Pop Music and War on Terror Opinion

            Every country experiences an exchange of similar habits and thought patterns. We experience these exchanges everyday through our cultural society. People associate various objects or ideas with what is most common amongst their society. For instance, the idea that country music is considered American music more so than hip-hop or jazz exemplifies stereotypical thinking. This iconic way of viewing culture enables a society to engage in acts of prejudice against each other. When society constructs topical conclusions based on a majority’s thought procession, there is no room for individuality. What’s worse is that after a culture has designated a social group into a specific category, it’s difficult to be seen as anything other than your iconic self.

The prejudice reputation given to a social group often causes dissension amongst that culture when disaster strikes. 9/11, one of the most devastating events in American history, changed the way society views terrorism. The suicide bombers who crashed an aircraft into the World Trade Center of New York were Middle Eastern. Considering most of the Middle Eastern heritage is structured upon Islamic faith, most of the population there is Muslim. Ever since the attack Americans have categorized Muslims as icons of terrorism. One attack changed the way American society apprehends its own cultural ideologies and furthermore we’ve lost sight of truth for all humanity.

The war on terror was deemed inevitable post-9/11 for various reasons; the people of America were distressed and someone had to pay for the damage. As a result, the war on terror was a means of revenge to stop the immense anxieties that took over the country at the time. No one stopped to analyze the immoralities of the war and how much anguish it would cause our “opponent” to have. So America justified the war on terror by labeling a social group that best represents the people responsible for the attack the terrorists----Middle Easterners, Saddam Hussein, Osama Bin Laden, and anyone else affiliated with them.

One could only be for or against the war and there was no room to not belong to any one side; anything that questioned the logic of going to war was viewed as betraying America. Ideal music created post-9/11 played a predominant role in promoting the war on terror, such as Toby Keith’s Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue. This type of music encouraged the prolongation of prejudice America; social groups would continue to be blamed or judged according to the actions of mere individuals.

 However there were other songs that questioned the practicality of the war. For instance, Neil Young’s performance of Imagine by John Lennon effectively communicated the notion of peace, love, and mercy, ideas that many Americans did not want to acknowledge. Songs like this attempted with little success to destabilize the walls of a judgmental America. Although there has been very little improvement of eliminating prejudice institutions over the years, America must remember to do things truthfully and not selfishly; instead of blaming an entire culture for a terrible act of violence committed by terrorists, who are now dead, we should make amends.