1. I would say that the first person to defy the typical stereotype of syrian people would be the vendor. He talked about how he was happy to serve john kerry and get a picture with him. the next would saeed, the guard. He worked as a guard to support his family, he also talks about his dreams in becoming a fashion designer and how he loves fashion tv. this shows that Syrians have dreams too just like Americans. To me this shows that the stereotype that all Syrians hate Americans is a false statement.
2. Our media acts like a mirror because it tries to get emotion from the people. whether that emotion be fear, hope, or sadness. the media is always changing the news to more attention from the people. 2 examples would be the whole middle east situation. they make it seem like all Muslims hate Americans when really they don’t. this makes us believe it and stereotype them based on the media. another example is that everyone from afghanistan are terrorists. this is not true and they only show the terrorist because it puts emotions into the viewer and creates a stereotype that is hated.
3. One way he characterizes Americans is that we are all competing against us. This i agree with. we are all trying to get the upper hand on one another. we all have this survival of the fitess attitude. we are all looking for the american dream. anther thing he says is that America turns their cities into tourist attractions like disneyland. i disagree with this. every country has tourist attractions, the US is no different. and on that note the US has no control on tourist attractions to begin with it’s all private companies.
4. I think he means by this phrase is that we wish we could be friends but there is no way of doing so because of the politics. Our countries are not the best of friends so it would make it hard for any of this to work out.
Good job B, between now and the class discussion think about other ways that our media acts like a mirror, thanks, Jeff