wp/2015/02/11/chapel-hill-killings-shine-light-on-particular-tensions-between-islam-and-atheism/