The media coverage following the murders at Chapel Hill profiled Hicks as an irrational actor who was not influenced by the legal structures that aimed to cast Muslims as presumptive terrorists, a characterization that aligns with the prevailing understanding of Islamophobia as a “dislike of or prejudice against Muslims” generally exhibited by individuals. However, this narrow framing not only overlooks the state’s role in authorizing and emboldening the unfathomable acts (of private Islamophobia) undertaken by individuals like Craig Hicks, but it also overlooks the mutually reinforcing relationship between the state and media institutions like Fox News.

XREF: Connects to institutional versus individual framing of racism and Islamophobia debates. DEFINE: Challenges the too-narrow definition of Islamophobia as merely individual prejudice.

Khaled A. Beydoun, American Islamophobia_ Unde…, loc. 103