Monday, March 26, 2012
Shaima Alawadi
Shaima Alawadi, a resident of California, who was recently found beaten in her home with a note telling her to return to her country has died. Sociologically this certainly seems as though it was a hate crime because there were multiple notes left referring to Alawadi and her family as terrorists. Also, the fact that nothing was stolen from the home adds to the belief that this was a hate crime. http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2012/03/iraqi-woman-beaten-to-death-in-california-hate-crime-suspected/
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Stories like this one hopefully enlighten us as to the ignorance that exists heavily within our society. Shaima appears to have been attacked more or less because of her ethnicity, given the evidence provided. The idea that some people will condemn an entire ethnic group for the actions of a minority within that ethnic population makes no sense whatsoever. It is like saying one should eliminate every dog that exists because one may have gotten bitten by a dog before in the past. I realize this comparison is not even close in magnitude to the real thing, but the idea behing it is exactly the same. The fact that we have a specific sect of crimes entitled "hate crimes" is pathetic to me. This is clearly a social problem, for if we cannot move past prejudices, how can we ever hope to solve the real problems (poverty, gender inequality, education) in the world?
ReplyDeleteThis truly disgusts me that someone felt entitled to take this woman's life because she is "different." Now five children must grow up without a mother, all because someone felt threatened by someone with a different skin color. Since September 11th, many people have developed feelings of suspicion towards middle-eastern men and women, no matter how long they have lived in the United States. Although schools now teach children to be more tolerant of differences, I feel that there should be a stronger punishment against racial slurs. When someone says something that it not politically correct, it is either laughed at or frowned upon, and that does not necessarily teach people that everyone deserves a chance at life, success, and happiness. I really hope that this killer is brought into custody to leave the family with some form of closure.
ReplyDeleteThis story is very sad. The killer(s) did not care that she was a loving mother of five children. All they cared about was her nationality. She had been living in America since the 1990s. With nearly twenty years here, she surely is an American. so often Americans forget that our country prides itself on being a melting pot of cultures. Most of us are not native Americans, and therefor have had a relative that moved here from another country. What makes us any more American than she was? It is disappointing that the killer(s) could not see past her race. She had not harmed them in anyway and yet they hated her because of where she came from. It is disgusting to think that the killer(s) believed that they were doing the right thing by killing her. They believed that her 'crime' of being born in Iraq was far worse than their crime of brutally murdering her. No one has the right to take justice into their own hands. If the women had committed any true crimes than the police would have taken care of it. It was not up to the killer(s) to take matters into his own hands.
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