War on Fear

New York, the city that has been exposed to terrorist attacks for years now, just experienced another attack that stems straight from ideas that can be found on the Internet.  In Queens, Muslim extremist, Zale Thompson, attacked two cops with a hatchet.  Thompson was not affiliated with a specific group but rather explored many different philosophies and practices online.  The Boston Bombings that took place in April of 2013 were carried out by two men who, like Thompson, were not affiliated with a particular group of Muslim extremists but simply based their beliefs off of things they learned on the Internet.  The Internet has become a dangerous place for social interactions because many times people base important decisions off of ideas of people who are just looking to instigate something in hopes of being revolutionary.  The Facebook page of Thompson shows that he was not hiding his contempt for the “white government power struggle” though his page did not refer to the radical Islamic beliefs that would inspire an attack of this nature.  

Throughout this all, this attack can still be seen as an act of terrorism, which reminds people that there is something to fear.  In the article that we read about Muslim Americans having two identities, it describes how the fear of terrorism often overpowers how people treat those who are Muslim and American.  Ewing and Hoyler (2008) stated, “Such moments of awareness often coincide with a large-scale event capable of triggering the rapid and involuntary repositioning of a group or individual within mainstream consciousness and esteem.”  Muslim Americans become more aware of their own identity as well as those they interact with are more aware of the Muslim identity when there is an incident that reminds them that there is a dangerous group of people who have the same identity.  Fear is an emotion that can completely change the behavior and attitudes of a nation.  When one group of students acts up in class, the whole class is deemed as a bad class.  This poorly constructed idea unfortunately carries through in this scenario.  Many people believe that all Muslims are to be feared just because there are bad people who identify as Muslim.  After the attacks on 9/11, Muslims went through many changes to try and make it clear to those who were not aware, that there was a great distance between most Muslim Americans and the Islamic radicals.  Although Muslim Americans attempted to change themselves and emphasize the good in their culture, events such as Thompson’s attack on the New York policemen and the Boston Bombings, reinforce the public ideas that Muslims should be feared.  There is not only a war on terror in this country, but also a war that Americans are slowly losing: the war on fear.  The power of fear can ostracize and shape the identity of a culture that is receiving negative attention for the actions of extremist groups that are not the majority. 

 

Works Consulted

Benjamin, Daniel.  2014.  Motive of Destruction.  Opinion piece in The Boston Globe.  January 4.

Ewing, Katherine Pratt and Marguerite Hoyler.  2008.  Being Muslim and American: South Asain Muslim Youth and the War on Terror.  Chapter 4 in Being and Belonging. 
http://reserves.wheatoncollege.edu/eres/coursepage.aspx?cid=648&page=docs

Yahoo News. 2014.  New York police brand hatchet attack 'terrorist' act.  October 24.
http://news.yahoo.com/man-islamic-extremist-leanings-attacks-ny-police-083342808.html

Is a Fraternity taking it too far on Martin Luther King Jr.'s Birthday?

          Is a Fraternity taking it too far on Martin Luther King Jr.'s Birthday?                    

                      Arizona State University enrolls 77,000 students a year with about 60% white students, 19% Latinos, 5% African Americans and the other 30% a mixture of state residents.  According to a spokeswoman Julie Newberg “the school has increased its enrollment of racial and ethnic minorities to 32% in 2012 from 21% in 2002.”  Doing so unfortunately has not changed some of the student’s minds in racism thinking or for this instance “partying”. 

            Arizona State University is investigating the Fraternity Tau Kappa Epsilon of certain accusations that they committed when throwing a party for Martin Luther King’s birthday.  The accusations include at “which nonblack students mocked blacks by donning loose basketball jerseys, flashing gang signs and drinking from hollowed-out watermelons.”  If that is not bad enough there is evidence of students from the fraternity and party posting multiple Instagram photos with the shameful hash tags:  #MLKblackout and #hood.  Doing so these particular students have left a lot of “outrage, derision and disbelief among other sents.” 

            Tau Kappa Epsilon has been on probation since last year due to certain members being “linked to the beating of a black student on campus” and in result the University officials have recently suspended the fraternity from functions.  Having a sort of racism background to their fraternity has only put themselves in worse standing for this recent situation. 

            Interestingly Arizona was actually one of the last states to decide on Martin Luther King Jr. as a state holiday due to their governor at the time: Jan Brewer who voted against it.  In 1986 Bruce Babbitt who was governor at the time voted in favor and “established it by executive order just before he left office, only to have his Republican successor, Evan Mecham, rescind it.” Resulting in the voters to decide which came out as being in favor to create the holiday in 1992.  Which is a very interesting link to what these students in the specific fraternity were doing/creating. In fact a Rev. by the name of Jarrett Maupin who is a black Baptist minister and civil rights activist is quoted “We have this complicated history, so if we don’t stop every attempt at diminishing this day, we run a serious risk of turning the racist actions of certain individuals into institutional racism.”     

            While many people support the consequences of these students, some are actually in opposition.  Samantha Munoz a Mexican and Italian student who is neighbors with some of the Fraternity brothers stated “I understand why people are upset, but the question I ask myself is whether these same people find it racist when someone throws a white-trash party on Fourth of July.”  Which brings up the question as to why haven’t their been racist accusations with other holidays that could potentially have racist parties as well.

Many are stating this act as the fraternity “transforming into an echo chamber for racism.”  Or even something that is not even “done to harm the black community, but make it into what it was which is an act of disrespect to an American hero”.  Students, Faculty and the public in general are on the fence as to what to call this or what measures and steps to take next.  Even majorities of the people are disagreeing on what actions to take toward Tau Kappa Epsilon.  Some believe in taking care of it with suspending the students who were involved while others believe that giving them consequences will teach a lesson to the students as well.  

      Santos, Fernanda. "Arizona Fraternity Party Stirs Concerns of Racism." The New York Times. The New York Times, 22 Jan. 2014. Web. 28 Oct. 2014. <http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/23/us/arizona-fraternity-party-stirs-concerns-of-racism.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3As%2C%7B%222%22%3A%22RI%3A15%22%7D&_r=0>.

113th US House of Representatives Breakdown

With mid-term elections looming in the next week I want to take a chance to look at the 113th House of Representatives of the United States of America. The 113th House convened for the first time on January, 3rd 2013 and will close on January 3rd 2015. Elections on November 4th will most likely change the shape of the congress. The House is comprised of 50 senators (2 from each state), they comprise the Senate, and 389 congressmen who complete Congress. These individuals check and balance the three powers as the legislative branch.

When elected, there was a national hype regarding a very diverse congress taking place of the 112th and I want to closely examine that. According to House Press Gallery whom released stats without much context, 81 members are women, 42 are African American, two are American Indian, 11 are Asian American and 35 are Hispanic. Those numbers mean that 68% or 300 members are not any of those minority groups or women.

The image below of the Northeast shows voting districts. The regions colored red indicate that that county is held by an African-American. As you can see in the bustling and very diverse north-east there is not much variation of individuals who hold congress.

A closer look at the metro areas of New York City (on the left) and Los Angeles (right) show that in the cities there tends to be representation by minorities. This can be attributed to the diverse racial make up of these cities. Red once again indicates African American, yellow indicates Hispanic American and purple indicates Asian American. The gray regions indicate an individual who does not identify as one of the aforementioned groups. Take a look at the interactive map here: http://www.citylab.com/politics/2013/01/diversity-113th-congress-looks-pathetic-when-you-plot-it-map/4348/

Now, if we think about the breakdown of the US it is known that there is a large population of African-Americans in the Southeast. That is complemented with a large Hispanic population residing in the the southwest and Asian population living interspersed on the west coast. The map below contains a breakdown of the US corresponding to the 2010 census information. A dot indicates one individual and blue corresponds to white, green yields black, red yields Asian and orange indicates orange. 

Take a look at this interactive map here: http://demographics.coopercenter.org/DotMap/index.html .

The US is a large and diverse country. With the right to vote comes the responsibility to push the country in a direction we want to. It is the writers opinion that congress can and should be more diverse as more diversity will yield more knowledge. Getting to hear from the perspectives of other races may help congress get their act together and perhaps garner a better approval rating from the American public!