Saturday, August 18, 2012

Re-Posting: The Temple Shootings

I briefly had the below post up on this blog several days ago, and then took it down several hours later because I was nervous about sharing my thoughts on the topic and because I thought the comments were going off-topic.  I didn't want the conversation to devolve into individuals telling me that they feel horrible about what happened and then give me the reasons that they didn't post about the event.  I don't want to be forced to say something like, "Oh, no, don't worry, it's not your fault."  Because I think all of us are culpable.

I don't want people to apologize for what happened; that really was not your fault.  I don't want you to tell me you were glued to the news.  I don't want you to talk about how sad and angry you are that these things happen.  The point is that these things do happen, and the more disturbing point is that these things happen and people treat each occurrence differently, based on the circumstances that surrounded it.

I just want you to think about the Oak Creek shootings.  How did you hear about the news?  When did you hear about it?  How did you react?  Did you react differently than you did to the Colorado shootings?  How long did you think about it before going on with your day?  What set of criteria would you have needed to tweet/post/comment about the shootings, and are those criteria different based on the situation?  Do you think if a different group of people had been the target, or a different man had been the murderer, that the news would have covered it differently?  Or that you would have talked about it more or differently?

You don't need to answer these questions here.  You can, if you want to.  But as I said, I want you to think.  Consider the inherent biases we all use to process information without even noticing that we have those biases.  The choices people make to share one type of news over another, or to use loaded terminology for one group and not for another- these are subconscious, seemingly minuscule decisions that you may not notice but can have a huge impact on the world and the stereotypes that often shape our behavior.  So think about it.

And read this.

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On Sunday, there was a hate crime at a Sikh temple in the suburbs of Milwaukee, WI, just about ninety miles from where I live.  Six Indians were killed in a house of worship by a white supremacist who later shot himself in the head.

I didn't hear about this tragedy until much later, when my sister told me that evening.  This surprised me.  I had been on Facebook during the day.  I had checked Twitter.  I admittedly hadn't gone to any news sites, but I usually assume that my social network will inform me of breaking news.  After all, it was a lone gunman shooting at a group of innocent people; surely that was worthy of a status update or a tweet. If I heard about Whitney Houston dying of a drug overdose via Facebook news feed, surely I would hear about a mass shooting.

But both Facebook and Twitter were strangely quiet.  Not one person that was not Indian posted about this crime in my network.  I have over 600 friends on Facebook.  I follow hundreds of people on Twitter.  Nothing.  No blog posts on the matter, either, and I follow almost 200 blogs.

What did people post about?  The Olympics.  Their awesome weekends.  Summer vacations.  Books, TV shows, and movies.  Chik-fil-A.

That's why I am writing this.

I do not post personal things on my blog.  I keep my "real" life separate from my blogging life.  I understand that other people want to do the same on their social media outlets.  But I cannot say the last time I felt so upset - not so much angry as saddened and isolated - in a very long time.  How can I have so many friends with whom I interact daily or weekly and yet don't think that this event is worthy of comment?

When a gunman opened fire at a movie theater in Colorado, it was all over my Facebook feed.  People were in an uproar on Twitter about Trayvon Martin's murder.  And about a fast food chain owner's thoughts on gay marriage.  If you can post your anger about the Chik-fil-A situation for weeks and talk about how much you hate people that spread a message of hate, then why can't you spare a post about an actual hate crime?

I'm not saying that the event hasn't been covered in the news.  It has.  It's on CNN.  It's on the local stations.  It is all over NPR and the BBC.  That is not what I'm talking about.  I am talking about my own social network - a large group of people that is connected to at least one Indian person.  A group of people that posted about the Olympics.  About Gabby's hair.  About Chik-fil-A and Mitt Romney.  About so many issues (and non-issues) that they deem important enough to voice their opinions on.  

But this did not make the list.

24 comments:

  1. I first heard about it in passing and went in search of news to find out more. It was awhile before I found anything at all and then the information was so brief. I did notice that the shooting wasn't getting the attention many of the other mass shootings have. Twitter was quiet as was Facebook. It is a sad commentary on our society.

    It was a terrible and horrific event. My heart and prayers go out to those impacted by the shooting.

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    1. That was similar to the way I heard about it, too. But being in Chicago, I think the news was covered more than in other areas. But I agree- nothing on Twitter or anywhere social.

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  2. I'm glad you reposted because by the time I saw your post in gr, which I really appreciated btw, you had taken it down.

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    1. Thanks, Amy. I reported because so many people emailed me their thoughts on my post and urged me to re-post it. Obviously, it took me a long time to come to a decision even then.

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    2. Yes, this. I completely understand why this was difficult for you, but I'm glad to see it up again.

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  3. I saw that post but when I clicked it was gone, I wondered then. I only read something briefly, but then I do live far away and we of course focus on our country, the Nordic countries, Europe and then the rest of the world. Horrible things happen to often. Everywhere. It's s cliché but why can't people just get along? What's wrong with us?

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    1. Yeah, it makes all the celebrating of unity in the Olympics seem very fake in a lot of ways.

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  4. That's a great New Yorker article, I am so glad you linked to it. I have never understood why Muslims/Arabs were such targets after 9/11, but whites and Christians weren't after Timothy McVeigh. There seems to be such a disconnect. There is still so much "us and them", fueled by politicians on both sides as well as the media. I have no solutions, obviously, but am staggered every time there is a shooting or attack such as this one. This post made me realize that while I do post about my personal life, I don't post about news events.

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    1. It is a great article, isn't it? So eloquent.
      You are right, too, on how much this is driven by politicians and the media. So much spewing just for votes and advertisers...

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  5. I live in a Milwaukee suburb. I heard about the shooting around noon the day of from a Milwaukee tweeter. Not finding much on the internet about it, I turned to WTMJ where they were covering it nonstop. I didn't blog or tweet about it, but then I don't usually blog about what is going on in the world unless I am right there. I wonder if it would have received more coverage if it hadn't occured on a beautiful Sunday in August. I've actually heard quite a bit about it since - but I do listin to NPR. In saying all that, it is important to keep the post up.

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    1. Interesting- why do you think the weather impacted coverage?

      I agree that NPR covered it well. But I don't think that people talked about it nearly as much in casual conversations.

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  6. The coverage in SoCal wasn't the best. I didn't hear about the shooting until later that evening from a friend on FB. When I turned on the TV, I couldn't find that much information on what happened or why. The coverage just wasn't extensive enough. I was glad to learn about the two kids who warned everyone else in the temple about the gunman but they weren't interviewed until almost a week later.

    I think one issue that's missing from the discussion is that the media viewed the Colorado shooting as being the more "sensational" story. Here's this shooter who opened fire in a crowded movie theater during a popular movie. He "happens" to be white and brilliant (which for some people is a shocker). Plus, he rigs his apartment to exploded if anyone comes in.

    Now versus the temple shooting by a white supremacist. Because the shooter is pretty much considered trash compared to the Colorado shooter, there's no story. It's like there isn't much of a need to know more about this very dangerous person or the people he was associated with.

    Another thing that I really hate is that so many media outlets and even the FBI at one point, refused to call the temple shooting an act of domestic terrorism. Like the author of the New Yorker article, it reminded me of the Oklahoma City bombing. Americans need to understand that this is what domestic terrorism looks like. They're not random incidents that happen to "certain" groups. They're acts of destruction that can happen to any of us. All we need is for some hateful person to consider us to be of the wrong race or religion.

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    1. You make an important point, Natasha. I suppose if a white supremacist snaps, it isn't surprising, but if someone brilliant does, it is sad because the potential of things going a different way is so strong in a "What if?" scenario. And I agree- in a way, it is almost a defense mechanism to justify what happens to other people in a way that makes you feel it will never happen to you. But it is a slippery slope.

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  7. I remember feeling confused about not seeing anything on the social networks, after hearing it briefly mentioned on Dutch news stations.

    "But there is also the larger [tragedy] of our inability to understand this attack as an assault upon the American dream and therefore a threat to us all."

    You are right. I feel disgusted and disappointed how practically everybody treated this differently. I agree with what Vasilly says above, it was an act of domestic terrorism on fellow Americans and shouldn't be treated as some small tragedy that took place on the other side o the world.

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    1. This comment has been removed by the author.

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    2. That isn't my quote but I agree. It impacts everyone's safety in America when hate crimes happen, and really, it should be acknowledged as such. Where did he learn such things and could it have been prevented? How terrifying that he was in the military and stationed abroad, too.

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  8. After reading Singh's piece, my mind immediately went to a local Amish shooting, where the coverage was similarly focused on how the rest of us were somehow "outside" it.

    I missed most of this, including your original post, because I was traveling and not keeping up with social media. When I think about it, though, you're right--the people who most often keep me informed about what's going on the world didn't say anything about this one.

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    1. That is so sad. I wonder how many ways people have to describe those around them as "other," in the hopes of making themselves feel just a little safer.

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  9. I heard about it at work at the library -- I think I was just surfing the news. Since I used to live in Chicago and my husband went to school near Milwaukee, it definitely caught my attention. I do know that my library did fly the flags at half-mast after both events, so that's a small comfort -- I can't exactly use the word proud in this context.

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  10. I almost never get news from Facebook -- I didn't for the Aurora shooting either. I believe in this case I went to Google News to look for something, and the first thing on the page was the temple shooting. I read some more about it then, but I agree it didn't get the same kind of coverage as the Aurora shooting. It pissed me off because I kept thinking about how if a Muslim extremist shot up a Christian church, that would be the only damn thing we'd hear about for weeks.

    I'm glad you reposted this.

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  11. I get my news from NPR, so of course heard right away. I was personally upset, because here in Salem, OR we have a significant Sikh community (they founded Kettle Chips). When I heard, I felt like people from my own hometown had been attacked in their place of worship. I felt sick for days. I don't facebook, and so wasn't subject to that feeling you were--that that wasn't a significant occurence--since it happened to the other.

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  12. I heard about it while sitting next to my husband, who was listening to ABC news on his headphones, he just started saying "oh my God" and sighing really loudly. I asked him to take off the headphones and tell me what happened. I thought he was listening to music. When he told me, I started ranting about how crazy it was, and how we should take all the guns away. I don't think either of us was thinking rationally, but we were horrified. No matter what your religion or spiritual views, we all need to treat each other respectfully and not find ways to massacre each other for our differences.

    I also found it so ironic that the Olympics are going on, and that there is such a forced spirit of unity, when the sad fact is that couldn't be further from the truth. Why do we care what Kim Kardashian had for breakfast, when innocent people are being killed? Why is a crazy lunatic who shot up a cinema more newsworthy than this tragedy? I don't know. I'm also one who doesn't use Facebook, and in fact had just deleted my account due to religiously offensive posts, but this should have been more widely covered.

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  13. Wow. Let me start by saying that I didn't even hear about this. And I am Indian. When the Colorado shootings happened, I must have heard of it within minutes. This one, just didn't reach me. (I don't read news, I don't Facebook or Twitter although I have accounts in both places, and I am not a social butterfly either, so I rarely get news from friends, etc.) Still, I have gotten so used to getting news somehow - I get Stitcher alerts for big news, I get even occasional FB updates, which I just swipe away from my notifications. But I still didn't hear this. This is quite upsetting - because clearly some news agencies don't give these incidents that much importance. Considering the amount of coverage given to gay hate crimes, mass shootings, terrorism, etc, why wouldn't religious hate crimes even figure in that list? I'm quite aghast, and upset that I just hear about this now, a month after the incident.

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  14. I read about the story in the NY Times but there was so little on the news about it. It didn't get the attention that it deserved and that is really, really sad. I'm glad you posted about this and have made all of us wake up and realize how and why some stories get covered and others don't.

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