The biggest emotion that we should feel about the senseless and needless tragedy on the light-rail train in Charlotte, North Carolina—after the outrage has faded just a bit—is incredible sadness.
How can it be that in a nation that calls itself “The Land of Free and the Home of the Brave,” which welcomes immigrants looking for a better life—how can that nation produce such a monstrous occurrence that transpired in Charlotte?
If any video personifies the phrase, “a lamb to the slaughter,” the video from that horrific event—ubiquitous on the internet—is it.
Image: Public domain.
This innocent young woman, Iryna Zarutska, was just coming home from a low-paying restaurant job at a pizzeria, minding her own business, and ready for a peaceful evening at home. But evil struck.
Perhaps the saddest thing of all is that she lived for some moments after the attack—and in her last moments, she cried. She died crying among strangers who seemingly had little, if any, compassion for this innocent, precious soul.
There were riders who were free to be brave, to offer help immediately, but they chose to let their moment pass them by. In the shadow of 9/11, the ceremonies and the remembrances, you would think that Americans would have learned lessons of taking a stand for righteousness.
This tragedy may have happened suddenly, but it wasn’t confusing as to what had just happened. What happened was right in front of the faces of several people in the car. What happened was obvious.
The subtitle of my book by the same name is “Seeing the Evil That’s in Plain Sight and Doing Something About It.” The evil was in plain sight. So, what did fellow human beings do about the evil?
The same is true of doing something about evil on a larger scale. What did—and what has—the media done about this particular evil?
I learned growing up Catholic that there are two ways people sin: one is by commission and one is by omission. You can intentionally commit an overt sinful act, or you can neglect to do something that was right, allowing a sinful act to occur.
The media are guilty of both. Journalists failed initially to report on this outrageous tragedy, and when they did have the opportunity, they blamed those who, they say, blew the event out of proportion. A scene like this only happens in horror movies; however, when it happens in real life, are we advised to, what, look the other way?
When the MSM did finally throw their vaunted attention toward the slasher video, some indignantly complained that “MAGA” was exaggerating the incident for political reasons.
It is worth noting that the far left never utters the words for which the MAGA initials stand. They don’t want people to hear that patriots who want to “Make America Great Again” have a problem, in this case, with innocent people being slaughtered. Make America Great Again people seem to want to make safe and secure public transportation part of that greatness. MSM can’t permit that, apparently.
Unfortunately, there was a blatant racist component to this attack, as well.
In the car near the killer were several nonwhite people who easily could have qualified as his prey. But after the attack the killer made his intent clear with his own words: “I got that white girl.”
Now, there are people out there who will insist that “black people can’t be racist.” People who say that are racist. Anyone who promotes D.E.I. is a racist. But anyone, like Morgan Freeman, when asked the question on 60 Minutes, “How are we going to get rid of racism?” who answers with, “By stopping talking about it. I’m going to stop calling you a white man. And I’m going to ask you to stop calling me a black man”—is clearly not a racist.
And it is way past time we stop using euphemisms like “race-baiting” and “playing the race card” and “race-hustling” when describing real racists like Jasmine Crockett, Joy Reid, Al Sharpton, and Barack Obama. Note that the left has never used any of those euphemisms when verbally attacking President Donald Trump. They just flat-out call Trump a racist—when he isn’t. But in the world of the left, since there is no “true Truth,” what they say is... god-breathed.
The heartless killer of sweet Iryna Zarutska may very well have been possessed by a demon—recent books by Jonathan Cahn, such as The Avatar and The Return of the Gods, provide a clue—but his influence came from the “spirit of the age” that promotes racism to divide this great nation.
Yes, we need to be outraged by the Charlotte tragedy. And we certainly need to be deeply saddened by the tragic loss of life. But we also need to be vigilant and prayerful and unafraid to speak out and help out at a moment’s notice.
We are the land of the free and the home of the brave. And that must never be forgotten.
Albin Sadar is the author of Obvious: Seeing the Evil That’s in Plain Sight and Doing Something About It, as well as the children’s book collection, Hamster Holmes: Box of Mysteries. Albin was formerly the producer of “The Eric Metaxas Show.”