9/11
September 11th, 2015
Tragedy
is a hard thing to write about. The writer needs to be aware of the
topic as well as the audience. They do not know who will be reading
their paper, and in the case of 9/11, someone who was directly affected by the
attacks may react differently than someone who has no relation to the attacks
except for being an American. The writer also has to show extensive
knowledge about the subject. To get a fact wrong in an article about
a tragedy would be extremely insensitive to the victims, as well as the rest of
the people affected.
How
one writes about tragedy also changes with the level of understanding that the
audience holds. For example, when explaining a death of a family
member to a child, a parent is likely to be more simplistic in their
explanation, as opposed to when adults are speaking to each other, the person
who is explaining will go into more depth, telling how the person died, and
using more complex terms.
The
September 11 attacks are still a very touchy subject for a majority of people
in the United States. They had effects that are still seen
prominently today. I do not remember anything from that date in
2001. My memories are false memories, ones that I think I remember,
but they are really just from stories that I have heard or news specials that I
have watched. My memory of 9/11 is not one that happened on that
date, but one that happened a few years ago. While traveling in New York
City, my family and I got into a taxi, whose driver was in the Twin Towers
during the attacks. He had written his story and had copies of it in
the backseat of the cab. He talked to us about what happened that
day, and it was a chilling experience to meet a person who was directly
affected by the tragedy.
Tragedy is a tough
subject for anyone, and addressing it takes time and patience.
As
someone who was barely alive when the September 11th attacks occurred,
it would be extremely difficult for me to write about it to an audience of
people primarily from New York City that were living in the city when the
attacks occurred. If a New Yorker were
writing to other New Yorkers, they would be able to better express the feelings
towards the event than I would, because they lived through the attacks and most
likely share many of the same feelings towards 9/11. Writing to an audience primarily from Iraq
would also be very difficult. As an
American, it would be easy to feel like my words were more skewed towards the
American side of what happened. It would
also be important to realize that every single Iraqi was not involved in the
terrorist activities, but only a few. It
would be imperative to not victimize every Iraqi for what happened in New York
City fourteen years ago.
In
every case, it would be useful for the author to try to be as impartial as
possible. That would make for a fair
article for anyone that was reading it, where no one group or person would feel
that they are being singled out or blamed for what happened. It would be important to be sensitive to both
sides of what happened. Only if the
author were to know that their article was going to a particular group of
people where the other side would not read it would it be okay to put some bias
in the writing.
I agree that it is best to try to remain as impartial as possible in these situations. What do you think might be some good ways to help oneself not let their biases into their writing.
ReplyDeleteI agree that as Americans we need to be conscious of the stereotypes that exist, and to not let those make us biased towards people. It is important to remember that a small minority of Iraqi's were behind the 9/11 attacks. Similarly, the issues occurring with Syria have made people wary of Syrian refugees. In the same way as for 9/11, one would have to alter the way a message is targeted towards Syrians compared to Americans.
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