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Racism and the Treatment of Muslim Americans After 9/11
No full textRacism is more than prejudice—it is fear transformed into power. Racism is commonly defined as “prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism … against a person or people on the basis of their membership in a particular racial or ethnic group, typically one that is a minority or marginalized.” But definitions alone do not capture how racism forms. At its roots, racism grows out of ordinary human instincts: fear of difference, the tendency to categorize, and the desire to belong to a group. These instincts aren’t inherently harmful, but when combined with national anxiety or crisis, they can turn into widespread prejudice and even government action. One of the clearest examples of this transformation is the treatment of Muslim Americans, and people perceived to be Muslim, after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks
Sisyphus Over Suicide
No full textPierce Thompson recounts his struggles with a sense of failure and meaninglessness, including hospitalization for attempted suicide. Pierce describes how, reading Albert Camus’s The Stranger, he came to find solace, ironically, by facing life’s inherent absurdity. In particular, Thompson lauds Camus’s depiction of Sisyphus’s eternal task of repeatedly pushing a boulder up a hill not as a symbol of life’s futility (as it is often invoked as being), but as an embrace of a sense of purposefulness in an absurd world
