That could have been them or someone in their family. A close friend perhaps. Second, by not showing any victims of countries we may not specifically be fans of, such as Asian or Middle Eastern people, we only feel that we are the targeted victims. Economically we do not get along with China so we tend to view them as the “bad guy.” If we were to see Asians as victims, not that we would not feel sorry for their deaths, but we would feel that the attacks were more wide spread and on the world. Because they omitted such images, we feel that we are at the center of all the attacks. Lastly, they do not show any victims that could resemble a Middle Eastern or Muslim. Really? They were able to blow up buildings and trains and what not but avoid hurting any Muslim and Middle Easterners? I don’t think that was the case. They clearly wanted to omit such images in order to make it seem that the attacks came from all Muslims and not just a terrorist group.
with or share any of the beliefs of Jahid and any other terrorist groups. This group chose to show very graphic images from bombings and wars. I do believe that the public deserves to know the true aftermath of such events, but pictures can be taken in ways that purposefully shift the viewer’s opinion of what occurred. The destruction was clearly real and very detrimental in most of the events, but by adding pictures of victims and showing that most of the victims were white and a few black tells me two things. First, the maker of the video is specifically trying to sway black and white American’s opinions of Muslims and Arabs. When the viewer sees someone of their own race they are more likely to be able to personally connect with the victim.
I think that this video is absolutely and without a doubt a form of propaganda and provides an extremely racist take on Muslims. The makers of the video clearly had no empathy for Muslims and painted them all as terrorists. They used special effects in order to intimidate the viewers and sway their opinions and viewpoints of the Muslim population. While it may be true all of the attacks made by Jahid, I do not actually know if all of the facts line up but I will assume the maker of the video did his research, the connections that the video makes between Muslims and Jahid are unfair.
If time were taken to truly get to know people before passing judgment on them, no labels would exist. No two people are exactly the same, so general labels can’t be applied correctly to large groups of people. I’m happy to see J.V.G. found another girl in his class that agreed with his views and that he was able to speak with. I agree with both of them and think that things should speak for themselves.
The labeling that Professor Pumpa speaks about is seen everywhere. Labels are put on people all the time. It’s possible to label someone simply based on gender or color. These uncontrollable aspects of our appearance can define us so strongly and commonly that we sometimes fail to see their effects. We may even miss our own actions because of our comfort with such labels and react to things subconsciously. It only seems reasonable for someone to flinch or cringe when they hear that they will be surrounded with criminals and have to interact with them. The horrors that immediately rush to mind, wondering what these terrible people must have done. But these labels are rarely correct or deserved. If people took the time to actually get to know those that they are labeling, incorrect labeling would occur much less often. Not on that, but also labeling in general.
J.V.G. talks about how he was in a program that involved students from Temple University. Half of the students were from Temple and half were from the Graterford Penitentiary. It is easy for use, average college students to imagine this experience from the Temple student’s perspectives; scared yet curious of what these felons look like and act like. It was very interesting to me however, to see the story from the other side of the spectrum. How the inmate of the penitentiary felt about the situation. J.V.G. says that he was nervous and at some point felt the need to hold a text book in front of his face. If I were him I feel that I would have felt exactly the same way. The judgment that he must have imagined and in some cases truly felt coming from the students, would be unbearable. He never says what he did to place him in the penitentiary, but he seems like a fairly well educated and understanding guy.
I think that the prisoners need someone to help them to get through their time in prison. That person must be someone that understands their situation and can help them change their lives. C. says that he tries to help the younger guys get ready for life in prison. He in a way mentors them. Even though C. is only at the age of 28, he understands how they feel and is one of the few that could help them through the system. His years of experience have showed him the separate roads that prisoners can take. They can either become assholes or look within themselves and try to change and think about why they are there and if they are some of the lucky ones that get to go out into society again, I hope that they make those changes and can turn their lives around.
The crazy part about this is that there are a lot of prisoners that get letters weekly and a lot of visitors. It would be hard to believe that they are bad horrible people. C. did say that there are assholes in prison and that he would not expect any one of them to receive letters or visitors. They have offended and abused their families. They should not expect sympathy or forgiveness from their families. They would need to change drastically in order for that to happen.
Family and friends are something that is very important to have. Without them, a person is truly alone in the world. There is a lot of effort that must go into the formation and upkeep of a friendship however. You’d have to do something pretty bad in order to lose family. Now it may be easy to think that lifers in prison have done such evil things as to offend even their closest friends and family. As C. says however, he has good ties with his family, has never seriously offended them physically or emotionally. Naturally, letters may begin to come less and over longer periods of time. On the inside, in prison, things don’t change too much. On the outside however, people have a lot going on. They don’t always have the time to write long letters and make visits to people in prison.
There are sure to be cases that the prisoner twists the story in order to make himself seem less guilty and look like more of a victim than a criminal. I think that pretty much anyone could guess that that may occur. What people may not expect is for a sense of guilt and self-condemnation to exist in the prisoner’s writing. I believe that many of these prisoners, especially the ones that literally just come out and say it, believe that they got what they deserved and feel extremely guilty for what they’ve done. What I’m trying to say I guess, is that it is not possible to draw definite conclusions about any of these prisoners solely through their writing. It is an interesting perspective and can tell us a lot about them, but as the sole source of information, it won’t give us the whole picture. I’m glad that B. is standing up to defend his fellow prisoners. Someone needed to take the time to explain that some people’s assumptions could be wrong. I hope that in the future, people are more open minded and cautious about what judgments that they make on other people.
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