—Nadine Naber
We may never know exactly what Craig Stephen Hicks was thinking when he killed Syrian American medical student Deah Barakat, his Palestinian American wife Yusor Abu-Salha, and her sister Razan Abu-Salha. But we do know that U.S.-led war in Arab and Muslim majority countries has normalized the killing of Arabs and Muslims. It is more crucial than ever before to understand the institutionalization of racism against persons perceived to be Arab or Muslim in terms of the structures of imperial war that normalize killing and death and hold no one (other than victims themselves) accountable.
The Obama Administration may have dropped the language of the “war on terror,” but it has continued its fundamental strategy of endless war and killing in the Arab region and Muslim majority countries such as Afghanistan and Pakistan (without evidence of criminal activity). The unconstitutional “kill list” for instance, allows the president to authorize murders every week, waging a private war on individuals outside the authorization of congress. Strategies like the “kill list” resolve the guilt or innocent of list members in secret and replace the judicial process (including cases involving U.S. citizens abroad) with quick and expedited killing. These and related practices, and their accompanying impunity, look something like this:
Al Ishaqi massacre, Iraq 2006: The U.S. army rounded up and shot at least 10 civilians including 4 women and 5 children. The Iraqis were handcuffed and shot in the head execution style. The U.S. spokesperson’s response? “Military personnel followed proper procedures and rules of engagement and did nothing wrong.”
Drone attack, Yemen 2015: A drone killed 13-year old Mohammad Tuaiman (whose father was killed in a 2011 drone strike), his brother, and a third man. Questioned about the incident, the CIA stated that “the 3 men were believed to be Al Qaeda” even though the CIA refused to confirm that he was an Al Qaida militant.
The U.S.-backed Israeli killing of Palestinians reinforces the acceptability of Arab and Muslim death. In July 2014, the Israeli Defense Force killed at least 2,000 Palestinians including 500 children. It is well established that the IDF soldiers deliberately targeted civilians. The Obama Administration’s response? Explicit support for Israel.
And those left behind are forced to watch their loved ones’ bodies fall to the ground or burn like charcoal and can only conclude that, “In [the U.S. government’s] eyes, we don’t deserve to live like people in the rest of the world and we don’t have feelings or emotions or cry or feel pain like all the other humans around the world.”
Since the 1970s (when the U.S. consolidated its alliance with Israel), the corporate news media has reinforced the acceptability of Arab and Muslim death—from one-sided reporting to fostering fear of Arabs and Muslims. From Black Sunday (1977) to American Sniper (2015), Hollywood has sent one uninterrupted message: Arabs and Muslims are savage, misogynist terrorists; their lives have no value; and they deserve to die.
This interplay between the U.S. war agenda abroad and the U.S. corporate media extends directly into the lives of persons perceived to be Arab and/or Muslim in the United States. Hate crimes, firebomb attacks, bomb threats, vandalism, detention and deportation without evidence of criminal activity and more have all been well documented. Of course, such incidents escalated in the aftermath of the horrific attacks of 9/11. As the U.S. state and media beat the drums of war, anyone perceived to be Arab and/or Muslim (including Sikhs, Christian Arabs, and Arab Jews) became suspect. Muslim women who wore the headscarf became walking emblems of the state and media discourse of Islamic terrorism. Across the United States, at school, on the bus, at work, and on the streets, women wearing the headscarf have been bullied, have had their scarves torn off, and have been asked over and over why they support Al Qaeda, Saddam Hussein, terrorism, and the oppression of women.
Despite this, the corporate media (replicating the words of the police) and government officials have either reduced the North Carolina killings to a parking dispute or expressed grave confusion over why an angry white man would kill three Arab Muslim students in North Carolina execution-style. Yet the father of one of the women students stated that his son-in law did not have any trouble with Hicks when he lived there alone. The trouble, he said, started only after Yusor, who wore a headscarf identifying her as a Muslim, moved in. Even so, Chapel Hill Mayor Mark Kleinschmidt told CNN that the community is still “struggling to understand what could have motivated Mr. Hicks to commit this crime,” adding, “It just baffles us.”
The “parking dispute” defense individualizes and exceptionalizes Hicks’ crime—in this case, through a logic that obscures the connection between whiteness, Islamophobia, and racism. And the bafflement rhetoric constructs a reality in which there are no conceivable conditions that could have potentially provoked Hicks. Both approaches deny the possible links between the killings, U.S. and Israeli military killings, the media that supports them, and the U.S. culture of militarized violence. They will also assist Hicks in attempting to avoid the more serious hate crime charge that would come with a heavy additional sentence.
Alternately, discussions insisting on the significance of Islamophobia in this case must go beyond the call for religious tolerance and account for the projects of U.S. empire building and war that underlie Islamophobia. Contemporary Islamophobia is a form of racism and an extension of U.S.-led war abroad. As I wrote in Arab America, immigrant communities from the regions of U.S.-led war engage with U.S. racial structures, specifically anti-Arab and anti-Muslim racism, as diasporas of empire—subjects of the U.S. empire living in the empire itself. Perhaps then, we should also avoid applying the same analysis of racism across the board—as if all racisms are the same or as if the framework #blacklivesmatter can simply be transposed onto the killing of Arab Muslim Americans. Otherwise, we risk disremembering the distinct conditions of black struggle (and black Muslims) including the systematic state-sanctioned extrajudicial killing of black people by police and vigilantes as well as black poverty, and histories of slavery and mass incarceration. It is also important to remember the distinct conditions of the war on terror whereby anyone and everyone perceived be Muslim (including Arab Christians and Sikhs) are potential targets.
Rest in peace and power Deah Barakat, Yusor Abu-Salha, and Razan Abu-Salha. May your loved ones find strength and support. My heart is shattered.
Nadine Naber is Associate Professor in the Gender and Women’s Studies Program at the University of Illinois at Chicago. She is the author of Arab America: Gender, Cultural Politics, and Activism (NYU Press, 2012).
