Rita F. Silva: When Muslims kill, we should call it a hate crime
Several months ago a young white man entered a church in North Carolina and killed nine black people, a terrible tragedy. The first thing the government did was to see if he belonged to a white supremacist group. It was determined that he hated blacks and that the Confederate Flag had an influence on his mental state, making it a hate crime.
Recently, a young Muslim man shot and killed five people who were in the military in Tennessee. So far, all the government has been able to determine is that he was depressed and abused drugs and alcohol. It is amazing that when a white man kills black people it is because he is a racist and he hates them, but when a Muslim kills American military personal the administration makes excuses for him and refuses to call it terrorism.
The same thing happened in the Fort Hood shootings, it was called “work place violence.” Why is this administration so willing to label crimes as racist, but refuses to use the word terrorist. ISIS and the other radical Islamic groups are terrorists, by refusing to acknowledge this we encourage them.
Rita Silva, Los Banos
This story was originally published August 27, 2015 at 1:36 PM with the headline "Rita F. Silva: When Muslims kill, we should call it a hate crime."