Today’s would-be-killer at OSU, a Somali refugee named Abdul Razak Ali Artan, was interviewed for the regular “Humans of Ohio State” feature in his campus paper three months ago.
“I’m a Muslim, but it’s not what the media portrays me to be,” he said. “But I don’t blame [other OSU students]. It’s the media that put that picture into their heads, so they’re just going to have it, and it’s going to make them feel uncomfortable.”
The comfort of his fellow students was far from Artan’s mind today, as he plowed a car into a knot of students and then attacked them with a butcher knife. Eleven people in total were hospitalized, with one in critical condition.
Here’s a thought, Abdul: It might so happen that it feeds America’s discomfort even around decent, law-abiding Muslims when you, a literal poster boy for your people, decide to take the lives of a random knot of your American peers.
Certainly you did Ohio’s Somali populations no favors, as Hassan Omar of the Somali Community Association of Ohio can attest.
“As a Somali community here, we are in a state of shock,” Omar told NBC News. “In Columbus, we live in a very peaceful community. This is gonna affect the life of everybody. We are American and we don’t want somebody to create this problem.”
Talking heads can and will fret about America’s “Islamophobia” all they like. But what makes it hard for non-Muslims to feel at ease with Islam at home isn’t some subconscious reptile prejudice. It’s the steady, maddening trickle of murderous Abduls in the news.
We can thank God and Officer Alan Horujko that this situation was not as bloody as past attempted killings. But what a sad day for our country nonetheless.
