It seems to me more and more that we are living in a culture that is largely sustained and driven by fear.
I say this after reading about this particularly disgusting bit of racism, about a man who was targeted as a "terrorist" because he had dark skin. Here is his version of the events, along with the the University's. I guess it would be easy to dismiss the incident as a case of "small town, small-mindedness", but it still makes me shake my head and wonder; is this really what our country has become?
The semester is slowly but surely coming to an end. At this point in time, I have to finish up my rand-alg assignment (90% done), finish up my stat assignment (90%), and then concentrate on studying for my final (0% progress) that I have next thursday, and work on some research (some percentage of progress that is too low for my tastes). Oh, and I just found out that I am going to be a Master TA. Jubilations!
Back to work I go...
-Suzanne
2 comments:
But, Suzanne.. you're one of the more fearful people I know :). OK, not about Muslims or terrorism, but.. yeah.
As for Shippensburg University, the poetry professor writes poetically, but without context the statement "It was an honest mistake" seems more likely to apply to cancelling classes and freaking out, rather than recycling papers. Of course, I don't know what the administration told the guy; if someone told me I needed to be more careful when recycling paper I'd probably be pretty upset too.
Ethan
Ok. So I'm afraid of snakes and spiders and slithery things. And I occasionally am very frightened by that big ball burning in the sky. I've been known to eye doors with suspicion (since I tend to walk into them a lot), and I'm afraid of the dark and probably a whole smatter of other things. Oh. And rocks. and pointy things. Those are all very, very scary, and should be avoided at all costs.
But people? I dunno... I don't like strangers, and I'm very cautious around them, but besides that... being afraid of someone because of the way they look? C'mom.
Now that's just plain ridiculous.
-Suzanne
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