Our supposed solidarity with those who were killed was only a knee-jerk, albeit well-intentioned, reaction to the tragedy. People weren’t willing to go further and commit intellectually to the idea that there is a problem with militant Islam. Instead, the insistence that Islam was being “hijacked” drowned out the fact that groups like ISIS have just as much of a “right” to claim Islam as their religion as the many peaceful Muslims around the world do.

Within hours of the Paris attack on Friday, people had changed their Facebook photos to show solidarity with France. Monuments around the world were lit up in red, white, and blue. There was a brief moment of hope while watching the terror unfold that this time things would be different. That there would be no defense of the terrorists’ actions because this time the victims were people who had made no provocation or political statement. That this time, perhaps, it would be harder for people to make excuses. They couldn’t turn away from the reality of our world in the twenty-first century: radical Islam is real, they truly believe what they do is their religious duty, and they aren’t going to stop.

Yet, less than 24 hours after the attacks, the top-trending hashtag on Twitter was “Muslims are not terrorists.” Somehow that became the main takeaway from the horror. Not the dozens dead, or their mourning families. Not the motives of the killers or their affiliation with a group that strictly interprets and enforces Sharia law.