Yesterday afternoon, March 31st, on my way home, I picked up a copy of the New York Post. Shortly after scanning through the front page, a headline caught my attention (the other headlines were about baseball and Judge Judy: I’m not a fan of either). “Hate Rap for Kid, 12, in Attack on Muslim girl” read the front of the paper. The story was about a 12 year old boy from Staten Island who beat down a fellow classmate because she was Muslim. 12 year old Osman Daramy apparently approached the female classmate and asked her “Are you a Muslim?” Later, Osman and an accomplice punched and kicked her to the ground, trying to rip her hijab off her head. The victim suffered a few bruises and a cut lip, as reported.
Now, at a glance, this may seem like a hate crime. 2 non-Muslim kids attacking a Muslim; but, what really got to me was the fact that these kids are 12! I have a nephew who is 10 years old and just imagining him plotting a plan to beat another 10 year old would be quite mind-boggling. Osman was eventually arrested and currently, he could be facing up to 18 months in a Juvenile facility. The thing that bothers me the most is the way the NY Post covered this story. The newspaper gave no empathy to Osman and was extremely harsh on him in a lot of the phrases and rhetoric used. For example, they called him a “Holy Terror,” ”Menace” and even boldly stated that he is “Staten Island's number 1 problem child”.
I agree that what he did was wrong, BUT it is important to keep in mind that the assault on the Muslim student happened on school property and the question that really should be asked is where were the teachers? Where were the parents? Where were the people older than 12? The NY post had only mentioned the alleged mother of Osman and had one quote from her. The quotation simply stated that it’s not right to bug other people of their religion; there was no mention of the assault and her defense. This was not the first time Osman had gotten in trouble. He had, on an earlier account, cut a girls hair with his scissors after running around the class with them. In another earlier incident, young Osman and a few other “Punks/Crooks” (as the NY Post delightfully put it) robbed a pizza deliveryman and got away with food and cash. These were explicit signs that this was a problem child, yet nothing was done about it. When one of your students is caught robbing a pizzaman, the principal and parents have to bear responsibility. Why wasn’t anything done earlier? Why did the school or the parents not punish Osman accordingly? All the school did was suspend him. A more stringent punishment should have been pursued which may have prevented this atrocity.All though these other incidents that young Osman were invloved are equally troubling, these events were not publicized by the media.
This directly leads into personalization bias and shows that in this specific story, the media blames and criticizes the individual heavily rather than the institute or the structure surrrounding the events. By sensationalizing the story and submitting a writer’s bias, the true story loses substance. In this event, the only teachers who were interviewed only spoke about how troubled young Osman was and another teacher only said how safe he/she felt going into school. None of interviewed said anything about what could be done to help guide kids like Osman in the right direction or how this could have been prevented. Without the teachers accepting responsibility or offering a solution, they show a lack of concern and a lack of regard for student safety that parents have invested in them. I feel like the writers of this article simply wrote it to create the perception that Osman was a troublemaker who could not be helped.
Furthermore, the very title of the hard copy of the story is “Muslim-Bash Bust For Tiny Terror.” I could be wrong but I get the perception that the wording of the title, “Muslim-Terror” in any bold letters has become comfortable for the media. Using the 2 words to agitate the deep frames that have been embedded in us after 9/11 has decimated the Muslim-American image. This particular event was deemed as a “hate crime' so quickly without even considering the facts at hand. Young Osman already had a reputation of being a “misguided” kid and had already been involved in a number of run-ins with authorities, but all of a sudden, when he assaulted a Muslim, he is put on the front page of the NY Post.This is the article and a follow up article
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/staten_island/si_kid_fickle_finger_of_hate_GYtdHKlW6UTM6HtXNzuUiL
Since 9/11 the government has been portraying Islam as a religion of terror and the Media has been following faithfully. The framing of any event that had to do with Muslims had to do with terror as well. Now that the Press and the Government has finally managed to instill in public's mind feelings of hatred towards Muslims, the Media is profiting again. Now everything that involves a Muslim is also a hate crime and of course, just the wording HATE CRIME reinforces the feelings previously received about Muslims through media, feelings of hate. Instead of propagating some type of remedy in the news for such incidents against Muslims, the media is just illustrating how resentful people are against Islam.
ReplyDeleteWhat I thought was funny is that the perpetrator, the boy Osman has a Muslim name himself and its surprising it hasn't been picked up on by the biased NY POST.
I heard this story on the news as opposed to reading the cover on the paper, and the deeps frames that were used were exactly the same. The words muslim, terror, hate all triggered schemas in my head but when I began to think of the heart of the story I was disturbed too. Obviously this kid has issues, he is too young to understand why he attacked the girl even though he claims it is because she is muslim. He is only 12, I'm almost positive he does not know what the muslim religion consists of, so he must have attacked her for other reasons. His surroundings have conditioned him to think he hates people of certain religions but with no real basis for the hate. He is a product of his surroundings and definitely needs fixing, some type of mental rehabilitation for all his wrongs, not just his attack on the young girl. I highly doubt a juvenile facility will help the boy.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you Natalia. A juvenile facility would not help the boy to change his perception of Muslims. Being that the media served as a propagator of such hate, the media again needs to come up with a more intelligent coverage of Islam and make people aware that we cannot blame an entire religion for some fanatics actions. We cannot accuse all Catholics of being pedophiles only because there were so many popes who sexually abused boys.
ReplyDeleteI absolutely agree with you that the media has totally distorted and blown this story out of proportion. But then again, can we blame them? The story headlines and the frames on which the media used in this story is all part of the commercial pressures they are facing increase ratings and in turn lead to higher revenues.
ReplyDeleteIt's seems like its a lose-lose situation for Muslims and the media. If they're attacked, it's a hate crime, and will make headlines to remind everyone of the discrimination they face. If they're the suspects of a crime, the media immediately reminds us of the fear or "Islamophobia" that's been sensationalized ever since 9/11. I'm actually very interested in looking around to see how other news outlets, if any, covered the story.
ReplyDeleteOK - I know you are doing an analysis here of the NYP's coverage of this story, but I am afraid that at heart it is just a sensationalized crime story, and so the political content that is needed here in addition to the media content is not evident here. I know you refer to this idea of personalization bias, but what is the larger issue that the newspaper is personalizing in the coverage of this story? (That concept is usually used to refer to when the media, instead of for instance covering long-term processes and systems that lead to the development of poverty focused on one person's struggle with being poor, etc.) Also, I am confused by some of the comments from your group members and your analysis of the headline because, as you also note, the paper's bent seems to be vilifying this boy -- so I am not sure how that links Muslims to terror. Aren't they focused strongly on what a horrible attack this was, without a lot of consideration for the boy's mental situation (as Nathalia points out)? But if you want to stick with this you are going to have to find some way to amplify the political content, bring in more relevant class material, etc.
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