the feminist librarian reads

The rationale for Hicks’s rampage need not amount to an either/or. It’s not hate crime or parking dispute. Parking disputes are rarely just about occupying one asphalt rectangle. Fights over space—whether in subways or suburban neighborhoods—are more often contests about privilege: Who gets to be in this space? Who dictates the use and control of the space? And what happens when people who aren’t like some pre-determined and overdetermined notion of what constitutes “us” gets in our space? A parking crunch—and I acknowledge the rancor that can come when fences have not made good neighbors—did not pull the trigger. A man did, a man we know, at the very least, to have a measure of antipathy toward the religious of all faiths. Of the three people he shot, execution-style, all were observant Muslims, and two were women who wore a style of headscarf that made that clear.

Chapel Hill Murders Are About More Than a Parking Dispute

Source: prospect.org