I watched 36 Seconds: Portraity of a Hate Crime by Tarek Albaba via the NYC Film Festival, where it is available for streaming through November 26, 2023.
I had of course heard about the murders of Deah Barakat, Yusor Abu Salha and Razan Abu Salha and even attended a vigil in Columbia County, Georgia. I had not kept up with the news of the case, although I periodically saw advertisements and reports of the Our Three Winners Foundation, which formed after the murders. I did know that the perpetrator was sentenced to life in prison (3 consecutive life terms, without the possibility of parole, as I learned from the documentary).
So what is there more? Why should anybody watch this film?
So what is there more? Why should anybody watch this film?
I am going to try to reconcile two seemingly contradictory ideas, but indulge me. The first is that the film is a worthy tribute to the three outstanding martyred young people Deah, Yusor and Razan. The second is that film reveals some of the limitations of respectability politics.
What do I mean by respectability politics in the United States? It's the politics that calls for extending rights, protections and priveleges to an oppressed category because of how much the individuals in that category are like the ideals the priveleged class in society claims for itself and/or demands in others. This is best exemplified by the Talented Tenth, whom various figures in United States history decided were the African-Americans worthy of a fuller measure of human rights. It was the decision to support Rosa Parks's challenge to the racial segregation of Montgomery, Alabama's bus system and not Claudette Colvin.
So by emphasizing the qualities of Deah, Yusor and Razan, we are practicing a sort of respectability politics that says, "Hey, we Muslims can be talented professionals, stylish dressers, popular-culture consumers and participants and physically attractive. Treat us like one of you!"
Shortly after their murders, three youths, Mohamedtaha Omar, Muhannad Tairab and Adam Mekki, immigrants from Sudan's Dar Fur region, were murdered execution style in Fort Wayne, Indiana. The police judged the motive was not anti-Muslim animus since Adam Mekki was Christian. As is common in USA-crimes related to young black men, society settled on the explanation that it was drug-related.
The family members didn't have the resources to challenge the image and/or neglect this case placed on their murdered relatives, and there was no sustaned nationwide mobilization from Muslims to support the families. Whether this is a result of anti-blackness or the murder victims' lack of bourgeious achivements, the impression one gets is that Deah, Yusor and Razan are more important than Mohamedtaha, Muhannad and Adam, may Allah جل جلاله have mercy on all of them and comfort their families.
Yet 36 Seconds doesn't stop with respectability politics and points towards its limitations. When major politcal processes and institutions are driving hate against Muslims, gunmen like the North Carolina perpetrator aren't going to stop to see if their targets have recently volunteered time to feed the needy. In our time, when #46Regime Genocide Joe is repeating Zionist propaganda against Palestinians and funding the Israeli army's killing and starvation of Palestinians, no amount of personal achievement and good looks will protect a Palestinian or a person perceived to be close to Palestianian, i.e. nearly all non-white people and people with non-genocidal politics, from hate crimes.
While the families places a lot of stock in the hate crime designation, I think the film clearly shows that their concern for this designation was partly a reaction to press reports that the murder happened as a result of a parking dispute. The film clearly shows the necessity for a justice system to produce truth, which, thankfully, did happen in this case. I think one of the best literary portrayals of this need is Orson Scott Card's Speaker for the Dead.
While some in the film talk about how hate crime legislation and data tracking should be improved, I don't think the film does a great job of examing policies surrounding hate crimes, which of course vary widely by state and would likely go beyond the scope of this film.
Call me a radical, but I think tolerating homelessness, selling weapons to governments to kill in their wars and failing to address collapse of the biosphere are better examples of racism, the need for gun control and hate crimes than individuals' use of the N-word, 2nd Amendment fanatics & Dylan Roof. I'm just not that interested in the United States government's punishing perpetrators of hate crimes when it itself is the most massive perptetrator of hate crimes.
The film filled in some gaps in my recollection of the case. It claims, for example, that the local police spread the parking dispute narrative in an attempt to control public fears that a pattern of anti-Muslim crimes was possible. I also didn't know that Deah had recorded with his cell phone the murders, that the recording was presented as evidence at the sentencing phase and that it and other evidence collected by the prosecutors proved beyond any doubt that the perpetrator's narrative of a parking dispute and altercation and possible self-defense was false.
