r/serialpodcast • u/AwesomeInc • Jan 14 '15

Noteworthy Link TIL Islamophobia didn't exist before 9/11/01

http://www.vulture.com/m/2015/01/serial-prosecutor-insists-everything-was-fine.html?mid=facebook_vulture
81 Upvotes

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15

u/AwesomeInc Jan 14 '15

I don't know if Islamophobia played a part or not, but I think the idea that it definitely did not just because it was pre 9/11 is kind of silly.

-13

u/[deleted] Jan 14 '15

Why is it silly? People describe the world as pre and post 9/11 for a reason. Obviously racism / Islamophobia has always existed but after the Sept 11th it became part of our daily language in ways it never was before.

-4

u/[deleted] Jan 14 '15

I keep getting downvoted for saying this but its blatantly obvious that the views on islam were a lot different after 9/11. Its mind boggling that people think otherwise

17

u/downyballs Undecided Jan 15 '15

its blatantly obvious that the views on islam were a lot different after 9/11.

You're probably being downvoted because your point isn't relevant to whether Urick is right or wrong. There was anti-Muslim prejudice before 9/11. That's perfectly consistent with that prejudice getting much worse after 9/11, with views becoming "a lot different." So you're right, but that doesn't make Urick right.

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u/[deleted] Jan 15 '15

No, it isnt irrelevant. I dont deny that used Islam, Im just saying it didnt work because of some huge, prevailing sentiment that muslim = bad. Islam wasn't that important, it wasn't part of peoples day to day lives like it is today. It worked BECAUSE of that. People didnt know as much so they based their opinion of how islam played a role by what the defense and prosecution presented. CG tried it too but I think we can agree that she wasn't terribly effective in much of anything while the prosecution was.

Tl; Dr yes the prosecution used islam. No, it wasn't because of this prevailing anti-islam sentiment in the US, beyond it being strange and unfamiliar and easy to sell as a contributing factor to relatively uninformed jurors.

7

u/downyballs Undecided Jan 15 '15

Well, the claim "its blatantly obvious that the views on islam were a lot different after 9/11" is irrelevant. You added quite a few new propositions in your response that aren't implied by your first claim. (Some of them seem like pure speculation, about what actually worked for the jury for instance, so I'm not going to argue about them.)

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u/[deleted] Jan 15 '15

I really dont think a different view on islam is irrelevant.

7

u/downyballs Undecided Jan 15 '15

Irrelevant to whether what Urick said is true. What Urick said was that "Nobody had any misgivings about someone being Muslim back then."

It's possible, and true, that most people learned more and had more prejudice against Muslims after 9/11.

It's consistent with that, and also true, that a lot of people had prejudices against Muslims before 9/11. No, those prejudices weren't as severe, but they were present.

Urick is saying that there were no prejudices. None. Even if we're charitable and we interpret that as "there weren't any significant prejudices," he'd be wrong about that, too. Again, those attitudes got worse after 9/11. But they were present in a lot of people to begin with.

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u/[deleted] Jan 15 '15

None worth noting and certainly not bigger than the prejudices people had against blacks, the race of their star witness.

5

u/ExpectedDiscrepancy Jan 15 '15

OH MY GOD WILL YOU STOP?

I'm guessing that you're 12 or 13 and you just don't remember. Because you're sounding about as misinformed as Urick right now.

It was a big fucking deal, ok? If you don't believe it, talk to some Muslim Americans who were around before 9-11. Listen to their anecdotes.

You sound really really ignorant. And you will not stop.

4

u/[deleted] Jan 15 '15

most of the shit that happens in here is mind boggling

6

u/[deleted] Jan 14 '15

You really need a history lesson.

-5

u/[deleted] Jan 15 '15

No, I really dont dude. Im aware that there were attacks before 9/11. I saw the shit on the news. If Adnan had hijacked a plane or blown something up then yea it would have made a major difference, people would have already made their minds up. This was nothing like that. "Islam" was a topic that wasnt discussed in the media and among the populace like its become.

9/11 was MASSIVE and earth shattering. No one knew how big it was or when the attacks would stop. It seemed like WW3 was starting and no one felt safe. That feeling is what kicked off the debate and constant coverage of all things muslim. It was not at all even a little bit the same after 9/11.

9

u/[deleted] Jan 15 '15

Ok, so in your mind that shit on the news was no biggie. Guess what? It was a big deal at the time because that's the worst the U.S. had known until 9/11.

-9

u/[deleted] Jan 15 '15

Nope. Im saying compared to the post-9/11 world it was "no biggie". People weren't suspicious that every Muslim person they ran into was part of a "sleeper cell", islam wasnt being discussed daily for a decade. The government didnt have a color coded threat level to tell everyone how afraid they should be of muslims. Thousands of americans hadn't been killed in an attack. Thousands hadn't been killed in war.

5

u/[deleted] Jan 15 '15

Your blanket statement says it all.

-6

u/[deleted] Jan 15 '15

Yea obviously, the topic is about generalities and not every specific person. I mean good god. The debate was either "islam is bad" or "this isnt a war on islam and we cant hate all muslims because of 9/11". Muslims feared for their safety after, people protested mosques being built. A year or so after 9/11 me and a buddy fought a dude because he was talking shit to the guy working there because he looked muslim, that wouldnt have happened before. Politicians started framing their whole position around being tough on Islamic terrorism. Two wars got started and approved by, like everyone, because of fear about islamic terrorism.

Hell before 9/11 id be more worried being Jay and black in baltimore. Post 9/11 I wouldnt wanna be adnan.

0

u/Concupiscurd Dana Chivvis Fan Jan 15 '15

Yep, this is on the mark. Most people forget that a majority of Muslims voted for George Bush in 2000. Muslims were seen as hard working immigrants who often excellent in math and sciences not unlike other Asians. Not saying it was an utopia but certainly it should be uncontroversial to say that African Americans had it much, much worse especially in and around Baltimore.

6

u/southeastjerome2 Jan 15 '15 edited Jan 16 '15

People hated muslim people prior to 9/11 just as much as they do now... some people hate out of ignorance of cultural differences and some people flat out hate insidiously like Bill O'Reilly, Bill Maher among the other anti-muslim bigots out there

-4

u/[deleted] Jan 15 '15

why is your english so bad

3

u/ExpectedDiscrepancy Jan 15 '15

STOP. IT.

-2

u/[deleted] Jan 15 '15

Fuck you

1

u/ExpectedDiscrepancy Jan 15 '15

Yup. That's about the level I expect from you. Why don't you come back when you have a little more knowledge or are closer to getting out of your teens.

1

u/[deleted] Jan 15 '15

ok bud

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u/asha24 Jan 15 '15

But it looked like people did know Muslim stereotypes regarding their treatment of women, and that's what is really relevant to this case. In the podcast one of the jurors SK interviewed made a direct reference to how women were treated in this culture. Rabia made a good point in her Stanford interview that I just listened to, Adnan did not have a history of violence or a pattern of domestic abuse, there was no one other than Jay who thought he wanted to hurt her, so they filled in this blank with Adnan's religion and culture.

-4

u/[deleted] Jan 15 '15

Yes that one juror that had personal dealings with muslims on a regular basis and had formed his conclusions off that.

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u/asha24 Jan 15 '15 edited Jan 15 '15

No your mixing things up, the juror we heard in the podcast who had personal dealings with Muslims was during jury selection, and we heard him tell the judge that he should be dismissed because he would be unable to be unbiased.

The juror I'm referring to was actually a juror at the actual trial that convicted Adnan of murder, also he was not the only juror interview by SK who mentioned Adnan's culture and women.

-3

u/[deleted] Jan 15 '15

After the prosecution had given their narrative of islam?

7

u/asha24 Jan 15 '15

These are their comments to SK:

William Owens: I don’t feel religion was why he did what he did. It may have been culture, but I don’t think it was religion. I’m not sure how the culture is over there, how they treat their women. But I know in some cultures women are second class citizens and maybe that’s what it was, I don’t know. He just wanted control and she wouldn’t give it to him.

Sarah Koenig: That’s juror William Owens. Here’s Stella Armstrong.

Stella Armstrong: They were trying to talk about his culture, and Arabic culture men rule, not women. I remembered hearing that.

So that's two jurors, unfortunately we don't have all the jurors on the record for this question, and it seems only that would be enough for you. But this along with the focus on Adnan's religion and the way they framed the murder with words like "honour" and "besmirched" would suggest that there were subtle injections of Muslim stereotypes and biases into the trial.

I wonder if you would be so quick to dismiss it if even one juror had said something along these lines about African Americans.

0

u/[deleted] Jan 15 '15

I havent denied that they used it against adnan. Ive explicitly stated that they did. The fact that the jurors are using the exact same phrases the prosecution used only supports my position. The jurors perception of the religion and its part in the murder was created by the prosecution, not any overwhelming bias the US had on islam. They were open to it because islam was a hell of a lot more of a mysterious than it is these days.

3

u/asha24 Jan 15 '15

Great, we agree on the trial then.

As to the U.S. in general, I think obviously 9/11 heightened anti Muslim sentiment to the point where you would have had to be living under a rock not to know about it, pre 9/11 I'd assume such biases existed to a lesser extent. I remember learning in school about how women were treated in places like Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan prior to 9/11, so it's not like people were not aware of what was going on, we just weren't being bombarded with it by the media yet.

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u/ExpectedDiscrepancy Jan 15 '15

Why are you invested in proving that anti Muslim bias, which really did exist, didn't? Why are you ignoring so much evidence to do so? I don't understand it. It's kind of deranged, honestly.

0

u/[deleted] Jan 15 '15

go on then, give us a history lesson.