Oak Creek Massacre

Oak Creek Massacre

Events of the terrorist attack during 9/11 appear to have fuelled racism, specifically among the minorities in the United States. Subsequently, the U.S. government implemented a series of response mechanisms designed to counter and curb future terrorism activities. While not explicitly mentioned in their official documents, such policies unfairly targeted Arabs, South Asians, and Muslims in America. Consequently, the policies destroyed the trust of the cooperative communities in the country. It suddenly became permissible for law enforcement authorities to mistreat religious groups and racial minorities unfairly. The history of radicalization in America began with the rise of white supremacist groups. A history of racially-entitled groups of the Klu Klax Klan and the Nazis indicates racial intolerance is a grave problem in America. While the racial prejudice in America explains the violet trends in several groups of people in the country, it does not justify the killings and specific targeting of minority religious groups.

Oak Creek Massacre

The Oak Creek Massacre is an example of mass killings that were motivated by racial hatred. The tragedy occurred at the Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Massachusetts. The main protagonist was a forty-year-old white supremacist named Michael Page. He was also a retired army veteran. Policemen responded to emergency calls at a local gurdwara. Upon arrival, they engaged a sole gunman who had already shot three people at the temple. Dramatic gunfire ensued between the officers and the wild gunman. He was armed with a 9mm Springfield XD (M) semi-automatic pistol at the time of the incident (Iyer, 2015). Reports later emerged that Page had killed four people at the temple and three outside, including himself. The incident sparked outrage in the United States and India, with political, religious and economic leaders condemning the racially-aggravated homicide. The Oak Creek mass shooting forms a multitude of tragic cases in the United States against people of a particular religious or racial background.

The motive of the incident was racial hatred. The target was on the members of the Sikh faith, who wore turbans as a consequence of their religious beliefs. The victims included a 41-year-old woman and five men aged between thirty-six and eighty-six (Iyer, 2015). Of the six, two were American nationals while the rest were Indians (Iyer, 2015). A close friend to Page revealed that Page had intentions of implementing a racial holy war. Later, photographs of the perpetrator appeared in the mainstream media, which showed his heavily tattooed body. Experts believed the tattoos were a sign of his close links to racial groups. Overall, the attack on innocent members who had gone to worship exhibited cowardice. Most importantly, it revealed the extent of racial hate and intolerance within the American population. Overall, the perpetrator showed oppressive inclinations with groups opposed to the diversity of all Americans.

Page had proven links to white supremacist groups and the neo-Nazis. Aside from being a member of the Hammerskins, he also entered the white power music scene back in 2000 and subsequently became involved with several Nazi bands (Iyer, 2015). He was a founder of End Apathy in 2005 and an active participant of the Blue Eyed Devils and Definite Hate; all considered heavily racial groups by anti-racism lobbyists (Iyer, 2015). The incident provoked serious debates among Americans regarding the freedom and safety of minority racial and religious groups in the country (Iyer, 2015). Overall, the Oak Creek incident offered a glimpse of the extent of racial hatred among individual members of the American population.

The Killing of Abdisamad Sheikh-Hussein

The murder of a Muslim teenager outside a community center in 2014 was another example of a hate crime in the United States. The victim was a fifteen-year-old boy who was run down by an S.U.V. (Iyer, 2015). Witnesses reported sporting the vehicle outside the community center several times before the incident. According to them, the sports utility vehicle had threating messages against the Muslim community living and working in the region (Iyer, 2015). The worshippers outside the center where the boy was killed, revealed that they had informed the police about a suspicious man for over two months before the incident. What was baffling about the event was that the perpetrator was the same race, same ethnic community, but a Christian. However, there was clear evidence of religious intolerance on the part of the perpetrator.

The court documents revealed that the driver of the S.U.V. had intentionally hit the boy. He then got out of the car, waving a knife and swinging a baseball bat at the onlookers. Other reports indicated that the protagonist pulled a handgun at the people gathered at the scene in a desperate attempt to get away(Iyer, 2015). The court record further shows that Mr. Aden, the perpetrator told the police that he had lost control of the vehicle in the events leading up to the incident (Iyer, 2015). However, he later hanged his statement, revealing that he intentionally hit the boy as he looked like a man who had earlier threatened him. The federal agents assisting with the matter said that they had recorded the incident as a probable-cause matter. The authorities also indicated the case was a probable hate crime and were treating it as such. Overall, the event on a minor outside a religious center of worship was a further testament to the rampant intolerance in the U.S. community.

The Killing of Nabra Hassen

Nabra was seventeen years old when she was brutally sexually assaulted and killed. The victim was a sophomore at South Lakes High School in her hometown of Reston, Virginia. The perpetrator was a twenty-two-year-old illegal immigrant from El-Salvador (Iyer, 2015). At the time, the media and the police refused to categorize the murder as racially instigated. Instead, the authorities termed it road rage (Iyer, 2015). However, the initial feeling at the time was that the killing was an anti-Muslim hate crime. This is because the horrifying events occurred on a group of teenage girls outside a mosque. Also, it was during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, when the worshippers traditionally spend most of their time at the mosque.

The mainstream media reported that Darwin Martinez Torres, the perpetrator, initially followed Nabra and her friends into a nearby parking lot. He then got out of the vehicle and began chasing after the victim. Upon accosting her, he reportedly hit her with a baseball bat at the back of her head and put her in the car. He later took the girl to a nearby location and sexually assaulted her. Torres then killed the girl and dumped her body into a nearby pool. A day after the attack, the police announced on social media sites that there was no particular evidence of the incident being a hate crime. Subsequently, they revealed that there was no evidence of the perpetrator having a history of racial or religious crimes (Iyer, 2015). Media reports indicate that there initially was a traffic dispute between the driver and the pedestrians, which escalated into deadly violence. Nonetheless, the incident inevitably highlighted the general dangers Muslims in the U.S. had to contend with from the other members of the public.

Similarly, neurological reports at the time of the incident revealed that Darwin Martinez Torres was probably intellectually challenged. The findings were sufficient to substantiate the police theory that the traffic altercation between him and the girls and quickly degenerated into violence. The defense attorney listed issues such as limited cognitive functions marked inability to follow legal arguments, poor memory, and impaired judgments regarding the perpetrator (Iyer, 2015). Also, there were valid concerns about his functional literacy (Iyer, 2015). These factors, in part, contributed to the perpetrator avoiding the death sentence. Instead, the courts sentenced him to life in prison without parole, a sentence that was later upgraded to eight consecutive life sentences in May 2019.

The reaction on social media indicated the overall disappointment that Nabra’s killing was not categorized as a victim of racial hatred. The mainstream media lamented that while the murder was not officially a hate crime, it was functionally like it. The victim, like all her friends, was wearing Muslim hijabs at the time of the attack, which was a clear indication of their faith. Also, the fact that the victim was a target at a McDonald’s store raised further questions over why they were specifically followed. Coming recently, after an election cycle that fostered racial prejudices, Hassanen’s murder seemed to function in the national discourse about Islamophobia as a hate crime (Iyer, 2015). The killing provoked debates on the Muslim population in America. Media reports emerged that the presence of people wearing religious clothing in public places challenged the idea of what it means to be American. Therefore, such intolerable attitudes were reported as being behind the killings of minority Americans.

Conclusion

The murder of religious and racial communities in the United States inevitably ignited hard facts among the mainstream media. For example, Nabra’s killing highlighted what had mainly been a tough year for Muslims in their holiest month of Ramadan. Unfortunately, the U.S. was leading in the number of racially-instigated murders. Several other incidents exposed the rise in tensions towards Muslim communities in the country. Furthermore, it highlighted the feeling of insecurity in the public places of worship for Sikhs and Muslims. The personal attacks inevitably spread fear and panic among the members of these religious groups. Suddenly, minorities became unsafe in the U.S. because of their religious faith. Notably, the concern was an emerging trend of attacking religious gatherings and firing indiscriminately. All the three cases, the Oak Creek shooting and the killings of Muslim teenagers Nabra Hasssen and Abdisamad Sheikh-Hussein followed a particular pattern of attacking people at a religious gathering.

Religious clothing has also been identified as a tool used to identify the possible targets of homicide. For example, all the victims at the Sikh temple in Oak Creek wore their religious turbans at the time of the shooting. Also, it is highly probable that Nabra and her friends were specifically targeted when visiting the McDonald’s shop because of their headscarves. Furthermore, the murder of Abdisamad Sheikh-Hussein outside the community worship centre revealed the intentions of the killer to target Muslims worshiping around the area. At the time, several witnesses revealed having spotted his vehicle cruising around the centre while bearing anti-Islamic messages. For all the three separate cases, it was fairly easy to identify the potential victims due to their unique religious backgrounds. Nonetheless, the murders showed a marked insurgent view against the racial and religious minorities in the United States.

The United States mainstream media has traditionally been an easy target as a propaganda tool in the U.S. Operation Mocking Bird is an example of a deliberate government attempt at implementing a large-scale media manipulation technique. At the time, the operation recruited selected American journalists to work for a propaganda network. The project reportedly funded the top student magazines and front organizations to spread certain information to the American public. The chain of misreporting, specifically in the killings of Nabra and Abdisamad Sheikh-Hussein raise serious concerns. For instance, the police and the general authorities showed a marked reluctance to report the killings as racially motivated. The authorities appeared to dismiss the killings as road rages, citing the lack of concrete evidence to warrant a racial crime. At the time, the police and the F.B.I. sought to drive a particular narrative to the general public. However, the killings further contributed to the feeling of uncertainty and insecurity at the time of the incident. Therefore, despite commendable efforts by the media to help provoke constructive debates among Americans, the authorities appear to favour a certain narrative to the public.

Reference

Iyer, D. (2017). We too sing America: South Asian, Arab, Muslim, and Sikh immigrants shape our multiracial future. The New Press.