In-class blog: Summarizing and Interpreting a graph.

The graph that I'm going to discuss is titled  "Anti-Islamic Hate Crime Incidents". The graph shows the amount of Anti-Islamic crime throughout the years. From 1995 to 2008 to be precise. From the graph we can see that the crimes from 1995 to 2000 ranged from 21 to 32, which in a way is low given the fact that it is a different religion in a mostly christian country (although the chart doesn't mention where did these crimes take place,which to me it's a problem because people can get confused if they read this in another country, I assumed they took place in the US). On the other hand, from 2001 to 2008 the crimes went through the roof. In 2001 it reached its peak, reaching the amount of 481 Anti-Islamic crimes committed. Then the years that follow, we can say that the crimes plateaued, but still at a high rate of crimes. The crimes from 2002 to 2008 ranged from 105 to 156. In my opinion, the amount of crimes increased at a ridiculous level because of the disastrous event that took place in 2001, which was the attack on the world trade center, commonly referred as 9-11(because of the date that the attack happened). That's why we can see that the peak of the chart was on 2001(which is also the year 9-11 occurred), reaching an amount that make the other years seem irrelevant. Now to move on to a more concrete evidence, I'm going to use the book "Zeitoun" written by Dave Eggers , a book that it is mainly about a man named Zeitoun who is a believer of the Islamic religion, decided to stay in New Orleans when hurricane Katrina hit which in turn were the cause of many misfortunes for Zeitoun. In a class discussion for my English 101 class, me and a group of classmates came up with a keyword which in a way relates to the graph. "Cultural Fear" is the word that  we came up with. Cultural fear meaning the fear of being treated cruelly due to your difference of culture. Or, the fear of someone who has a different cultural background (for a deeper explanation, I posted a blog on May 12 entirely on  "Cultural Fear"). Since Zeitoun is a Muslim, he had always feared he would  be object of mistreatment for being Muslim. That's because he was living in the US being a Muslim in the post 9-11 era. After 9-11, many people relate Al-Qaeda to Islam, this being the main cause of Anti-Islamic crimes in my opinion, which to clarify, I think that is just plain ignorant. Anyhow, in the book when Zeitoun was being processed to go to jail, the guards kept yelling Anti-Islamic comments, the line that stooud out for me was "you guys are al Qaeda " when Zeitoun asked why he was being held captive (Eggers, 212).


Notes: ( Not finished nor revised)

In class Zeitoun blog #2.

The presence of cultural fear is evident in "Zeitoun". First of all, let me define what I mean by cultural fear. Cultural fear is the fear of being treated in a hateful way due to cultural reasons. We can see an example of cultural fear when Eggers wrote about Zeitoun's interrogation. In this interrogation Zeitoun was horrified because he did not know what would happen to him for being Muslim, especially when the soldiers started showing their hatred towards Zeitoun's race (212). Cultural fear can also mean the fear of someone else's culture. Eggers gave us an example of this when he wrote about the case of a tenth grader of Iraqi descent whose teacher was being racist because of her cultural background. He would call Iraq "a third world country", and also was worried the student would "bomb us" (45). In these two situations we can see how our cultural background may have some extreme effects on our lives. In my opinion this senseless battering of different culture just because we fear them makes no sense, no one can choose where they are born. That also means that our cultures may differ from one another, but to condemn people for something they did not have a choice in is preposterous; and because of that people sometimes fear what would happen to them for having a different culture.

Zeitoun

 In my opinion, after seeing the damage that hurricane Katrina had caused, Zeitoun started having some inner doubts about his decision of staying. Even though he never admits it to Kathy, I believe that the only reason he was staying in this chaos was because of his pride , which in my opinion it is kind of selfish given the fact that he has children. I believe Zeitoun should have left too with his family just to protect his children in case of emergency. David Eggers, on page 89 of his called "Zeitoun" wrote a passage that showed Zeitoun's insecurity about his decision. It is a conversation between Zeitoun and his wife Kathy followed by Zeitoun's thoughts at the moment. He wrote " "Please leave," she said. "Tomorrow." "No, no" he said, but even as he spoke, he was reconsidering"(Eggers, 89). This is what I mean when i say that he had his doubts about his decision. As stubborn and skeptical as he was, we can see that he has his moments were he contemplated if it was the right decision. Did he stay because he was skeptical about the storm?, or because he valued his possessions more than his family?. I don't know, but either way I believe he was mistaken, he should have been with his family in that moment of crisis.