MSNBC’s Chris Hayes took about a minute and a half out of his show All In on Thursday night in between guests to give his thoughts on the recent killing of three Muslim students in North Carolina and, naturally, he brought their minority status into the picture by proclaiming their deaths to be a “galvanizing” “Trayvon Martin moment” and “Michael Brown moment for Muslim-Americans.”
In such a short period of time, Hayes was able to perfectly espouse a representative commentary on how the left views race and minorities and omit any mention of reality or observe the awful tragedy as it was.
Even though he even mentioned minutes prior that the person accused of murder, Craig Stephen Hicks, is a firm believer in atheism, Hayes glossed right over that fact plus how Hicks was also politically liberal (and a fan of colleague Rachel Maddow) when he made his observation.
Hayes started his analysis by declaring that this “unfathomable tragedy” has become “a rallying point both across the world with Palestinans protesting the killings outside U.N. headquarters in Gaza City today and here at home, with a outpouring of support for the three promising, young Muslim-Americans.”
He then highlighted a few facts about two of their lives and how the incident has been trending on social media for days, Hayes arrived at the crux of his argument:
[I]t feels to me, as someone observing this, admittedly from the outside, like a galvanizing moment for Muslim-Americans, a Trayvon Martin moment. A Michael Brown moment for Muslim-Americans, though very different in the context and specific sets of facts, and history.
Following that slight backtracking and attempt to clarify that he wasn’t comparing the three incidents (when he absolutely was), Hayes observed that:
[T]he senseless deaths of these three young people has struck such a profound nerve and mobilize so many because millions of people who look like those victims are fed up with the routine stereotyping, the marginalization in mainstream media representations and the vilification by political leaders seeking to score cheap political points.
The MSNBC host capped off the one-minute-and-27-second rant by opining that, no matter what Hicks’s justification was for killing three young, innocent Americans, “it takes place in a context where subtle, persistent, anti-Muslim bias is part of American life and this feels like a wake up call.”
The transcript of the commentary from MSNBC’s All In with Chris Hayes on February 12 is transcribed below.
MSNBC’s All In with Chris Hayes
February 12, 2015
8:08 p.m. Eastern[ON-SCREEN HEADLINE: Muslim Lives Matter]
CHRIS HAYES: This unfathomable tragedy is a rallying point both across the world with Palestinans protesting the killings outside U.N. headquarters in Gaza City today and here at home, with a outpouring of support for the three promising, young Muslim-Americans who were both observant and proud about their religion and in a million ways, just utterly American. Deah Barakat was a basketball fanatic who posted this absolutely adorable and now heartbreaking Vine of Yusor Abu-Salha with the caption “she gets buckets.” Donations to his project to bring dental care to Syrian refugees have now hit $250,000. The goal was just $20,000. On Twitter, the hashtag #MuslimLivesMatter and #OurThreeWinners have become a rallying cry for so many people and it feels to me, as someone observing this, admittedly from the outside, like a galvanizing moment for Muslim-Americans, a Trayvon Martin moment. A Michael Brown moment for Muslim-Americans, though very different in the context and specific sets of facts, and history. Like the killing of Trayvon Martin or Michael Brown, the senseless deaths of these three young people has struck such a profound nerve and mobilize so many because millions of people who look like those victims are fed up with the routine stereotyping, the marginalization in mainstream media representations and the vilification by political leaders seeking to score cheap political points. Whatever the motivations for this horrendous slaughter, it takes place in a context where subtle, persistent, anti-Muslim bias is part of American life and this feels like a wake up call.
