Last week, when it was announced that the suspects charged with the Boston bombing were not Middle Eastern, I breathed a sigh of relief. 

I was in my car at the time, speeding down the beltline to an internship, when the hosts of NPR verbally described the pictures the FBI had just released. 

“They appear to be Caucasian,” said the deep radio voice. He even commented on the fact that the million dollar question was the ethnicity of the bombers. It was a perfectly valid question — America has come a long way from stereotyping foreigners, but a bombing by Middle Easterners would have set us back 10 years. Despite the cars whooshing past me, I felt a tangible calmness about things. 

I only need to remind you of the Ground Zero mosque fiasco to point out that events like 9/11 or the Boston bombings are extremely sensitive topics. Strong feelings are completely justified, but not when they are directed toward the wrong group of people. 

I’m sure the woman who tweeted “Please don’t be a Muslim” a few hours after the bombings was aware of the negative feelings that would be associated with an Islamic bomber. Her five-word sentiment has since been retweeted almost 300 times, and it accurately reflects American Islamic concerns. Cue Erik Rush’s now-infamous “kill the Muslims” tweet to show these concerns are justified.

Despite this woman’s pleas, the alleged bombers were, in fact, Muslim. As information is coming out about the older Tsarnaev brother’s connection to jihadist groups in Europe, we need to guard ourselves against reacting based on unfounded stereotypes. 

Muslims are not evil, as Rush suggested, nor should we kill them all. The people allegedly responsible for the 3 deaths and 170 injuries last Monday are the Tsarnaev brothers. That’s it. It’s not the Muslim community. It’s not undocumented immigrants. It’s not even the jihadist groups that influenced the older brother. 

In a News & Observer column, Charles Krauthammer pointed out how the Obama administration “obsessively adopts language that extirpates any possible connection between Islam and terrorism.”

“[The White House] insists on calling jihadists ‘violent extremists’ without ever telling us what they’re extreme about,” Krauthammer wrote this past Sunday. “It even classified the Fort Hood shooting, in which the killer screamed ‘Allahu Akbar’ as he murdered 13 people, as ‘workplace violence.’”

While Krauthammer’s statements were criticisms, I think our president made the right choice. As a PR major, I understand the weight certain words, such as “terrorist,” hold. There are radical people everywhere — the KKK, neo-Nazis, several gangs throughout the United States. While jihadists are both radical and Muslim, they are not radical because they are Muslim. 

As I listen to various people talk and as I read the endless stream of social media content about the Tsarvaev brothers, it encourages me to see little anti-Muslim sentiments. I didn’t write this column to criticize — merely to warn.  The story of the Boston bombers is not going away anytime soon, and we will continue to be pelted with information about the brothers’ Islamic connections. 

I’ll end by saying I applaud you all for avoiding passing quick judgment on an entire religion, and as we continue to move through this time of American hurting, I encourage you to stay vigilant.