Carolyn feeling connected and disconnected at the same time

As I’m sure everyone knows, yesterday there were multiple explosions at the finish line of the Boston Marathon, killing three people (as of right now) and injuring many more. It has been a strange experience being abroad during such a tragic time in the United States; hearing people at the house fight with the terrible wifi in order to call home and check in with loved ones in the surrounding area. It’s funny how you can feel so connected and disconnected at the same time. My home in New Hampshire is only about an hour north of Boston and I have a lot of family not far from the city. Boston has always felt like my city and my heart goes out to all of the people who were affected by this senseless tragedy.

Unfortunately, I’m starting to experience a bit of déjà vu. It almost seems fitting that we recently watched Divided We Fall: America in the Aftermath in Marita's class because I’m afraid that all the issues discussed in that documentary might reemerge. I was reading the CNN updates on my phone this morning and there were two quotes that caught my eye: “Investigators warned police to be on the lookout for a ‘darker-skinned or black male’ with a possible foreign accent in connection with the attack” and “A Saudi national with a leg wound was under guard at a Boston hospital in connection with the bombings, but investigators cannot say he is involved at this time and he is not in custody”. One of the main issues that Divided We Fall addressed was the role the media played in perpetuating violence against Middle Eastern Americans after September 11^th and I feel like it’s all happening again. 

From what I’ve read, it seems that the police have little to no legitimate leads on who could have planted the bombs and even if they did legitimately suspect a “darker-skinned male”, why do we need to know about it? Once again, the media is putting an extremely broad group of people in the line of fire for the public to take out their frustrations on. Later the article says that the Saudi national is under investigation for wearing a backpack and trying to enter a restricted area earlier in the day, is that really all it takes to be targeted by the police? And how many other people (at an event of thousands) did the same thing but didn’t happen to fit the same profile?

I know this particular blog entry doesn’t really fit in with what I’ve been doing in Cape Town, but this is what has been on my mind and, if it weren’t for Marita’s class, I don’t know if I would have been so upset by this article. I’m interested to hear how other people feel about the subject.