The image I choose to use for my MACRO hack is this about this Facebook post. I was not the one who took this screenshot of this post, I actually came across this picture while scrolling through my Twitter timeline. I first came across this picture when I had seen someone quote tweeted it and was very upset that some people continue to tarnish the Islamic religion. Although I am unaware of who posted this status on their Facebook, the story “Teacher accused of giving students Anti-Muslim handouts” comes from a local news channel in Texas, where this incident took place. This incident happened very recently, the news website dates it as April 8th, 2015. What really intrigued me to use this picture for this assignment was how people are still so judgmental about other religions, especially Islam, in our modern society.
I believe this image was created (when someone screen shotted it) because they were very upset of the comments left behind on this post. The comments are all encouraging the teacher for he unacceptable action. The high school teacher had passed out an eight page handout entitled “Islam/Radical Islam (Did You Know)” and the material was not approved by the school district. Passing this unreliable/untrue information to high school student just enhances the stereotypes about Middle Eastern people.
I did more research on this issue on google and thats where I came across the video broadcast the news station did explaining this situation. This image had to have been created around the same time this information was aired, April 2015. The image is not pixelated, it is quite clear, and the size is 123 KB. It does not look like the image has been altered in any way through the course of it being spread around social media.
What made me choose to use this image for the MACRO hack was that I was appalled when I read those comments, like seriously?! We live in the United States and our first amendment includes freedom of religion and being able to express it. It’s honestly very annoying that a teacher would think that this is acceptable and is something that was needed to be taught to high school students. The teacher is not teaching them anything, instead she is filling the kids heads with lies. The handout talks about Sharia Law, terrorism, jihad, even beheadings and “If taken hostage by radical Islamists, what to do”. Like are you kidding me, what Muslim person will take you hostage! While many people were upset that the teacher had done this, the people who commented on this post in this image were praising her, they need help. Seeing those comments and what the post was about really drew me to do more research to find out what actually happened.
HACK It! 