Not In Our Town Analysis

The two resources that I picked for my final journal are ‘Not In Our Town’ and the CNN article about Officer Elsokary in New York City. The reason why I picked “Not In Our Town” is because this article shows that people are sometimes really mean, rude and obnoxious, but it also shows that people are sometimes nice, caring, kind and supportive. The attacks and this story took place in Billings, Montana. The attacks were against people in the town who were Jewish. The reason why I picked the CNN article is because it shows that some people are rude to the people who are protecting the country that they are living in.

This story, which is “Not In Our Town” occurred in Billings, Montana. The Jewish community in this town got harassed because of their religion. Some other groups of people did not like the fact that some of the other people in the town are Jewish, so they began to publicly discriminate against them. There were flyers, newspapers and more handed out in the community. When the discrimination got dangerous, and people started throwing bricks through windows, others in the town began to speak up. The people of the town were not going to stay quiet about the incidents, and they stood up for the Jewish community. This story
makes me feel annoyed at the people who did the attacking. Another part of me is happy and amazed at what can happen when a whole group of people comes together to fight against things and actions that they do not like. I was happy that you can overrule, or outnumber bad incidents with good attitudes.

In the article, “Muslim NYPD officer threatened, told 'go back to your country'”, an NYPD officer, who also happens to be Muslim, got harassed because of her faith.
Officer Elsokary grew up and was born Brooklyn, New York. She is, by all means, an American. Yet, she got told to “go back to your own country”, just because she wears a hijab. It makes me feel like our world has a lot more work to do than most of us think. The Mayor said he felt “sick to his stomach” when he heard that someone would say that to a person who serves our country. I felt the same way. We still have a lot to learn about the way people feel about Muslims, because they are people too, and we should treat them with respect because they are no different from
us.

There are a few things that connect these two articles. One is that in both articles the attacks were against a religion. Another thing that connects the two articles is that in both cases the people on the receiving side of the attacks had not done anything to make them a target for the attacks. These two sources left me feeling as if our world has not done as much as we make it seem. Those are the reasons why I picked the two articles, “Muslim NYPD officer threatened, told 'go back to your country'”, and “Not In Our Town”, and how the article made me feel.