Islam = Violence; Coverage = Double-Standard

Let's not beat-around-the-bush on this: Islam is having a banner month in the United States. Five killed and four wounded by a Muslim in a Utah mall on 13 February. Five days later, a Muslim cabbie in Nashville tried to run down two students from Ohio due to an argument over religion, seriously injuring one of the students. Now, this Tuesday brings the possibility of another event with a Muslim in Missouri.

A distraught graduate student claiming to have a bomb and anthrax sparked a scare early Tuesday that shut down the University of Missouri-Rolla for several hours, officials said. [...]

The identity and nationality of the student were not released, though school spokesman Lance Feyh said he was an international student.

I have not been able to verify the identity or religion of the distraught student, but it is similar to the MSM gloss over in the initial articles regarding Utah and Nashville (and also much like the initial reports of previous events such as Naveed Afzal Haq's shooting spree or Mohammed Reza Taheri-azar's vehicular assult). The media is saying again that, basically, "We have an incident that occurred with someone who is... non-discript."

Would the MSM do the same if, three times in one month, nationalistic skin-heads committed the same attacks? I don't think so. If it were skin-heads, or any other non-protected group for that matter, the MSM would be fighting one another for the most in-depth coverage on "Why [insert name of a non-protected group here] attack." After all, here are three violent incidents nation-wide in the span of two weeks. It must be an epidemic!

Yet, in the MSM we get:

Investigators are struggling to figure out why the trench-coated teen opened fire.

- and -
A local cab driver allegedly tried to run over two customers after a fight over religion became heated.

- and -
A distraught graduate student claiming to have a bomb and anthrax sparked a scare early Tuesday...

To use the example of skin-heads instead of Muslims, I think those statements would be a bit more editorialized had the perpetrators been of a different persuasion:

Investigators are trying to determine exactly why the teen, who had a shaved head and was known to associate with racist groups and individuals, opened fire.

- and -
A skin-head cab driver with ties to racist organizations allegedly tried to run over two customers after a fight over religion became heated.

- and -
A student, who may have used bomb-making and bio-terrorism knowledge learned from skin-head groups that he associated with, claimed to have a bomb and anthrax which sparked a scare early Tuesday...

I'm not saying that it would be okay if it were adherents to nationalistic or far-right-wing groups doing these things. I do believe, however, that the incidents would be covered much differently if the perpetrators weren't Muslims.

USMC 9971 OUT

UPDATE 01 March 2007: The graduate student has been identified.

Sujithkumar Venkatramolla, 22, a civil engineering student from Nazambad, India, was charged with two counts of first-degree assault of a law enforcement officer and one count each of armed criminal action, resisting arrest, false report of a bomb threat and making terrorist threats.