Hello everyone, this week in ASTU 100 we connected our recent studies to an excerpt from Judith Butler’s, Frames of War: When is Life Grievable? Particularly, we focused on her first chapter Survivability, Vulnerability, Affect, which highlights the precariousness of life and which lives we see as precarious. I found this incredibly relevant to today’s new drama in Trump’s America where a travel ban has been placed on several different countries of people which are seen to be dangerous to Americans.

This ridiculous ban included nationals of these countries as well as valid green card holders, because of the ban many people were refused entry into the USA which obviously caused a large stir due to outrage on the fact that they are banning people from returning to their own home. This reflects people’s views on which lives are precarious and which aren’t to them, one particular quote from Butler really connects to todays very controversial “war on terror”, “[if] certain lives do not qualify as lives or are, from the start, not conceivable as lives within certain epistemological frames, then these lives are never lived nor lost in the full sense” (1). I believe this quote actually helps people like me (who are against the travel ban) to understand why some people would be for it. Because of the war on terror which started along with George W. Bush’s “Us vs. Them” speech the American people have been made to think the people in countries such as Iran, Iraq and so on are “Them” and want to hurt the American people and must be stopped. This has caused devastation and absolute destruction in these area’s where thousands have been killed, so why don’t the American people see this as wrong? Because, as Butler would say, they do not see these people’s lives as precarious so it’s not that they don’t care about people dying but simply don’t see their lives as lives at all!

News and Media have shaped the way many people see the middle east and that has caused a large cycle of violence due to many’s inability to connect with the people being effected. The American people (some) support this ban and the war on terror simply because they have been made to think the lives of those in these “terror” countries aren’t really lives at all, they are unable to put themselves into these people’s position. I believe Judith Butlers point on precarious life is important and it helps to put everyone on the same page, instead of me seeing people supporting the travel ban as “evil” I can understand their perspective which helps in talking to such people without being so divided in ideas.