Going Muslim?

Words matter and are doing grave harm in the wake the the Fort Hood killings. Daniel Martin Varisco, who is Professor of Anthropology and Director of Middle Eastern and Central Asian Studies at Hofstra University, explains:

The deeper issue here is the politics of blame fueled by fear. Despite several “going postal” episodes in recent years, we still go to our local post offices, and local postal workers have not quit en masse. It sometimes seems like hardly a month goes by without a disgruntled individual going on a shooting spree. To neologize the term “going Muslim” is an insult that would not be tolerated for any other group I know. Were the perpetrators of the Columbine school killings “going teenager”? If a fanatic fundamentalist Christian kills an abortion doctor, is he “going Christian,” or should an Israeli soldier who loses it be considered as “going Jewish”? As much as I hate the term “Islamism,” could Varadanjan not at least have come up with “going Islamist”?