The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Opinion
Wednesday, February 25, 2015 — 5A

T

he night of Tuesday, Feb. 
9, Deah Barakat, age 
23, his wife Yusor Abu-

Salha, age 21, 
and her sister, 
Razan 
Abu-

Salha, age 19, 
were 
killed 

execution-
style by Craig 
Stephen 
Hicks. 
Hicks 

was 
indicted 

in the triple 
homicide, 
allegedly over 
a parking dispute. However, 
many 
people, 
including 
the 

families of Deah, Yusor and 
Razan, believe that the shootings 
were a hate-crime due to the 
victims’ Muslim faith.

I will start by saying I do not 

claim that the actions of Hicks 
were due to him being an atheist 
or that somehow atheism is fun-
damentally violent or hateful. To 
do that would be stooping down 
to the level to those who claim 
that Islam is inherently violent, 
and I know what it feels like to be 
stereotyped and labeled based on 
the actions of someone else.

I would like you to step into my 

world as a Muslim-American in 
the aftermath of this event.

On Wednesday morning, I 

woke up to texts about how Deah, 
Yusor and Razan were killed 
from my friends and family who 
were upset and shocked at the 
heinous crime and lack of media 
coverage. I saw tweets and Face-
book posts by Muslims pressur-
ing the media to cover the story 
and read the media coverage 
that called the incident a sim-
ple “parking dispute.” Despite 
the shock, I dragged myself out 
of bed, put on my “Respect my 
Choice” T-shirt with a hijab logo 
on it, and walked out of my room 
with a brave face.

I would not let hate change me.
That night, the University’s 

Muslim Student Association held 
a candlelight vigil where people 
expressed their mourning, shock 
and frustration with the media 
coverage. There was support 
from people from all different 
faiths, proving to me that there 
were others who could under-
stand why this was so heart-
breaking. And while the media 
still debates whether Islamo-
phobia exists, I can tell you that 
at the vigil, a place where people 
should have their time to mourn, 
hagglers yelled slurs like, “Is that 
ISIS?” It added insult to injury; 
needless to say, I wasn’t com-
pletely surprised.

And then Thursday came, and 

it felt like a second blow. I could 
not focus on any of my classes, 
and yet it seemed like there 
weren’t many who understood 
why this hit me so hard. I could 
have sat out of class or explained 
why I didn’t finish my homework 
in time, but the fear that no one 
would understand overwhelmed 
me. Why I would feel so upset 
by an event that is only consid-
ered a hate-crime by those who 
choose to believe it is something 
I could not bear to explain, and 
so I stayed silent.

I spent the day scrolling 

through articles and pictures of 
the newly wedded couple and 
Razan, who was the same age 
as me. I thought of my broth-
ers, friends and family members, 
thinking about their similarities 
and the bright futures that had 
been lost.

Today, I look back at these 

events and tell you that all they 
have done is made me more aware 
of some crucial realities.

I thought long and hard about 

my own identity and my place in 
America, the country I was born 
and raised in. 
The 
media 

portrayal of 
these events 
claimed that 
this 
was 
a 

parking dis-
pute, 
and 

newscast-
ers 
spent 

their 
time 

interviewing 
Hicks’ 
wife 

instead of the family of the vic-
tims. I could not help but feel a 
lump in my throat. These were 
people that looked so similar to 
me, and yet there seemed to be 
little sympathy. Instead, another 
round of public debates.

As if something deep inside 

me had been uncovered, I 
thought to myself, “Where do I 
exist?” Am I the enemy in sight 
of the eyehole of the American 
sniper? Am I the woman hid-
den behind a veil of oppression? 
Maybe I’m one of those name-
less characters screaming in a 
foreign language in the back-
ground of an action scene.

Am I a suspected terrorist or a 

moderate Muslim who seems to 
be somewhere silently floating in 
the midst? If you could point me 
to one American television show 
or movie that has a portrayal of 
the happy Muslim neighbor, I 
would be more than happy to 
watch it. Is the media trying to 
ignore that an educated, practic-
ing, American Muslim can pos-
sibly be a part of society?

Am I to sit silently while the 

media tries to push me aside and 
make me feel like I just do not 
belong here?

Or maybe I will have hope that 

people will see these problems for 
what they really are: a product of 
misconceptions.

Regardless of whether or not 

you believe that this was a hate 
crime, there have been several 
after the shooting that paint a 
larger picture of hate-driven 
crimes against Muslims and 
Arab-Americans. On Monday, 
Feb. 16, a man in Houston was 
charged with arson in an Islam-
ic center and on Thursday, Feb. 
12 an Arab-American man was 
beaten at a Kroger in Dearborn. 
These are just a few of the recent 
hate crimes against Muslims, 
crimes that are five times more 
common now than they were 
before Sept. 11, 2001.

The idea that Islam is inher-

ently violent or anti-Western is 
one that incites hatred of Mus-
lims. The only way to combat 
these ideas is by combating the 
ignorance 
surrounding 
these 

claims. 
I’ve 

heard 
too 

many 
times 

about people 
that 
simply 

“aren’t sure” 
what Islam is 
really about. 
They 
take 

the words of 
people 
who 

pull excerpts 
of the Quran 

out of context or claim that some-
how the one person or even one 
government is representative of 
every Muslim. People must learn 
to separate Islam from terrorism 
if the hatred against innocent 
Muslims is to cease.

I could go on to say that the 

lesson I learned from the death 
of Deah, Yusor and Razan is 
that it’s solely Muslims who face 
these obstacles, but the great-
er reality is that we should be 
working toward a society with-
out hate on all levels. Islamo-
phobia isn’t just a problem for 
Muslims the same way that 
racism is not just a problem for 
Black Americans. It affects us 
all, and ignoring it as a prob-
lem only allows more and more 
people to be hurt. The only way 
to combat these hate crimes is to 
stand up against them regard-
less of the victim.

I will stand with you. Won’t 

you stand with me?

 
—Rabab Jafri can be reached 

at rfjafri@umich.edu

RABAB 
JAFRI

Stand with me

Am I a suspected 

terrorist or a moderate 
Muslim who seems to 
be somewhere silently 
floating in the midst?

On Monday, the University 

Medical 
School 
Information 

Services rolled out its imple-
mentation of AirWatch, a mobile 
device 
management 
system 

being used to secure personal 
cell phones of employees and 
students. Numerous high-profile 
losses of protected health infor-
mation at other institutions — 
and the inevitable lawsuits that 
followed — were cited as pre-
cipitating factors leading to our 
health system’s adoption of the 
security software.

AirWatch aims to prevent sen-

sitive data from falling into the 
wrong hands by providing the 
ability to remotely wipe a device 
that has been lost or stolen, as 
well as the means to constantly 
monitor whether a device has 
been compromised. The software 
requires full administrator access 
to one’s phone to do so; permis-
sions granted to the AirWatch 
Agent application are broad, 
including the ability to determine 
the device’s precise location, 
directly call phone numbers and 
even take pictures and videos. 
MSIS maintains that our version 
of AirWatch “does not collect 
any data related to phone calls, 
texts, location or web browsing,” 
because “these capabilities have 
been disabled.”

Questions 
about 
AirWatch 

have been raised by medical stu-
dents, many of whom learned 
about the decision to support the 
software on a Friday, only three 
days before the platform’s offi-
cial Monday launch. Confusion 
regarding the scope of surveil-
lance, access to tracked infor-
mation and the possibility of 
uninstallation reigned, but one of 
the most commonly voiced con-
cerns was simply, “Do I need to 
install AirWatch?”

Announcements 
included 

phrases such as “deadline for 

enrolling” without pointing out 
that participation is strictly vol-
untary; users who do not install 
the monitoring package will still 
be able to access their UMHS 
e-mail accounts through their 
devices’ web browsers.

An important concept in medi-

cine is the right to an informed 
decision, one which can only be 
made after understanding all of 
the relevant facts about each of 
the options available, without 
being coerced or rushed. It isn’t 
necessary for the health care 
provider to agree with the deci-
sion, as each patient makes each 
choice within the context of his 
or her own value system; hence, 
there are no “right” or “wrong” 
options. Similarly, the crux of 
issues surrounding privacy and 
technology resides in supply-
ing the end user with enough 
information to weigh costs and 
benefits before arriving at an 
informed decision.

Patient data should be protect-

ed, but at what cost to the securi-
ty of employee and student data? 
The large number of medical stu-
dents who change their names on 
Facebook during the residency 
application cycle indicates that 
privacy remains a major concern 
— if we are so guarded about the 
information that we have chosen 
to share online, why would we 
not also wish to protect our pri-
vate texts and e-mails?

We live in a time when the 

nature 
of 
the 
relationship 

between 
citizens, 
companies 

and government over communi-
cations is in a state of constant 
flux; in the last few days alone, 
headlines 
have 
been 
awash 

with revelations that computer 
manufacturing 
giant 
Lenovo 

intentionally packaged a major 
security flaw into its new laptops, 
while ongoing revelations about 
the extent of NSA surveillance 

continue to astound in both vol-
ume and audacity.

As consumers and responsible 

citizens, we must take active 
steps to protect our privacy. This 
can be difficult in the mobile 
device domain, as the only way 
to truly ensure that one’s data is 
completely safe is to not own a 
cellular phone in the first place. 
Obviously for many people this 
is not a viable option, so every 
day we make tradeoffs, judging 
which risks we deem accept-
able. We may still choose to talk 
where we can be overheard, 
or text where our screens can 
be read over our shoulders or 
e-mail knowing the messages 
can be intercepted.

Some users will trust Air-

Watch, 
acknowledging 
the 

potential privacy compromises 
that it presents in favor of the 
convenience of accessing e-mail 
on their own devices. Others 
will opt not to install AirWatch, 
choosing instead to check their 
mail with their phones’ web 
browsers while relying upon 
their pagers to communicate 
urgent messages. A few may 
even decide to use entirely sep-
arate devices for personal and 
professional business.

There 
are 
no 
“right” 
or 

“wrong” options, as each choice 
is made in the context of the end 
user’s individual value system. 
Moving forward, it’s important 
that we focus on seeking student 
input about changes related to our 
school’s information technology 
policies, in addition to continuing 
to supply users with the informa-
tion necessary to make informed 
decisions regarding their privacy, 
without being coerced or rushed.

Special thanks to Erin Conrad 

for contributing to this article.

 
Mike Yee is a fourth 

year medical student.

MIKE YEE | VIEWPOINT

Who watches the Airwatchers?

E-mail HEidi at HEidimaE@umicH.Edu
HEIDI LIU

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