The following piece, written by the editorial editors, reflects the majority opinion of the editorial board.
Last week, The Miami Student published an article discussing the sharp criticism we received over a story we printed on the selling of halal meats at Oxford's Walmart. Many of our readers were angered both by our original report and by our follow up story, with both receiving more comments online than any other stories we've published on our new website.
These comments ranged from appalling racial slurs to those appalled by the lack of racial sensitivity other commenters displayed. One of these comments read, "Too bad it wasn't made more difficult so that they would all leave and go back to the crap holes they all emigrated from, replete with as much Sharia law as they want. Halal is just another example of the cruelty Islam imposes upon the world and its adherents."
For those who are unaware, halal meats are meats that have been killed according to the Islamic religion. So, halal meats are individually killed animals who have their throats cut, rather than those being killed en masse in factories where we obtain most of our meats in grocery stores.
To put it simply, halal meats are the same as any other form of meat that can be obtained in a grocery store except for the method of slaughter. It's important to note that killing animals in this way is swift and no more cruel than any other method of butchering meat.
We at The Miami Student want to be clear that we do not agree with the racist and insensitive comments that have been swirling around on our website since we've published these stories. Our original intent was to inform the community of a new option available to them at a popular establishment, but it's now clear we have something larger to discuss.
We know that a large portion of the Oxford community was not involved in the comments displayed on our website, and we aren't under the impression that all our readers are racist toward Muslims. However, the shocking number of comments and cruel remarks did alarm us to the point that we felt it deserved a reply.
Americans are guaranteed a freedom of religion in the Constitution, and Americans who practice the Islamic faith are no different in that right than Americans who consider themselves Christian, Jewish or any other religion.
Part of the Islamic faith is consuming halal meats, and therefore there is no reason why they should not have that option available to them at a store that targets people from all backgrounds and demographics.
This leads us to a more unsettling issue: the ongoing misunderstanding of the Muslim community in America. Just this week, a man who expressed anti-Islamic viewpoints on various social media platforms killed three Muslim students at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
These students were regular young adults like us, who were guilty of nothing more than practicing a faith with which someone didn't agree. They certainly did not deserve to be killed; but, due to a lack of understanding of the Islamic religion, they are no longer with us.
This incident paralleled our own fears of racial and religious intolerance right here in Oxford. We hope that rather than grouping together millions of individuals under misinformed stereotypes, people will begin to understand Islamic people for who they are: humans, like us.
We need to learn from the ignorance displayed in the comments on our website that more work needs to be done to make our community a welcoming and safe place for people of all backgrounds. Until we work to understand each other, events like those in Chapel Hill will continue to transpire around the world.