Please download this activity  download, type your answers, and then turn it in using the link below. This is due by the end of module 7.

Background

This case involves a comparison of American reactions to the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting and the U.S. drone attacks in Yeminiand Pakistan. The Sandy Hook Elementary Shooting occurred on December 14th 2012 in Newtown, Connecticut. A young man named AdamLanza shot and killed 20 children and six adults before committing suicide. Lanza was said to have obsessive compulsive disorder and his father suspected he may have had other mental disorders (Solomon, 2014). The reaction to the Newtown shooting is compared to reactions to the U.S. drone attacks in Pakistan and Yemen beginning in 2009 (Smith, Rondeaux, & Warrick, 2009). Amnesty international in 2013 called several of these attacks unlawful because civilians who were killed were unarmed (“U.S. drone strike killings in Pakistan and Yemen ‘unlawful,’” 2013).

The news article was written following the Newtown shooting by a journalist, Glenn Greenwald, at The Guardian (this is a U.K. publication) The author argues that Americans are prejudiced against Muslims. He suggests that our shared outrage about the Newtown shootings on the one hand, and our indifference toward Pakistani and Yemeni children killed as a result of our “war on terror” provides evidence of the dehumanization of Muslims. The story may be linked to other issues involving racism in America such as the 2014 incident with Michael Brown in Ferguson, MO which spawned the tweeted hashtag #blacklivesmatterand associated political activism. Close readers of the article may also note how the author focuses on President Obama as the causal agent responsible for promoting dehumanization and racism. This may be contrasted with racism toward the President within and outside the U.S.A.

To learn more about anti-Black and anti-Muslim racism or to discuss other issues related to dehumanization, aggression, and prejudice please post to the discussion board (miscellany section or student lounge) or contact the instructor. I can recommend a number of very good articles on this topic or point you toward organizations for activism (nationally such as the Southern Poverty Law Center, the American Civil Liberties Union, the MuslimARC, or NAACP; contact me for more information or for info about local organizations).