9/11 Made America More Racist
It seems that racism has been around since before the dawn of time itself. It has thrived in the best and worst of times and in every corner of the earth, doing particularly well in the United States of America. America’s relationship with racism has been a very long one and it’s still going strong. As if the situation hadn’t been dire enough, then the twin towers in New York City were attacked in an act of terrorism more horrific and devastating than the world had ever known. Whether or not the 9/11 hijackers understood the consequences of their actions is irrelevant. The after-effects rippled outwards and caused further damage more than what anyone could have expected. Fifteen years later, Americans are still dealing with the repercussions of one man’s decision to attack the United States. 9/11 shocked and terrified the world. That day set a new precedent for the future of public safety all over the globe. The TSA was exploding with new rules and restrictions on who and what can be on a plane. Americans become even more wary of anyone who didn’t look like them. The media turned the situation into a joke. Tabloids were printing new conspiracy theories everyday while shows like “South Park” and “Family Guy” turned the whole ordeal and those behind the attacks into a punchline. The saddest part is that we had an opportunity to make a comeback. It would have been one of the most difficult things our country had ever done and would have further changed the world forever but we failed to take advantage of our opportunity to find good in the situation. We’ve let the 9/11 attacks define our foreign policies, world relations and even how America functions domestically. Furthermore it’s changed how we relate to others. Our culture had never been particularly welcoming to new elements but more now than ever, we bristle at the idea of welcoming anyone or anything we’re not immediately familiar with. In recent years this reaction has softened, especially with younger generations rising up and becoming more politically aware but the majority of America still holds deeply rooted emotions against anything related to the 9/11 hijackings. The ripple effects of the attacks still continue outward even today. Presidential nominee Donald J. Trump made it a main point in his campaign to assure Americans that he’d place restrictions on allowing muslims to enter our country. Regardless of whether or not his prejudice stems from the attacks, many his voters share this sentiment because of the events of 9/11.
References
Rose, S. (2013, September 12). Since 9/11, Racism and Islamophobia Remain Intertwined. Retrieved November 04, 2016, from http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/steve-rose/911-racism-islamophobia_b_3908411.html
Poladian, C. (2015, September 11). The United States After 9/11: 6 Things That Have Changed Since 2001. Retrieved November 09, 2016, from http://www.ibtimes.com/pulse/united-states-after-911-6-things-have-changed-2001-2093156
In-Class Task
In a few sentences, use the Reply field below to critique this Causal Argument draft.
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Counterintuitive Fall 2022 
Probably not, since races weren’t around at the dawn of time. If you feel the need to be dramatic, choose a claim that has some validity, Username.
Your claim has the unintended consequence of trivializing your thesis, Username. Something that has been with us forever and will always exist lacks urgency.
You’re circling a thesis here somewhere, Prof. 1) Racism is as old as time. 2) It’s common in the US. 3) Repeat: It’s common in the US. Is any of this necessary?
It might have felt that way to New Yorkers on that day, but you were barely alive, Username, and you didn’t survive the Russian pogroms of the early 20th century that killed millions. Just saying.
It is, however, relevant that WE understand the consequences of their actions. So far you’re hinting that somehow they affected American racism. By now, if I weren’t your professor with your best interest at heart, I would have bailed on this essay. Make it go somewhere.
Still teasing.
It did. And we are. But you promised me something I didn’t know.
You spent many sentences insisting that America is racist, then several more reminding us we were attacked 15 years ago by foreign terrorists. Now you’ve added a third wild card: public safety.
What’s your timeline here, Prof? “Was exploding” before 9/11? Or was the agency empowered as a consequence of 9/11?
Let’s be clear here. The first several sentences give no indication what races you’re indicting, but the clear implication is that you’re discussing black/white racism. “Anyone who doesn’t look like an American” is an entirely different sort of prejudice. You haven’t been clear yet; this new prejudice against “foreigners,” if that’s what you’re getting at, makes your claims less clear.
Hopelessly vague.
How is that treating the abomination as a joke?
If so, an example would be extremely helpful. But even if so, you’ve shifted your position radically from “the media” to “tabloids and South Park.”
From what to what, Username? From a racist country to a color-blind country because of a terrorist attack? From an isolationist country to one that embraced people of all nations? Is your topic racism or nationalism?
I admire the effort you’re making to suggest that 9/11 could have been a “learning experience” of some kind, but you’re leaving the entire argument to our imaginations.
If this were still your introduction, you might be forgiven for painting with broad strokes with the promise of providing details later, but these THREE MASSIVE CLAIMS are entirely unsupported. How does the legacy of 9/11 drive our foreign policy? our international relations? our domestic programs?
Other Americans? Other races?
We’re actually the primary destination for Immigrants from almost every country that people emigrate from.
Which reaction has softened? The resistance to immigration or foreign visitors that existed before they were born? or the worsening of that condition that you claim resulted from 9/11?
Are you going to redeem the promises you made in your first sentences that America is racist?
Not racist. Discrimination based on religious belief.
Don’t you want to distinguish between peace-loving observant Muslims and terrorists (religious or not) who blow things up and kill people in the name of jihad?
For one thing, this is a very broad argument. Not a lot of facts, statistics, or any real hard evidence. This is more hateful and alienating which takes me out of it. To say that America has racism built into it is just wrong. The sins of the past define who we are today but this implies that we are still as racist as we were in the 1860’s. Talking about foreign policy, which ones? The author relies on the audience being exposed to all of the previously known facts. It doesn’t go into specifics at all. It’s lack of specifics and objectivity make it easy to get lost in the narrative and makes it hard to objectively look at situations.
It seems that this draft essay goes off-track throughout the essay. For example, in the end, the writer talks about Trump’s campaign and how he created restrictions on Muslims which may be true but that seems to be off-topic. The topic is 9/11, not Trump and I think staying on track with one argument is a lot more beneficial than creating multiple examples that are not fully explained.
After reading this I had a few different reactions. I instantly began thinking how this causal argument isn’t true. What if the events of 9/11 were done by white men? How would have we reacted to this act of terrorism if the men played it out were a different ethnicity. Better yet what if it was women.
I also thought that racism was always a big deal in the United States. The Civil Rights Movement is the biggest example that immediately came to mind of how servers racism has been in the United States. I don’t think it made us more racist, I believe it made us more aware of our surrounding of anyone, and how we need to protect ourself and sleep with one eye open. That the world is not as safe of a place as we thought.
As I was reading this essay there were parts that I had to reread because the way that some of the sentences were worded had made it hard for me as the reader to understand the point that they are getting across. I was also confused on why the talk about racism and then the next sentence go into a completely different topic of terrorism. Although I understand that they are trying to start explaining some examples I think there needs to be more about the topic of racism which is the main topic for their 3000-word essay. The essay could have been separated into different paragraphs as the way it is written is not pleasing to the reader.
– While reading the draft causal argument, I didn’t notice the flaws of the essay probably because I was just reading it without being too critical. However, after reading it again, there were some major issues. The author did not clear cut topic and instead put together loosely related sentences thinking it worked. When writing, we have to make sure everything flows smoothly and ideas in your essay belong. I feel that I make this mistake often, so it was nice to read someone else’s and understand why it is so bad to do this.
Critique
Bold title—which is solid. The constant use of “it” provides the reader with confusion and questions. If we look at the first sentence and pick at it literally, it does not make sense. How can racism and racists be around since before the dawn of time itself? There has been no indication that the author knows what they are arguing because the first ten sentences move around the subject of racism in America. Providing background is often necessary, but should not happen before the thesis is presented. The argument is not broken down in a way that makes it easy to read and understand; it is a bunch of information thrown at the audience at first, but lacks actual evidence or support.
Wt doesn’t stick to its main claim. The writer tries to dance around the subject instead of fully committing to what they are trying to tell the reader.
While reading the argument, I noticed it doesn’t stick to its main claim. The writer tries to dance around the subject instead of fully committing to what they are trying to tell the reader. There are some good points but it never elevates those claims by expanding on them thoroughly.
As someone who has started their papers off in a way like this, I finally see what I’ve been doing wrong. In the first sentence their is big vague claim that doesn’t feel grounded to the paper at all. “It seems…before the dawn of time itself.” This takes the reader out of the paper because the dawn of time itself and racism don’t seem to correlate.
While reading this i think it could have been made stronger by making sure his argument was clear, this short summary made me think it was about 9/11 in general not about “9/11 made America more racist”. This person couldve have added more information about his topic.
While reading the casual argument, it seemed as if I was just reading sentences that just didn’t really add anything to the argument and were kind of just put there to be there or to meet the requirement. It seems as if there is only a few actual sentences that would argue about how the attacks on 9/11 made America more racist. The opening sentence also just made me want to stop reading the argument in general.
Where this essay lacks is by wasting time with filler information to reach the word count. There are too many extra details and by the time the point is addressed, the reader will be distracted. There are many times when the author’s purpose is unclear. It would help if they were firmer in their beliefs and avoided going off the topic of racism caused by 9/11.
It seems the argument is not clearly stated. Most of the argument is filled with fluff and we don’t hear about the topic until we are 5 or 6 sentences in. You have lost your readers by this point. Another thing to add would be the spacing. We are staring at a wall of words. We want to create a new paragraph each time the idea shifts.
I’ve noticed while reading this argument that the author tends to take a while to get to the point. I get that they tried to introduced their topic before they got to their point, but at the end of the day, they said a lot of stuff that wasn’t really all that important. We’re all guilty of it, but it shouldn’t be done though.
It would be better to state the main point in the very beginning and not worry about the backstory, as most people are repeatedly educated about 9/11. That way, you can focus more on the causes and effects of the incident and how racism impacts the US. You could write more about the severity of the situation and the places racism is seen as a result of 9/11.
It seems very much that this writer unfortunately writes similarly to me which is bittersweet. It sucks to see the exact way almost all my writing is wrong but it teaches me all the ways I can fix my writing. ( see I did it just there I wasted words) anyways I definitely can see that there wasting way too many words on giving back story to a point they haven’t made yet. In regards to the first sentence, I think a lot of high school teachers drill the importance of establishing a hook in our brains, and broad, societal, claims that are seen in this paper and now are unfortunately commonly used are I guess our default to meeting those ” hook” requirements in an essay, format and reliable way. However, research papers are not that important and are probably not that important in college in general.
The opening for the causal argument takes a while before it gets into the actual content of your paper. While it is information that can be used in the paper, it should not proceed your much more important causal claims. Opening that 9/11 made Americans constantly question those who were around them keeps the reader captivated. Similarly, there a lot of breaks in between information critical your paper with more of unneeded words. Overall, if there was more focus on your main point, which is that America was more racist after 9/11, then the overall paper would be more enticing to read.
From this discussion and reading along I’ve learned the value of keeping the reader’s attention. When reading this it definitely feels like the writer was just putting words on the page. The background was vague and general regarding 9/11 and it didn’t really relate to racism, which was mentioned in the title and the first sentence until the second half of the paragraph. A lot of words were wasted because they are placed later on and not sooner in the argument. Most of the argument was telling us what 9/11 was about and its ripple effect. Nobody cares about that, they care about why the writer thinks 9/11 made America more racist.
This had the potential to be a very strong argument as the title suggested. After reading, however, I realized that there is almost no argument made. The majority of the words are filler and have nothing to do with the idea of making America more racist after 9/11. If the main point of the paper is to say how America is racist, the author should at least make the claim that America is racist. It should not take 10 lines to get to the part where racism actually exists. The sentence structure also makes this a difficult read as there is no flow between them. I had to reread many parts to understand what was trying to be said but then realized it contained nothing of value.
This argument seems to jump around and explain a lot of background information without any supporting evidence/quotes. Bolder claims would help this argument be more convincing. The section that states ” the saddest part is that we had an opportunity to make a comeback. It would have been one of the most difficult things our country had ever done and would have further changed the world forever but we failed to take advantage of our opportunity to find good in the situation” needs to be explained more. There was not enough evidence to support how the U.S. failed to make a comeback.
After reading this causal argument, I feel like I have gained no more knowledge that I already have of the 9/11 attacks. Your paper is all over the place and does not come close to proving what your title implies. One suggestion that I would have for you is to maybe get more bolder claims or arguments that you made. Introduce new content that no-one has seen before. You did not have a good catch in the beginning that made the readers go “oh I should read this”
The argument does not make many claims and mostly states large observations that don’t say much or add to the thesis. Most of the sentences are just filler, with only 2 or 3 really adding to the essay at most. There is not much information outside the writer’s own view on the subject. Even when the writer tried to talk about specifics, they did not set up or explain them enough to make them impactful.
This argument seems to be poorly organized, with different ideas scattered all over the (way too lengthy) paragraph. None of the points made seemed to really have a good explanation to as why the reader should buy into them, and the writer seemed to have just used filler sentences that didn’t provide any substance to the writing. There is also no citations in the paragraph to help support her argument.
The argument here has a really good claim in the title, but then goes on to waste many words while trying to make a confused point. Claims that directly state what the author is trying to say would help improve this, along with fixing some of the statements that are repeated. They also took a very long time to actually get to the part about racism, which is a centerpiece of the argument.
The argument definitely repeats phrases in different wording which weakens the argument you are trying to get across to your readers. Starting your argument off with a vague sentence also really weakens the paper and instead of using that, get straight to the point right off the bat. Username doesn’t get into what his argument is until around halfway through the paper.
This casual argument doesn’t support it’s thesis as much as it should. there’s a lot of background information on other subjects related to 911 but it does not support to why the author claims that 911 has made America more racist.
I’ve seen while pursuing this argument, that the author in general requires a significant stretch of time to cut to the chase. It would be smarter to express the primary concern at the starting point as they said a great deal of stuff that wasn’t exactly all that significant. You can focus more on the causes and effects of racism that impacts in US. You could expound more on the seriousness of the situation as seen as a result in 9/11 which made America more racist.
This argument doesn’t achieve a whole lot. It makes a statement, but doesn’t use any facts to back it up. The lack of sources really soften the authors point, since why should we believe them if they’re words aren’t validated by anything? It’s one big paragraph that jumps around a lot, without making any actual arguments. The title was really good, but the essay immediately loses the readers attention with the, “it seems”. If the author isn’t using strong words from the get go, why should the reader believe it.
This argument shows the causes and effects of the national tragedy that shaped the country to what it is today. Though its statements and opening is vague and weak. Tip toeing around the claim doesn’t make it more of an assertive to read it disposes the reader to continue rather then getting to the point.
This is a very good topic to talk about but the writer doesnt really explain the topic in the write to make readers understand.Also there sentence was all over the place they need to just stick to one topic and then if they were going to a next topic then write a new paragraph.For there examples they have do not match up with there topic it doesnt but then it doesnt at the same time.For the topic the writer choose he or she could’ve got straight to the post and not mixing and matching there’s words around just to make a paragraph about something.
Critique
I feel as though the title that was used was a great way to grab the reader’s attention but from there the paper started to go bad. After reading the first couple sentences at the beginning felt as if it was a waste and It took way too long for the writer to get to the point of proving that America is racist. It would’ve been better if the backstory was provided after the main point that is trying to be proven. I do tend to see myself doing this at the beginning of my papers where I would take too long to get to the point and start with unnecessary information.
While reading this argument I did not find any errors grammatically. Throughout the argument you make solid points on how we as a country feared middle eastern ethnicity’s because of the tragic events of 9/11. I also like how you added the “Family Guy” and “South Park” examples to use this event as a punchline rather than an event that should be mourned which is unjust. The argument was very good, but I feel like you should go into more detail when using your examples of foreign policy change. You just say foreign policy change, but what policies were put into place besides TSA.