Today, people are talking about the white male gunman in Colorado who killed three people on Friday, including a police officer. Some are suggesting that if he were black, the police officers would have killed him, but since he is white he was captured. Others are suggesting that the shooting illustrates why we need to be afraid of homegrown white male terrorists and not afraid of refugees. Some are noting the irony of a prolife gunman while others are saying that a shooting is no worse than all of the fetuses being aborted.

In one Facebook discussion a person commented that they were “with simplistic use of a tragedy to validate other viewpoints”. To a certain extent, I agree with that. Yet the person goes on to say “They are mutally [sic] exclusive”. Here is my response to that comment:

I think it is simplistic to believe they are mutually exclusive. Hate and fear drives extremism; hatred for people who live by different moral codes. Fear of those who live by different moral codes.

To the extent that people can focus on refugees, racism, and domestic terrorists at the same time, the commonality may be less significant. However too many people, especially in communications, focus on one topic to the exclusion of others, leading to distractions that allow other type of hatred and violence to flourish.