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Defining Terror

You can’t ignore it. Especially now during an election season. Terrorism is a part of the American dialogue. According to news anchors and politicians, the treat of terrorism, specifically “radical Islamic terrorism” is something that all Americans should be worried about. However, as Lisa Stampnitzky describes in Disciplining Terror, the way that we talk about…

Hollywood Terrorism

Each new season of 24 forces a new challenge upon Jack Bauer, the sparkplug agent at the Counter Terrorist Unit in Los Angeles. A season tells the story of one day in which Bauer and his team have to somehow prevent a terrorist plot from destroying the world as we know it. Sometimes these would-be…

Living in Fear

In 2013 the Boston Marathon bombings took place when two men were carrying backpacks with pressure cookers in them. They set the backpacks down along the road where people lined the streets to watch the race. After this horrific event occurred my pulse began racing any time I entered a movie theater or gas station…

The Fear of a Full Name

I can still hear my mom saying it. I would be upstairs or in the basement doing my own thing, when, out of nowhere, I would hear “Kathryn Blair Dunaway, you better come here right now”. Although rarely used, when she did use my full name, I knew that it was over with; more specifically,…

The Sky is Falling

American’s have been bred to fear terrorism, and more recently, to fear Muslims entirely. It has been engrained in our heads that being Muslim means that you’re related to terrorism in some way, when in fact, this couldn’t be more wrong. In reality, “most Muslims oppose violence,” a point that Kurzman stresses within his writing….

Anticipatory Snow Days

Being from North Carolina, snow is something that we are not used to, and if there is a high enough percentage, then the city panics and does whatever they can to prepare, overwhelmed and anxious for the potential coming snow. Parents will swarm the grocery to get the basics, kids will flood Target for sleds,…

Fear is not real

Zero-dark thirty is a movie that stages the search for al Qaeda leader, Osama bin Laden, in which they have been searching for nearly 20 years after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States. This search led to the finding of his compound in Pakistan and the military attack that resulted in…

The Exploitation of Fear in the 2016 Election Year

Terrorism is huge topic during election years and is discussed a lot on what to do to combat it. Kurzman states that although we believe that the US is in danger of terrorist attacks, “terrorism accounts for only a tiny proportion of the world’s violence” (p. 62). The common misconception and stereotype is that all…

Think Before You Speak

Unfortunately, 9/11 resulted in a stigma in the United States against the Muslim community as terrorists. As displayed in the political cartoon at the end of this post, judgment against the Muslim population become a part of life in the United States. However, what portion of the Muslim community is actually militant? How has the…

Exploiting Fear

When I first read The Hunger Games series, one of the aspects of the series that resonated with me was the power the government over its people. The President of Panem exploited the fear the citizens had of potential rebels from District 13. Even though the insurrection done by District 13 was years ago and…