Monday, September 04, 2006

Which Came First?

A new twist on the "Which came first?" debate. Instead of chickens vs. eggs, we've switched to behavior vs. stereotypes. So which came first? I'm sure there are probably cases on both sides of the debate, but I personally feel that behaviors generally come before stereotypes. That being said, last year's Miss England evidently would disagree with me. In this story, the 19-year-old Muslim "warned that stereotyping members of her community is leading some towards extremism."
"The bridge I have made is slowly being broken by more and more wars. Now the Iran situation is brought up and another Islamic country is under scrutiny - and the recent Heathrow scare. I guess I am needed even more now than last year to an extent because of what has happened.

"It is not for me to answer how to get people to turn away from terrorism. The politicians don't know what to do and I am just a 19-year-old."

Just a 19-year-old politician from the sounds of it - very willing to point out problems, but lacking the vision or the responsibility to propose a solution.

2 comments:

Zach Kapfer said...

I get a nice smile out the media going to celebrities as reliable sources to topics. If she was not Miss England, do you think they would have even bothered her? I think not. They would look at her as a 19 year old, a kid who is probably smart but still young.

The media also asked her to play one of my favorite media games "The Blame Game." Who do you think she blamed; somebody else besides the people that are actually doing the crime/harm.

I am trying to make since out of this article. I guess I will stereotype the Muslim radicals as being hateful people. So by me pointing out hateful people justifies them for being hateful? That does not make any since. Or is the argument that peaceful Muslims are being viewed as possible terriorist, which justifies Muslim radicals for being hateful people? All I know is that the article is saying the government and non-Muslims are responsible for all of their hate.

Changing the topic here. I guess since I called out the media for acting the way I did above, I stereotyped them, which ultimately gives them the green light to continue acting the way they already do. But can you blame them. No you should be blaming me since I called them out/stereotyped their behavior. Or even better, you should blame President Bush like the majority of the world does. That does not make any since, but this gives you the ok to hating the president and still acting the way you do.

Zach Kapfer said...

I am going to be nit picky here. But are moderate Muslims that do terrorist acts become extremist Muslims? So do you think they call some Muslims moderates instead of extremist to soften the tone?

"Even moderate Muslims are turning to terrorism to prove themselves. They think they might as well support it because they are stereotyped anyway. It will take a long time for communities to start mixing in more"