Our definition of “terrorist” is unclear, even though it’s always used to describe a Muslim who commits a crime: especially after 9/11. However, when Andreas Lubitz intentionally crashed Germanwings Flight 9525 and killed all 150 passengers onboard, including himself, on March 24, he was not labeled as a terrorist. In fact, the media went out of their way to avoid labeling him as such.

After French and German prosecutors confirmed that Lubitz deliberately crashed the plane, there was speculation over whether or not he had ties to terrorist organizations, and some sources, like televangelist Pat Robertson, even fabricated his conversion to Islam. There was a different approach to describing Lubitz; a New York Times article headline labeled Lubitz as a man “Who Loved to Fly, [and] Ended Up on a Mysterious and Deadly course,” as though this was not a planned suicidal adventure that took the lives of so many innocent people. It presents him as a loving man whose battle with mental illness meant that he didn’t need to be, and couldn’t be, blamed. I can bet that had it been a Muslim man who committed that same act, they would throw in the word “Jihadi,” and definitely the word “terror,” to make him seem like a barbaric animal and abuse religious contexts.

Here the question becomes “what is a terrorist?” There isn’t a universal definition for terrorism and therefore it remains a subjective term geared towards people of certain racial and religious backgrounds. For example, when the Newtown school shooting took place, the shooter, Adam Lanza, was labeled as a mentally ill man who committed a random act of murder, with his disability as the main justification for the killing. But how does that not make the horror that he committed a terrorist attack?

I feel as though it’s impossible to have an objective definition of “terrorism.” The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) uses the term terrorism both in relation to international and domestic terrorism, both of which have similar descriptions. The characteristic that the FBI uses to describe terrorism is, “the unlawful use of force or violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives.” So does that make what Lubitz did an act of terrorism? Yes, it does. In Lubitz’s case, the media, government officials and French and German prosecutors painted him as a mentally incapable man who hid his doctor’s note. People who knew him always said he was calm and a good person who kept to himself and they couldn’t fathom the fact that he would do something as tragic as this. But he did, and he even planned it, as he had researched suicide methods and information on cockpit security. He involved “the civilian population” in his plan, and certainly used violence against them in the furthering of his objectives, whatever they might have been.

Yet, according to USA Today, the FBI “found no connection of anyone aboard [the plane] to terrorism.” According to the media, Lubitz is not guilty of being a terrorist. Or maybe his skin color just makes him ineligible for the distinction.

If he had the mental capacity to plan his crime, then he should be held accountable. Why are we so afraid, then, to label a guilty white German man as a terrorist? Perhaps it will destroy the societal expectation of who gets to be charged with a terrorist attack. Will it ever change? It’s not clear that it will anytime soon, but it is clear that it is time for us to stop forcing an exclusive association between Islam and acts of terrorism.