Nearly twenty years have passed since the terrorist attack in
New York City on September 11th. The event set into motion a
paradigm shift in the United States affecting policy, media, and a new era of
blanket racism. After all this time, and after all the information that we have
learned since that day, the Anti-Muslim sentiment still remains staunchly prevalent
as an inflammatory media and political tool. The currents administration’s actions
have definitely reignited a flame beneath these feelings and thwarts any progress
made by our country towards healing. Facing the brunt of the misinformation and
manipulation of meaning is Representative Ilhan Omar of Minnesota. The New York
Times took a speech she gave at a banquet hosted by the Council on American-Islamic
Relations and threw context out the window with a rabble-rousing cover, and otherAmerican media and politicians took it and ran amok. When this happens, and our president and people of respected office respond in such ways as calling Rep. Omar a "disgrace" or questioning if Omar is ". . . an American first," or spread videos of the terrorist attack itself, the intention is not to honor
those who died or were affected that day. The intent is to create unrest and division.
The fact that Omar’s words, when denouncing Islamophobia, were twisted and used
to create the very thing she strives to change, is a sad irony that has
resulted in Rep. Omar facing threats on her life.
I will have to say that I agree with L Anderson’s point about how the Muslim people after September 11 or also known as 9/11 have been discriminated against. His points weren’t completely clear to me when reading until the very end but he had a lot of accurate facts and some history about the event. The reason I’m saying that his points weren’t completely clear is because I feel that when I read this I didn’t completely understand due to the lack of organization. He talked about how the event of 9/11 has set into motion a shift in the United States affecting the policy media and apparent racism against Muslims. I would disagree that it’s racism and more of discriminatory actions. We don’t think less of them as a race, the reason that some Americans reacted the way that they did is because it shot fear into their lives. This was the first real attack on the US and Americans were shocked and they didn’t have anyone to blame, but the people who caused it. So they put blame on the Muslim people as a precaution to keep it from happening again. 9/11 is similar to what happened with the Bombings by Japan who attacked the US. As a reaction to this hateful and dangerous event Americans put Japanese Americans in camps to keep them separated and prevent further attacks because they had no one to blame, but the Japanese Americans. This is the same response that the Americans had against the Muslims because of this horrific event that happened was caused by terrorist who were Muslim. All of these motivations and thoughts about Muslim people were only because of the fear that Americans had started to experience. In conclusion, it was a well thought out write up, but it lacked some organization. The history that he gave was very interesting and informative. I agreed with some of his argument and some not so much.
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