Muslim Teacher Fired For Culture/Showing Malala

[Shiranu]

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/12/17/muslim-teacher-fired-after-showing-malala-video.html

New Jersey teacher Sireen Hashem says she followed the same curriculum as other history teachers at her school.

She was one of multiple teachers, she says, to show classes a film clip about Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai. Upon request, she helped another teacher translate an interview with a schoolbook’s Palestinian subject.

But unlike her coworkers, Hashem was fired from Hunterdon Central Regional High School, allegedly over her lesson plans. A self-described “Muslim American of Palestinian descent,” Hashem says she was prohibited from mentioning Islam or the Middle East in her history classes after parents and local religious leaders complained about her to school administrators.

...

Parents and administrators were allegedly unconcerned when Hashem’s non-Muslim colleague showed the Malala video. But when Hashem played the clip in class, she says parents read a more political tone into the video.

“[Principal] Suzanne Cooley received a complaint from the parent of a student about Plaintiff’s use of the Malala Yusufzai video during a lesson,” Hashem’s suit reads. Her supervisor allegedly “told Plaintiff that she could not teach current events in the same manner as her non-Arab, non-Palestinian and non-Muslim colleagues.”

During a later meeting with the district’s superintendent, Cristina Steffner, Hashem says she pointed out that her colleague had played “the same video and it was not a problem,” the suit reads. “Defendant Steffner slammed her hand on the table and said, ‘You are not Lindsay.’ Unlike Plaintiff, Lindsay Wagner is not Arab, not Palestinian and not Muslim.”

Parental complaints apparently started to stack up against Hashem. Some allegedly objected to Hashem’s involvement in a class discussion on a book called Lemon Tree, which tells of an unlikely friendship between Israeli and Palestinian men. A coworker had allegedly asked Hashem to translate a Skype conversation between the students and the Palestinian man featured in the book.

Hashem was allegedly asked not to reference her cultural or religious background in the classroom, and to refrain from referencing Islam or the Middle East.

But it wasn’t apparently enough for a growing contingent of parents.

“A local rabbi and several parents contacted the high school administration, including Defendants Cooley and Steffner, and Defendant Board of Education in an attempt to have Plaintiff removed from her teaching position, solely because of her heritage and religion,” Hashem’s lawsuit claims.

I want to put some snark but really... this is just getting pathetic... and this paranoia of anything Middle Eastern is just going to get worse. Good job fear-mongerers... you win again. Get this woman who DARES to show Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai or explain her culture out of our schools! Everyone knows education should only be handled by European/European Americans and only show how they view the world... other opinions are baaaad!

We did it when blacks wanted to talk about African American issues and authors... when Latino's wanted to talk about Latino American issues and authors... so what surprise is there when we do it to one more group?

[pr126]

Goodness me, will the Islamophobia never end? What is wrong with you Americans?

By the way Shiranu, CAIR is hiring.
Just fill in the application form and send it off. They need every help  they can get. 
Just the job for you. And they pay well.

[Hijiri Byakuren]

When I took a "20th Century War and Terror" class, a huge focus was on the background of the modern Middle East, starting with an overview of WW1 focusing on Turkey and its neighbors. A lot of that class boiled down to understanding the actions, even if we condemn them. That class was taught by a W.A.S.P.^TM who was about as stereotypically American as it gets. I sometimes wonder how it might have turned out had those exact same lectures been given by a Muslim, regardless of race or nationality.

[Shiranu]

Goodness me, will the Islamophobia never end?

I never realised Islamophobia covers the way other (Christian) minorities and cultures have been shoved out of the curriculum as well. I guess you learn something new everyday.

It's real easy to sit back and snark off when it's not you or your kin who are affected by bigotry. Takes a real tough man to scream and rave about how the "others" are coming to destroy then defend the actions of people like these or Donald Trump and his ilk.

That class was taught by a W.A.S.P.TM who was about as stereotypically American as it gets. I sometimes wonder how it might have turned out had those exact same lectures been given by a Muslim, regardless of race or nationality.

Can't say for a Muslim but I was lucky to have a very open-minded set of history teachers who tried to give various side's perspectives on what caused what in history rather than just "This is what your Eurocentric text book says".

[Baruch]

Open mindedness is more often found in college than in public school.  But then our colleges are run by Marxists ;-)  They refuse to teach that Bugs Bunny crossed the Delaware ;-) ... I did see a cartoon with Bugs and Yosemite Sam as the Hessian long ago.

Yes, the PTA is a clear and present danger to public school.  I have seen a teacher fired for daring to discipline one of their precious children.

And not all rabbis are honorable people.  Some are crooks ... and a few are even atheists ;-)

[SGOS]

It's maybe too early to tell, but I wonder if a full blown war on Islam is coming.  Tensions are building, both in the Mideast, and now in the west.  This is not a scenario for peace.

[Hijiri Byakuren]

It's maybe too early to tell, but I wonder if a full blown war on Islam is coming.  Tensions are building, both in the Mideast, and now in the west.  This is not a scenario for peace.

It's certainly possible. There's already a precedent, after all.

[SGOS]

It's certainly possible. There's already a precedent, after all.

Yes, there is precedent, but that one was billed as a war on terror, a war to free the Iraqi people, and a war to rid Iraq of WMD.  It was billed many things, but I think those explanations were designed to cover actual motives.  It may have been a war on Islam, but I don't think so.  Once we "freed the Iraqi people (sarcasm there)," they quickly set up an Islamic government, a repressive Shite government that reversed the repression toward Sunnis this time around, but we seemed OK with that.  All the while we were bombing the Hell out of the place, our government was claiming Islam to be the religion of peace, so I don't think that was what the war was about.

But there is an actual religious war going on.  It's a war being carried out by ISIS, and other Islamic groups, in the name of Islam, and they are taking the war global.  The West isn't recognizing it as an official war, because the West is fighting what they refer to as "terror," but it is a war, and it is religious, at least according to ISIS.

I'm wondering what declaring a war on Islam would look like.  The reason I brought it up is because all of us are sensing a mood swing in the West.  People are getting pissed at Islam and are not as politically correct as they used to be.  I sense a change, but I don't know how much momentum it will gain, how long it will last, or how it will end, but there is an element of danger that I sense in the attitude shift, and I think it could be potentially worse than that George Bush Neo Con shit we did before.

[Hijiri Byakuren]

Yes, there is precedent, but that one was billed as a war on terror, a war to free the Iraqi people, and a war to rid Iraq of WMD.  It was billed many things, but I think those explanations were designed to cover actual motives.  It may have been a war on Islam, but I don't think so.  Once we "freed the Iraqi people (sarcasm there)," they quickly set up an Islamic government, a repressive Shite government that reversed the repression toward Sunnis this time around, but we seemed OK with that.  All the while we were bombing the Hell out of the place, our government was claiming Islam to be the religion of peace, so I don't think that was what the war was about.

But there is an actual religious war going on.  It's a war being carried out by ISIS, and other Islamic groups, in the name of Islam, and they are taking the war global.  The West isn't recognizing it as an official war, because the West is fighting what they refer to as "terror," but it is a war, and it is religious, at least according to ISIS.

I'm wondering what declaring a war on Islam would look like.  The reason I brought it up is because all of us are sensing a mood swing in the West.  People are getting pissed at Islam and are not as politically correct as they used to be.  I sense a change, but I don't know how much momentum it will gain, how long it will last, or how it will end, but there is an element of danger that I sense in the attitude shift, and I think it could be potentially worse than that George Bush Neo Con shit we did before.

I was talking about the crusades actually.


Secretly a Warsie.

[SGOS]

I was talking about the crusades actually.


Secretly a Warsie.

Oh!  Well that too.

[Baruch]

Yes, there is precedent, but that one was billed as a war on terror, a war to free the Iraqi people, and a war to rid Iraq of WMD.  It was billed many things, but I think those explanations were designed to cover actual motives.  It may have been a war on Islam, but I don't think so.  Once we "freed the Iraqi people (sarcasm there)," they quickly set up an Islamic government, a repressive Shite government that reversed the repression toward Sunnis this time around, but we seemed OK with that.  All the while we were bombing the Hell out of the place, our government was claiming Islam to be the religion of peace, so I don't think that was what the war was about.

But there is an actual religious war going on.  It's a war being carried out by ISIS, and other Islamic groups, in the name of Islam, and they are taking the war global.  The West isn't recognizing it as an official war, because the West is fighting what they refer to as "terror," but it is a war, and it is religious, at least according to ISIS.

I'm wondering what declaring a war on Islam would look like.  The reason I brought it up is because all of us are sensing a mood swing in the West.  People are getting pissed at Islam and are not as politically correct as they used to be.  I sense a change, but I don't know how much momentum it will gain, how long it will last, or how it will end, but there is an element of danger that I sense in the attitude shift, and I think it could be potentially worse than that George Bush Neo Con shit we did before.

How is that war against the Germans going?  They are more powerful than ever, and we helped them rebuild.  So war against "giant noun" or "scary adjective" isn't going to happen.  Combat is much more relative and local and specific.  Like getting rid of the Libyan government ... which turned out so swell.