Blog Assignment 5

In 2016, the Obama Administration allowed transgender people to use the bathroom matching their gender identity, not the biological sex. This was one of the supportive law that shaped the way to the non-discriminatory society. Not only this law ensured the equal right to transgender people by prohibiting discrimination against them using sex-segregated facilities but also showed support to any minorities in the society.

However, after the Donald Trump was elected, this situation is completely changed. As of March 31, 2017, fifteen states have issued legislation that would restrict the use of bathroom based on the sex assigned on at birth. In Texas, the bill also prohibits local government from passing non-discrimination ordinances related to restroom access I think this clearly states that this new legislation is a discriminatory law. They say that the purpose of this bathroom bill is to ensure the safety of women by preventing male abusing the law to break into the women's bathroom and to minimize the possibility of rape, etc. This is an absurd explanation because the man who is going to rape a woman will break into the women's bathroom no matter what the law is. Also, it considers transgender people as dangerous, possible criminals. Heterosexual, homosexual, transgender people, queers, and other minorities should be treated equally and be given same rights.

Yesterday, March 30th, 2017, this bathroom bill was repealed in North Carolina. I think this law should be repealed in every state. This is clearly a discriminatory law that should not exist in 2017. I agree that protecting people's safety is important, but the bathroom bill was a wrong step towards discrimination and it should be stepped back and find another solution.

Blog assignment 4

On March 6, President Trump signed a revised immigration executive order suspending six major Muslim countries from immigration. Regarding this second executive order, the cable news such as CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC hosted guest discussions. Nina Mest, a researcher at Media Matters for America, points out the problem on March 8 in her commentary called "When Discussing Trump's Muslim Ban 2.0, Cable News Largely Excluded Muslim Guests Again." 

The intended audience for this editorial is those who are interested in Trump's executive order. Mest claims that the news ignored Muslim voices when the executive order affects them directly. For example, CNN had 2 Muslim guests out of 32 guests and FOX News had 0 Muslim guests out of 17 guests. The guests who were invited mostly include journalists, anti-immigrant, politicians, and some of them included white supremacists. This ignorance in news has been around for past few decades. This also happened after the mass shooting in Orlando in 2016. Mest points out the need to feature Muslim and refugee voices with all the "anti-Muslim hate crimes and an administration attempting to implement government-sanctioned discrimination." 

This illustrates the reality of the current American society; the voices of minorities are hardly heard. Islamophobia exists and the hatred already went beyond a certain point.The  I recently watched a Youtube video comparing reactions of people to a white and a Muslim woman. They both asked the random person to keep their bags while they go to the restroom, and the reactions were completely opposite. While people were nice to the white woman, they acted negatively to the Muslim woman. Some cursed at her and called out her terrorist even though the Muslim woman was crying. About 20-30 people were around, but only 1 person helped when she was bullied by people. Especially the news media, which have to be impartial and deliver the accurate information to people, should not have ignored the Muslim voices. I agree that there needs to be an improvement and fairness in the media.