Heather Heyer's Murder was Terrorism

As a society, we like to avoid statements that seem definitive and declaring things that other people might disagree with.  Criticism is bad and strong statements are dangerous, and is this is ever more apparent in media and politics.

Following Heather's murder at the Charlottesville counter-protest against the white supremacist rally, news agencies were quick to provide statements presenting their sympathies for her family, but were slow to condemn her murderer.  At first, many publications presented the event as a tragic accident, and then upon learning more about the attacker, proceeded to call it a "car crash".  Reading articles published by the NYT, the Guardian, and others, almost always, her murderer is presented as a man, who is then described as having killed her in passive voice.  This softer description is a tactic to distance him from his actions, to stymie the emotional effect of his actions.  It is in effect a statement in and of itself.  His behavior, that if committed by someone non-white, or a member any other marginalized community, would quickly be described as an act of domestic terror, was simply a tragic event in which a car crashed into a crowd of people, ending with a single fatality.  Following this terrorist attack, Heather's mother has been subject to frequent and extreme phone calls threatening violence and murder.  It is terrorism, nothing less, and to suggest or imply otherwise via omission is a tacit erasure of that fact.