Ahmed Al-Barkawi

08/02/2015
Religion in America
The real Terror in our backyard
If your not carful the news paper will have you hating the
people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing
the oppressing.(Malcolm X) In this day and time we havent seen
oppression by our government or news outlets towards minority groups
in ways like the civil rights movements back in the 60s. But despite our
leap forward in time with our adjustment in equality and freedom of
expression, our media outlets still fall short of telling the American
people the truth. Stations like Fox News seem to always mislead their
views with fake statistics of what their viewers think or give only
opinionated newscasts that divert from the real story. In this paper I
will be discussing how media outlets in America compare to other news
stations around the word and how their rhetoric is easily portray as
being bias towards certain groups of people in the U.S and abroad.
On October 22, 2014 American citizens woke up to U.S media
outlets exploding with Ottawa Canada shooting regarding it as,
Terrorist murders solider in cold blood, as CNN headlines read. (CNN
News) While the U.S media erupted with fear mongering and terrifying
headlines Canadian news outlets had a different approach on the
violent attack that struck their nation. Situation is tense and unclear-

and its on days like this where a story takes a number of different
pathways, and a number of changes occur, and often rumors start in
situations like this. Were trying to keep them out of our coverage.
(CBC News)
This is not new or uncommon by our media outlets especially
when it comes to differentiating in their news coverage who is a
terrorist and who isnt. It seems they have a very special way off
identifying a terrorist from a mass shooter. A person who is usually
labeled as a terrorist is general from Muslim or Arab decent. There
have been many mass shootings over the past few years from the
Batman Theater shooting in Aurora, to the Sandy Hook shooting that
took place in an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut. Despite
the terror they have brought to their victims and the country they are
not labeled as terrorist by our media outlets, instead they are regarded
as the shooter, or the Suspect. (CNN)
After the Boston bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was caught he was
quickly regarded as terrorist Muslim who hates America and everything
we stand for. Now our media outlets have no trouble telling their
viewers that but when it comes down Dylann Roof a white young man
who shot up an African American church because they were black, our
media outlets chose to disregard it has a hate crime. Instead they refer
to Dylann Roof as the suspect until this day instead of a terrorist. (CNN)

Now despite what U.S media outlets chose who they like to labial
as a terrorist and who is a suspect, AJPlus an alternative media outlet
has a different approach on using the T-word. They stated in one of
their videos that they dont like to identify anyone no matter if its a
Muslim suicide bomber from ISIS or to even a white gunman as a
terrorist, Because the word is loaded. There is no actual universal
definition of terrorism. (AJPlus News) Now the U.S. Department of
Defense regards terrorism as, The calculated use of unlawful violence
or threat of unlawful violence to inculcate fear; intended to coerce or to
intimidate governments or societies in the pursuit of goals that are
generally political, religious, or ideological. (U.S. Department of
Defense)
Now the message that our news outlets try to convey to the
American people is an over the top prejudice news coverage. Instead
of giving the American people reassurance or try to display a sense
understanding of the situation they instead bombard their viewers with
hate and fear mongering. They miss label people and categorize them
based on their ethnicity or religious background. There was a protest
on May 30th, 2015 in front of Muslim mosque in Arizona with 250
heavily armed Anti-Muslim protesters. The majority of the protesters
where white, holding armed rifles in front of a mosque where Muslim
people pray including young children. (The Washington post) These
protesters were protected by the second amendment, the right to bear

arms. Now if a bunch of Muslims used the same tactic to protest lets
say against the state of Israel but also using their second amendment
right, they would be automatically labeled as terrorist by our news
outlets.
This form of bigotry and mislabeling people is not new in our
media outlets. Muslims are not the only ones who are miss labeled. If
youre a Hispanic from Mexico youre labeled as an Illegal. If youre a
black male youre labeled as a thug. We discriminate people in this
country weather we like to admit it or not. Just because we live in a
free land that gives everyone equality and a freedom to express
themselves, does not mean ignorance does not exist amongst us.
Unfortunately despite our advance in technology its rare to find
Americans who are aware of the propaganda machine that is our
media outlets, such as CNN and Fox news. Were easily brain washed
and completely gullible to everything they say. We learn to get all our
information from a talking box rather then going to do our own
research and finding the truth for ourselves. Social media has a huge
part to play in this propaganda game, with random people posting
memes and stories that they copied and pasted of the Internet. There
have been a lot of fake and fabricated stories and information floating
around on social media that people believe to be real without
questioning it. This is a scary reality for our next generation and Im
afraid it will get worse without proper education.

Work Cited
Hundreds gather in Arizona for anti-Muslim protest. Evan Wyloge,
The Washington post (May, 30, 2015)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/postnation/wp/2015/05/30/hundreds-gather-in-arizona-for-armed-antimuslim-protest/

Malcolm X, Civil rights minister. (May, 1925-Feburary, 1965)

Difference between American and Canadian media. AJPlus (October,

23, 3014)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8RGUDHEIJo

Why we dont us the word Terrorist. AJPlus (June, 4, 2015)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZaC_bzgtODY

Terrorist murdered solider in cold blood, Canadas premaster says.

Ashley Fantz, CNN (October, 31, 2014)

http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/22/world/americas/canada-ottawashooting/

Sandy Hook killer took motive to his grave. Matt Smith, CNN
(November, 26, 2013)
http://www.cnn.com/2013/11/25/justice/sandy-hook-shooting-report/

What we know about Dylann Roof as told in Photograph. Dana Ford,

CNN (June 24, 2015)http://www.cnn.com/2015/06/23/us/dylann-roof-photographs/

James Holmes found guilty of murder in Colorado Theater shooting.

Ana Cabrera, Greg Botelho and Dana Ford, CNN (July, 23 2012)
http://www.cnn.com/2015/07/15/us/james-holmes-trial-aurora-coloradomovie-theater-shooting/

Ottawa Parliament shooting. CBC Canada (June, 30, 2014)

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/topic/Tag/Ottawa%20Parliament
%20shooting

Department of defense, terrorist definition.-

https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chromeinstant&ion=1&espv=2&es_th=1&ie=UTF-8#q=us%20department
%20of%20defense%20terrorism%20definition&es_th=1