Boston Marathon Bombing
Anne Taylor
Background Information
April 15, 2013, two bombs went off during the annual Boston marathon near the finish line. Three people were killed and 260 were wounded with long lasting injuries. The bombings were set by two brothers named Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev. The oldest brother, Tamerlan, was killed. The other brother was put on trial November of last year and seen as guilty. Today, they are determining if he will put on death row. There is really no reason why the brothers did it.
Criticism
The criticism that best represents this event is Cultural criticism. Cultural criticism is a criticism given to a culture or group of people. They also affect how society would view a group as a whole and will cause them to make opinions based on what they hear. Cultural criticism is best represented with the Boston marathon bombings because the brothers were seen as terrorist based on their religion and race. After the 9/11 attacks, media and society as associated all Muslim people as terrorist. The Muslim culture is now seen as a threat because of how they are portrayed. We make these assumptions based on what we hear and how we interpret the situation.
Media Portrayal
The way the media portrayed the Boston bombing was not in a good way. Muslims in the community were seen to be viewed as a threat and were threatened by others in the community. The media even portrayed a young Muslim boy as being part of the bombing attacks. He happened to be there while the bombings happened and he was automatically viewed as a suspect. He and his family were threatened and they feared for their lives. The media made it seem like this harmless teenage boy was a threat when he wasn't a threat to society at all. Media also portrayed these bombings as a terrorist attack. These bombings don't have any connection to the terrorism attacks at all. There really is no reason why the brothers did what they did. That is still a mystery even today.
Newspaper Article
This is a newspaper article that was printed after the event happened
Bias
Bias is a prejudice against a person or a group of people and it is usually an unfair opinion. One way people are bias about this situation was how society viewed took the bombings. When the younger brother was being put to trial, the only people allowed on the jury were people that agreed with the death penalty. There couldn't be any people who didn't believe in the penalty on the jury. One of the jurors even said, "I already feel he is guilty." The only reason she assumed this was because he was Muslim. If he had been any other race, the two brothers wouldn't have gotten so much hate from the people. People are bias against the Muslim community in America based on all that has happened with the 9/11 and the war. Society needs to learn to understand that anyone can be a terrorist. We just see Muslims as the face of all terrorism when that is not usually the case.
My Perspective
Personally, I don't think this was a terrorism attack. I think these two brothers planned this whole thing out for whatever reason. These weren't attacks that just happened. To plan something this tragic, planning and plotting is involved. The brothers must have kept up to date on what was happening so they could figure out how to carry what they did. Some media even tried to say this was an act of the government. Why would the government plan an attack like this on our own country and people? That doesn't make any since for the government to plan something like this where it is killing thousands of innocent people. This event was tragic and it should have never even happened.
Boston Marathon Bombing