As a platform that champions diversity, multiculturalism, and progressive thought, Sybil unequivocally condemns the barbaric terrorist attacks that took place yesterday in Christchurch, New Zealand. The following is not a news report concerning the Christchurch attacks, for we are not a news agency, but simply a reaction and a lament.

Dear reader, you know Brenton Tarrant, that fearful cracker whose response to multiculturalism was writing an ill-formed 74-page manifesto and subsequently murdering 49 Muslim worshippers and wounding dozens of others, amongst them women, children, and the elderly, during Friday prayer at the al Noor and Linwood mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand. Brenton Tarrant is in your classrooms, masking his distaste for modernity behind irreverent comments and mediocre grades, he attends the same parties as you do, the entire time crafting a narrative on the failures of diversity that he will share with his fellow fiends on the internet, and he sits at a safe distance from you at bars, allowing his mind to continuously drift into daydreams drenched in blood.

At this crucial time, my aim is not to spread fear nor to further divide our turbulent world, but as Tarrant himself wrote: “Whilst we may use edgy humor and memes…eventually we will need to show the reality of our thoughts and our more serious intents…” So, I urge you, dear reader: Do not tolerate the “edgy” acquaintance you keep who prescribes himself knowledge via 4Chan, 8Chan, or Breitbart (to name but a few bastions of irrationalism). Their “red pills” are addicting and fatal. Let us not forgive them, for they know what they do. Though it is not our responsibility to rehabilitate these individuals, we must continue to hold them accountable, to publicly shame them, to let everyone in our communities know where they dwell. We must demand that our politicians clean the cesspools that have overtaken the topography of the internet. And we must do it now.

He described himself as a “regular white man from a regular family.” He proudly labeled himself an “eco-fascist” and a “terrorist.” An admirer of Anders Breivik and ill-interpreter of Dylan Thomas, he is an unremarkable student-cum-mass shooter. We’ve been here before and we will be here again—my perpetually fading hope has morphed into an expectant dread.

As crackers continue to lose their grip on power, crackers will become increasingly violent. However, our ways of life have been altered, both forcefully and otherwise, for much too long. Let us not relent but let us remain vigilant. We must continue to assert our cultures, our traditions, and our shared beliefs—crackers fear our beautifully rich histories, for crackers have no history beyond that of senseless violence and disease. May we continue to heal from hundreds of years of oppression, whether it be through worship, self-discovery, or activism. I know Brenton Tarrant, and I do not fear him. May peace befall us all.