Life is not fair, and I have learned that life takes unexpected turns and unfortunately there is nothing one can do about it. At first Zeitoun believed that he was arrested for terrorism conspiracy, because the first thing that the soldier who arrested Zeitoun said was, '"You guys are al Qaeda,"' (Zeitoun 222). I could not imagine what it would be like to be called a terrorist, just because Zeitoun is Arab. If I were Zeitoun I would have lost all respect for my countries justice system, because all Zeitoun had done was rescue, and save lives. Zeitoun should be considered a hero, rather than a terrorist because all he has done was saved lives rather than taking lives. I believe that the soldiers are the people to blame, simply because they did nothing to help the citizens of New Orleans while they were in panic. The soldiers were not even stationed in New Orleans for several days after Katrina hit, which shows how much our government cares about their citizens. I believe our government could have gotten to New Orleans within a couple hours after the storm hit, instead it took sever days for the government to figure out the people of New Orleans needed help. When sent to jail Zeitoun was told to get undressed in order to be stripped searched, because they believed that had stolen items from stores in town. Zeitoun did not have anything on him beside some money that the soldiers thought he had stolen from a store. Zeitoun was sent to, "Angola, the country's largest prison, was built on an eighteen-thousand-acre former plantation once used for the breeding of slaves" (Zeitoun 320). I thought this was ironic, because our government once allowed slavery, as we know was beyond cruel, torturous, and inhuman and yet our government decides to build a prison. Prisons are supposed to rehabilitate those are treatable, and yet Angola was built on a plantation where racism was very prevalent. It makes no sense what so ever to build a prison on a once racist land. Zeitoun was be profiled left and right just because he was Arab, and thrown into a prison built on racism, but our government has not figured out that it is illegal to profile and assume one is a terrorist because he is Arab even after the Civil Rights Movement. I believe that the way that Zeitoun acted during his confrontation with the police, ultimately saved him and reduced the fines, because he did not act crazy and make a big seen. Zeitoun was able to keep his cool, because he knew that this was all a misunderstanding. In Angola Zeitoun was not being treated any better than he was outside, because the guards put him in solitary confinement, and refused to give him his phone call. Zeitoun lost all of his rights as a United States citizen while in prison, and was thought to be the worst of the worst, due to where he was being held in prison. If I were Zeitoun I would have sued the United States government for millions of dollars for putting him in jail for no reason. I really like this book, and thought it did a great job connecting to new and relevant topics that are occurring currently in our world. I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in learning about New Orleans, and our government because it goes into such depth. From this book I have learned that citizens legal rights are much different in other countries, and as Americans we need to utilize our rights in a way that can be identified in a peaceful manner. I have learned that depending on ones career and actions, one can be viewed to be many different things and most of the time they are all false due to misunderstandings and profiling. It is unacceptable and illegal to judge one based on their appearance, but unfortunately our government has not learned right from wrong yet. This book has made me hate our government, because from what I have learned our government set the people of the United States to fail, unless they obey specific rules and regulations.
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