This past week has been an emotional rollercoaster for myself and for fellow Muslims across the nation and even globe. On Tue., Feb. 10, three promising Muslim-American students were murdered in their own home – execution style. The victims were Deah Barakat, 23 years old, his wife Yusor M. Abu-Salha, 21 years old, and her sister, Razan M. Abu-Salha, 19 years old.

The murderer behind this heinous hate crime was 46-year old Craig Hicks, a proud Atheist who was indicted for a triple homicide and for discharging a firearm into an occupied dwelling. Hicks was open about his hatred for all religions – most notably on his Facebook profile.

Barakat and Yusor Abu-Salha, who got married only six weeks ago, lived together in a complex about two-miles from the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. Yusor’s younger sister Razan was merely visiting her sister and brother-in-law the night of their murder.

Barakat was a second year student at the UNC School of Dentistry. He was known in his community for closely working with the homeless and providing them with free dental supplies and food. He also aided in fundraising thousands of dollars to provide dental care to the victims of the Syrian crisis. Barakat was planning to travel abroad to Turkey with 10 other dentists this summer under Project: Refugee Smiles.

Yusor Abu-Salha graduated last year from North Carolina State University with a degree in Human Biology. She recently traveled to Turkey to provide dental aid to Syrian refugees. Yusor was also accepted into the UNC School of Dentistry, where she would have started in the fall alongside Barakat.

Razan Abu-Salha was a student at North Carolina State University, where she was in a competitive Architecture and Environmental Design program. She worked with many charities such as Global Deaf Muslim, which campaigned for equal access to Islam for the hard hearing and deaf.

In interviews with the families of the slain victims, it was shared that Hicks had made them feel uncomfortable on multiple occasions.

Yusor and Razan’s brother Yousef recalls Yusor telling him about multiple incidents when Hicks showed up on their door, complaining and brandishing his gun. The father of the two girls, Dr. Mohammad Abu-Salha, told WRAL-TV that he recalled his daughter Yusor telling him only a week before the incident; “Daddy, we feel he hates us for who we are and how we look.”

Authorities were quick to call this a “dispute over parking” – but I find this completely insensitive and insulting to the families of the three exceptionally outstanding citizens.

Mainstream media jumped to humanize Hicks in whichever way they deemed possible from talking about his “love for dogs” to simplifying the entire crime and calling him a “troublemaker.”

Hicks terrorized the three young Muslims; he terrorized their families and lives. Therefore, not only was this a malicious hate crime, but an act of domestic terrorism.

After continued outrage, the FBI launched a preliminary investigation to find out if Hicks really did have another motive besides you know, an “obsession with parking.”

Had the roles been reversed, and it was an observant Muslim who had shot three young white college students, everyone would be attributing this to Islam and solely speaking about his religion.

I do not say this with the intention of blaming Atheism, because as a Muslim who is constantly scapegoated, I know that the actions of one person do not count for the whole religion. I know that you don’t have to apologize for crimes you had nothing to do with.

However, it just goes to show how deeply rooted Islamophobia is within our culture. Heck, the number one movie in America glorifies the killing of Muslims, and it goes by the name American Sniper.

If the roles were in fact reversed, the story would have made mainstream and international news the second it was leaked. But for Chapel Hill, Twitter broke the news instead. The incident caused so much outrage and condemnation from Muslims and non-Muslims alike that eventually mainstream outlets felt obliged to air the story and dig deeper.

It has been a difficult week for Muslim communities everywhere. The day before the Chapel Hill shooting, Mustafa Mattan, a Somali-Canadian was also shot dead in his own home. In December, 15-year-old Abdisamad Sheikh–Hussein was in a deliberate hit and run for being Muslim, but his story is only now circulating. An Islamic Center in Houston was purposely set ablaze last week. An Islamic School in Rhode Island was vandalized and spray-painted with “now this is a hate crime” as well as derogatory phrases such as “rag head.”

These stories are inter-connected because they were all purposely-committed crimes targeting the same group of people. Islamophobia can affect lives. Islamophobia can kill.

In the seven years of wearing my headscarf, I have never felt uneasy about it. But in the past two-weeks, I’ve felt super conscious of this cloth on my head. I now feel suspicious of the heavy eyes lingering over me as I walk around campus. I’ve never felt this way before.

All I know is Hick’s wife said the students were merely “in the wrong place at the wrong time,” but they were in the safety of their own home – so what does that mean for the rest of us? Why do we have to swallow our fears and risk our lives everyday? When will enough be enough?

Deah, Yusor, and Razan were not bystanders or “in the wrong place.” They were deliberately killed with a bullet in each head and had their lives ripped away from them by ignorance.

Remember them; remember the bright individuals they were, their stories, and the incredible things they accomplished in their short-lived lives.

Let’s turn grief into action and work together to make sure not another soul is taken away because of the person they are or the faith they hold. May all victims of hate rest in eternal peace.