President Barack Obama reacted Friday to the slaying of three Muslim students earlier this week near the University of North Carolina, stating that “no one in the United States of America should ever be targeted” for their religion.
“Yesterday, the FBI opened an inquiry into the brutal and outrageous murders of Yusor Mohammad Abu-Salha, Deah Shaddy Barakat, and Razan Mohammad Abu-Salha in Chapel Hill, North Carolina,” Obama said in a statement. “In addition to the ongoing investigation by local authorities, the FBI is taking steps to determine whether federal laws were violated.”
“No one in the United States of America should ever be targeted because of who they are, what they look like, or how they worship,” the statement continued. “Michelle and I offer our condolences to the victims’ loved ones. As we saw with the overwhelming presence at the funeral of these young Americans, we are all one American family. Whenever anyone is taken from us before their time, we remember how they lived their lives – and the words of one of the victims should inspire the way we live ours.”
The President concluded by quoting an interview one of the victims gave last year to the StoryCorps oral history project.
“Growing up in America has been such a blessing,” Obama quoted Yusor as saying. “It doesn’t matter where you come from. There’s so many different people from so many different places, of different backgrounds and religions – but here, we’re all one.”
I wish he were free to say what he probably wants to say but can’t. We are hardly one in this country. The repukes prove that everyday.
President Obama’s remarks to be construed as anti-christianinist by Fox News in 3…2…
Well, in general yes. But if your way of worshiping involves throwing gay men off buildings, or setting people on fire, etc. sorry, but all bets are of in those cases.
Perhaps this will quiet the person at Daily Kos that accused and any that agreed that Obama is being anti-Muslim for not out of the gate making a statement about this senseless killing.
Though I do suspect there will be many that will say his tone was not right, he was not angry enough and that he did it too late.
As for Pres. Obama’s statement, I think it was fair, given that we don’t know all the facts about exactly why this guy killed the three individuals (it could very well be a hate crime…or the guy is a gun nut that wanted to prove he was big and badd). Whichever the case, it was wrong for them to be gunned down and I feel so sorry for their families and community. I hope what the president said provides a little bit of comfort during this sad time.
RU serious?..go read the NYT article, details of lynchings that occurred in the US after Jim Crow…throngs of middle class Americans in their “Sunday Get-Ups”,cutting off the genitals and other body parts of African American men, before they’re publicly lynched and then burned! Let’s be humbled and see through the vacuous contents of American Exceptionalism - diabolic wickedness is not limited to Arab terrorist or Boko Haram.