ASA 2 Section A02
Blog #6
The whole time I was reading "Monster, Terrorist, Fag: The War on Terrorism and the Production of Docile Patriots," by Jasbir K. Puar and Amit S. Rai, my mind kept jumping back to what had happened to the Japanese Americans during World War II. Although the situations aren't the same, I found many parallels between how the media and the country reacted toward those who were supposedly The United States' "enemy". Islamic Americans as well as Sikhs today still face this inherent racism and discrimination stemming from 9/11. However, we can just as easily fill the role of terrorist with Asian Americans. If in theory Asian Americans were the ones who committed that terrorist attack, that backlash would just as easily be attached to Asian American individuals. The violence and discrimination can just as easily be translated. If Islamic people who are considered "white" on the census can be mistreated as such because of this grand system of hegemony deemed them the "monster", then who is the say that the "yellow" people would not see the same fate. As long as racism still exists and as long as the media keeps portraying the "monster" in an unsympathetic way in order to boost the countries' morale and keep us poised for the wars our hegemonic society deems is necessary, as an Asian American, I can never stop being afraid that one day I'll wake up to see that I've become a "monster."
Question: Is there a way to change the media's representation of these "monsters" so that we can have the true facts about these so called "enemies" that we face today?
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