HOW DID CULTURAL MISCONCEPTIONS CONTRIBUTE to THE DEVASTATION AFTER HURRICANE KATRINA ? 

          The non-fiction novel Zeitoun is a story about not only the chaotic and very tragic 2005 event, Hurricane Katrina, but also a story about how far people are willing to go in order to survive as well as protect those they love, all while facing devastating life or death situations. What we see within the novel is how people react to the ongoing events caused by the hurricane. These events, however, don't always cause the characters to make the wisest decisions and much of the conflict in the story is built from that. This then helps create an understanding of what it might have felt like to go through such a situation and the further problems it created; one of those problems, as well as a major theme in the book, is cultural discrimination. This very predicament in the story sheds the light on how we are able to not only see but also feel just what are characters do with regards to their position on the subject. All of this plays a role in how a fictional story about a physical problem reveals several truths about a further cultural problem.

 HOW DID CULTURAL MISCONCEPTIONS CONTRIBUTE  to tHE DEVASTATION AFTER HURRICANE KATRINA ? (Continued)

Thesis:  Cultural misconceptions, as well as racial, which are a major theme in the novel Zeiotun by Dave Eggers, delineate a conflict many real people went through with regards to a physical problem, Hurricane Katrina, and how that further affected an ongoing fallacy involving many misapprehended groups of individuals. ​

(Photograph of Abdulrahman Zeitoun) 

ZEITOUN:

CULTURAL MISCONCEPTIONS

         From there, he is forced to endure a very impacting 23 days in prison without a court hearing. Despite his very heroic efforts, his own government falsely suspected Zeitoun and his friends as thieves after witnessing them on one of Zeitoun’s own properties. Due to their simple appearance, as well as beliefs, FEMA, in due course, arrests the men with force, accuses them of being terrorists (“Taliban” and “Al Qaeda”) and brutally detains them for the weeks to come. The story of the misunderstood hero then became the plot of Dave Eggers's book "Zeitoun". 

(Prisoners Guarded In Katrina Aftermath)

ZEITOUN:

CULTURAL MISCONCEPTIONS

         “Every time a crime was committed by a Muslim, that person's faith was mentioned, regardless of its relevance. When a crime is committed by a Christian, do they mention his religion? ... When a crime is committed by a black man, it's mentioned in the first breath: 'An African American man was arrested today...' But what about German Americans? Anglo Americans? A white man robs a convenience store and do we hear he's of Scottish descent? In no other instance is the ancestry mentioned.” (Zeitoun Pg. 37)

         What occurred to Zeitoun, despite it's violent and vulgar content, was nowhere as bad is why it occurred.  Because of actual terrorist attacks such as the one on September 11th, 2001, many people have tended to discriminate Muslims for the simple reason that a small minority of them are "extremists" and have caused harm exaggerating their beliefs. Visibly, such a thing occurred within the aftermath of Katrina.

ZEITOUN:

CULTURAL MISCONCEPTIONS

Obviously, not every Muslim is an extremist and through what the some of the characters in the story go through, we can see that they are very much affected, shocked, and even hurt to see such a reality be brought to the surface because of such heavy situations. Keeping in mind that these are real people, what they say creates an even further impact.

"His (Zeitoun's) frustration with some Americans was like that of a disappointed parent. He was so content in this country, so impressed with and loving of it's opportunities, but then why, sometimes, did Americans fall short of their best selves? (Zeitoun Pg. 37)

ZEITOUN:

CULTURAL MISCONCEPTIONS

       Apart from the mostly negative stereotypes people tend to create with regards to Muslims and people of many other cultures, the misconceptions can sometimes even be of a neutral state which nearly everybody tends to believe. For example, even Kathy, Zeitoun's wife who is a major character in the book, once had the complete wrong idea about Syria before she became Muslim and had actually traveled there.  This conflict been ignited long before the Hurricane.

"(Kathy) had, she later admitted, an antique idea of Syria. She'd pictured deserts, donkeys, and carts - not so many busy, cosmopolitan cities, not so many Mercedes and BMW dealerships lining the highway heading north, not so many women in the tight clothes and uncovered hair... She'd assumed Syria was entirely Muslim, but she was wrong about this, and about so many things."

ZEITOUN:

CULTURAL MISCONCEPTIONS

         Muslims, however, were not the only ones discriminated in the aftermath of Katrina. Along with the cultural misconceptions of Muslims that were brought up in Katrina's destruction, also came the racial misconception and discrimination of many African Americans. This however, is what sparked much debate and raised very big questions about how the hurricane's destruction was being handled.  

(African-American groups of people are left without care in Katrina wreckage.)

ZEITOUN:

CULTURAL MISCONCEPTIONS

        Following Hurricane Katrina,many people sought to answer the question of whether the social effects an the government's response to these effects, as well as, the country's biggest natural disaster had more to do with race or with class. The greatest amount of support the discriminated people have are media broadcast images which showed, that all those were all left behind to suffer and die were mostly black americans; the answer was then presumed to be race. 

ZEITOUN:

CULTURAL MISCONCEPTIONS

         The Human suffering from hurricane Katrina and the images of mostly black  hurricane victims and looters have provoked new debates about tough public policy decisions, the nations troubled racial history and the racial and economic barriers that still separate Americans. 

CULTURAL MISCONCEPTIONS: Reflection/CONCLUSION

         With different and varied races comes different and varied cultures and in situations like these, it all come into play; especially if there is an indifference with how the different races are treated. I think that the book Zeitoun, apart from cultural misconceptions  as well as racial, does a very good job of showing the true nature of people when their is a lack of government and overall lack of control. I very much admire how the author, with the theme of control, shows us how apart from control within ourselves, we are controlled and bound by nature. The story shows us how to carry on when we feel like can no longer do so. This is what further affects our differences in moments of unity. Not only do misconceptions and discrimination show a lack of importance towards people, but it also creates a lack of respect towards the different races and cultures. Whether it's the Zeitoun family, any other family, or a surviving individual of such chaos, the use of culture and race should not create such friction and uncertainty in times, such as Katrina, where the one thing we are meant do to is unite, stay together, and make it through as one people regardless of our differences. 

Bibliography

- "A Muslim American Hero." » CounterPunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names. Web. 8 Dec. 2014. <http://www.counterpunch.org/2009/08/07/a-muslim-american-hero/>.

- "Hurricane Katrina: Racial Discrimination and Ethnic Cleansing in the United States in the Aftermath of Hurricane Katrina (CERD Shadow Report, 2008)." US Human Rights Network. Web. 8 Dec. 2014. <http://www.ushrnetwork.org/resources-media/hurricane-katrina-racial-discrimination-ethnic-cleansing-united-states-aftermath>.

- "Hurricane Katrina: The Race and Class Debate." Monthly Review. Web. 8 Dec. 2014. <http://monthlyreview.org/2006/07/01/hurricane-katrina-the-race-and-class-debate/>.

- "Zeitoun." Zeitoun. Web. 8 Dec. 2014. <http://www.laguardia.edu/zeitoun/plot.html>.

- "Zeitoun (book)." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 30 Nov. 2014. Web. 8 Dec. 2014. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeitoun_(book)>.

- "Zeitoun Quotes and Analysis." Study Guides &amp; Essay Editing. Web. 8 Dec. 2014. <http://www.gradesaver.com/zeitoun/study-guide/quotes>.

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