Civil Rights
Muslims in America: When Bullying Meets Religion
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GuestsBy Sabrina Holcomb
Debate team champion, Autena Torbati, lives by her words. So the day a debate teammate announced to the class he would have “liked Hitler better if had he killed all the Muslims, instead of Jews,” Autena’s blood ran cold. “Remember,” says the Oklahoma high school student, “the Holocaust started with words before ending in gas chambers.”
In Autena’s case, bullying has been confined to verbal taunts, threatening gestures, and an anti-Muslim opinion piece in the school newspaper. But for other Muslim students, verbal assaults have escalated into physical abuse, as anti-Islamic sentiment sweeps the nation. In Texas, a Muslim student was brutally beaten and thrown into a dumpster, while in Minnesota, Muslim girls were chased by classmates who shoved raw pork in their faces. Following relentless beatings from middle to high school, a Muslim Staten Island teen finally resigned from school.
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Bullying is an equal-opportunity crisis, affecting students of every age, race, and creed. The dimension that makes the bullying of Muslim students particularly disturbing centers around the open prejudices and fears of adults, giving the green light to non-Muslim children that it’s okay — even patriotic — to discriminate. Muslim students report that an administrator at one school screamed at a 13-year old to remove her hijab (religious head scarf) until the girl broke down in tears. A guest speaker at another school handed out literature demonizing Islam in a social sciences class. When adults, especially educators, join in the bullying, it’s not only hurtful, say students, it’s a betrayal of trust. But educators have found that when just one caring adult supports a student, it can make a world of difference, creating a positive ripple effect that goes beyond one student and one classroom.
A Perfect Storm for Bullying
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) reports the number of bullying incidents against Muslim students has spiked in the wake of a perfect economic and political storm: severe economic distress and anti-immigrant sentiments, continued wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the conflation of Islam with terrorism, even the misidentification of President Obama’s own religion. Add to the mix the tragic memory of 9/11 and a proposed Islamic center near Manhattan’s Ground Zero, and you get children, many just babies on September 11, 2001, indicting their classmates as the enemy.
How do rising tensions affect the nation’s Muslim students, the majority of whom attend public schools? School-related civil rights violations have increased by 31 percent in just one year, according to a 2009 CAIR study. The study also found that a student’s ethnicity/ religion, a “Muslim-sounding name,” or the wearing of hijab were some of the primary factors triggering discrimination. A separate study by Wayne State University in Michigan found that 43 percent of Arab-American teens in the study were depressed. “Although many Muslim students have good relationships with their non-Muslim classmates, almost every child I’ve spoken to says they’ve had a hostile interaction with someone,” says Ibrahim Ramey, Human and Civil Rights Program Director for the Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation. The most common epitaphs Muslim students hear, he says, are “Terrorist,” and “Go back where you came from!” The irony is their tormentors are often insulting a third-generation American, a scenario painfully familiar to the Omeira family.
“I raised my son to be a proud American,” declares Abdul Omeira, whose son, Hashem, changed almost overnight from a sunny-natured 12-year-old to a grim recluse who stopped eating and socializing and started locking himself in his room. What his parents didn’t know at the time, says Hashem, a native-born Californian, is that after his teacher showed a movie widely criticized for its negative portrayal of Islamic culture, his classmates started a relentless campaign of abuse — cursing Hashem, his religion, even his parents.
Thankfully, Hashem’s high school experience is worlds apart from middle school. The difference? An enlightened school climate, says Hashem. When one of Hashem’s teachers heard some students categorizing all Muslims as extremists, he launched into a lesson on Muslim Americans, informing the class that extremists were a small group who didn’t represent the majority of Islam’s followers.
How Educators Can Lead the Way
“Some teachers do a wonderful job of teaching acceptance to their students,” reports Saadia Khan, Civic Outreach Coordinator for the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC). Kahn is invited to classrooms about a dozen times a year to talk candidly with students about Islamic culture. “I encourage the students to ask no-holds-barred questions — whether they’re about terrorism versus jihad or women’s rights under Islam,” says Khan. It helps to dispel myths and stereotypes when I can give them accurate information.”
Khan cautions that “misinformation contributes to misconceptions about groups, which in turn, can lead to bullying.” To help counter the negative narratives, she says, schools should facilitate conversations among educators, organizations like MPAC, students, and parents. “We have to teach children it’s okay to have disagreements as long as you engage in respectful discussion, and educators can be responsible facilitators of these discussions,” says Khan, who believes that cultural awareness training for educators should be required by all school districts. Khan also proposes using social media as an educational tool to counter cyberbullying, “Students with blogs can tag each other on positive news items and YouTube clips. It’s a nuanced and cool mechanism for teaching students how to exercise free speech responsibly.”
Public school demographics are changing so quickly, say community activists, cultural misunderstandings are unavoidable. The harassment of Muslim students, for instance, is often fueled by multiple factors: language and race, as well as religion, can make students a target. Darker-skinned Somali students comprise 10 percent of the student population in St. Cloud, Minnesota. Mocked as “sand n-gers” and “camel jockeys,” they reportedly face more discrimination there than other Muslim youth. Still other students are discriminated against because of their perceived ethnicity or religion: many Sikh Americans, though not Muslim, are targets of anti-Muslim bias.
Taking the extra steps to educate students about other cultures can ease cultural tensions and curb bullying, says California teacher Ari Jacobs, who’s seen the benefits at his own school. (According to one CAIR study, California leads the nation in the percentage of anti-Muslim civil rights complaints.) Jacobs designed a World Issues unit for his 11th-grade students, examining various aspects of world religions and human behavior, and a special unit for his seventh-grade social studies class, who explore bullying and Islamaphobia through the lens of “upstanders versus bystanders.”
The study of medieval Islam is required curriculum for 7th-grade students, says Jacobs, “but ancient history doesn’t allow them to process what they see on Fox and CNN,” so Jacobs extends the unit to explore current events, drawing modern-day connections between the curriculum and students’ lives.
Not long after the school year started, Jacob’s class watched news clips of Florida pastor Terry Jones threatening to burn Qurans on the anniversary of 9/11. A discussion about the role of book burnings and bystanders during the Holocaust led to the focal question of the entire lesson. “Are you an upstander or a bystander?,” Jacobs challenges his students, whom he’s just shown a 60 Minutes story about a teenager who peered over a bathroom stall while doing nothing to stop his friend from killing a young child. “I tell my students at some point in our lives — in a cafeteria line, riding a school bus, or on Facebook — we’re all peering over that bathroom stall,” with the power to say, Stop!”
But the most insightful moment for his astonished students, says Jacobs, was absorbing the tale of Oklahoma bomber Timothy McVeigh. A visibly emotional Muslim student told her classmates, “This is exactly how we felt about the people that brought down those planes on 9/11. They don’t represent me or Islam, just like Timothy McVeigh doesn’t represent all White people or Christians.” They got it,” says Jacobs. “You could just see the light go on.”
An Eye-Opening Lesson
Jacobs’ students say the lessons they’ve learned have made them realize that appreciating other cultures requires work and doesn’t happen on its own. The combination of frank discussion, role playing, and powerful media images is opening students’ eyes: parents have sent thank-you letters, and students being picked on have told Jacobs their schoolmates are no longer silent bystanders.
Yet, most Muslim students, having internalized the message that “Muslims are fair game,” suffer in silence, bearing the brunt of anti-Islamic fervor in an adult world. Although the overall number of reported anti-Muslim hate crimes has decreased in the last year, school-related incidents have soared. The recent spate of “bullycides” has focused national attention on the ease with which harassment can slide into tragedy, leading a Muslim educator to ask, “Do we have to wait for a Muslim-American child to commit suicide or be killed by a bully” before we take the bullying of Muslim students to heart?
Many Muslim families still believe in the power of education to change attitudes and the potential of public schools to teach tolerance on a national scale. The lessons can come from teachers, from students, and sometimes from the ones being bullied, say Hashem and Autena, who, having been targets themselves, speak from personal experience. They found that speaking up — educating other students — brought unexpected consequences.
After Autena took a classmate to task for making obnoxious comments about “sand people,” the classmate publicly apologized, telling everyone who had heard his remarks, “What I said wasn’t cool.” As for Hashem: Not long after he started high school, a cocky kid got in his face and told him to go “back where he came from.” “I told him I was born in the U.S.A.,” says Hashem. “That I have nowhere to go. So here I am.”
Now they’re friends.
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ANMB
December 13, 2011 at 12:34 AM
I have found these psychologically based resources both helpful and practical for preparing to teach my young children how to deal with bullying situations they will encounter as they get older:
https://bullies2buddies.com/Free-Manuals/enjoy-our-free-resources.html
AnonyMouse
December 13, 2011 at 3:09 AM
How depressing… alHamdulillah I have no bad memories of bullying from when I went to public school; of course, times change (and these days for the worse).
I think it’s extremely important for Muslim parents, as well as masaajid and Islamic centers, to hold workshop for Muslim kids who may be/ are a target of bullying and discrimination in school – by giving them support and teaching them how to address these incidents as and when they occur (by being confident and not backing down to the bullies; reporting the issue to a teacher/ principal/ supervisor; being pro-active in discussing Islam in the classroom).
And it is especially important for them to report any teacher who deliberately shares misinformation about Islam or attempts to propagate hatred against it (like Hashem’s middle school teacher) – such an individual cannot be allowed to teach children! Parents need to be aware of what their children’s teachers are like and to keep an eye on the school situation.
Umm Sulaim
December 13, 2011 at 4:06 AM
Bullying of American Muslims or Muslim Americans or mostly Americans or predominantly Muslims.
I should add youngsters to the description; my reaction would have been MUCH different without that addition, considering the posts I read here.
One thing bullies count on is the inability/ reluctance of the recipient to act in his defence. As I stated on another post on racism, answering them back usually reduces the bullying.
Umm Sulaim
Johnathan
December 14, 2011 at 1:37 PM
I think Muslims need to enroll their children into Karate classes so that if they ever feel threatened by someone, they will not become afraid or lose self esteem. It will be their choice in that situation to physically defend themselves, or just ignore the person but feel confident that they could have defended themselves. This is very important for the young Muslim brothers out there, and also for the sisters, especially in urban environments where even young girls have to face threats of fighting on a daily basis in school.
In regards to Muslim institutions or Masjids organizing bullying events – I doubt the majority of Masjids will do that. In the mean time, parents themselves need to cut the CNN and FOX News playing all the time in their house which can create anxieties in children, give their kids confidence, and raise them up to defend themselves under any situation. This is not just the case with Islam or Muslims. If you have ever grown up in an urban environment, you learn very quickly to protect yourself from others. At the same time, Muslims should teach their children the character of Syedna Musa, peace be upon him, who never stood by while injustice was taking place in front of his eyes. Don’t just teach them to defend themselves, but teach them to sacrifice for other kids and defend others who are being picked on.
I would NEVER, EVER, leave it up to the chance that teachers will teach tolerance. If most people are not aware of this already, I would remind everyone that the US public school system is a horrible institution of education and is failing and falling behind all of the developed countries around the world. I know many teachers and hear horror stories of the characters of the teachers teaching at these places. DON’T leave the self esteem and protection of your child’s identity to teachers who are underpaid and who might have bias of their own. We live in a society where most “educated” people think religion is backwards – don’t be surprised if your child develops the same attitude after attending public school 6 hours a day for 12 years of their life.
Aida
December 16, 2011 at 10:55 AM
As a muslim woman, I’ve often felt I benefit from taking a few self-defense classes (Karate, tae kwon do, judo) myself.
Rawann
April 26, 2014 at 11:17 PM
I’m sorry, a karate class will just make it worse. Then they will say that muslims are violent. I swear, people are rude as hell
DetroitDebbie
December 16, 2011 at 1:03 PM
Good article. People of different races and religions have been bullied for many decades, depending on where you live. My children were bullied in Different areas of Detroit because we were white, by African-Americans, Middle-Easterners and Hispanics. I taught my children not to stereo-type others because of a few. I am friends with many different types of people. I have always treated others with respect. There will always be those who only know what they are taught by others including the media.
Olivia
December 19, 2011 at 6:56 PM
With the advent of homeschool out of the box programs like K-12, bullying would be a reason to consider it. One of two minor incidences may be dealt, but for a child who is constantly being bullied, I personally think he or she should not be forced to go to school in an environment that would make them feel anxious and depressed. Some will say it will make him “stronger” to deal with it, but he may just become depressed, perform poorly, or even become suicidal. Unfortunately these things aren’t addressed until it’s too late.
Abdulmujeeb
December 20, 2011 at 12:29 PM
Everyone does not travel to America but America travels everywhere. The issue of Islamophobia occurs every where even in SAUDI ARABIA (check articles on SAUDI LIFE) . I recommend we read this book, THIS IS WHERE I NEED TO BE. It’s a collection of true stories of Muslim youths living in the US.
chuck hird
December 25, 2011 at 11:23 PM
I will stick my neck way out to ask this question. First I want Muslims, Christians, and Jews to live in neighborhoods peacefully and as friends. A friend of mine lives in a neighborhood that is quite cosmopolitan. Anglo s predominate, but there are Jews, Koreans, Japanese, and one Muslim family in one compartmentalized block. Every few months the neighborhood has a block picnic or get together of some kind. Always the Muslim family is included with an invitation. There never has been any kind of response. I do understand families should be able to have their privacy, and not ever have to attend the get to know functions. But how can we overcome our suspicions if we never associate? The Muslim family is very conservative, several of the females wear Burka. Maybe they are so different that it is embarrassing to associate with others. Please give me some answers. If we do not interact we will have real future problems.
Rifaie
December 26, 2011 at 1:40 AM
There are probably a few issues at work here that conspire to give an impression that does puzzle someone not familiar with them. It is no doubt very nice for you to ask it , rather than just assume that they mean you no good.
A block picnic , I assume , will likely have among the list of food items meat of all sorts, and perhaps even alcohol(not sure). In addition there might be music as well as no segregation of the sexes.
Given that you mention that these particular Muslims appear to be very conservative, they will likely not be able to partake of the meat ( since it has to be slaughtered a certain way ) and also will not like to be around alcohol.
Music is also something that they will want to avoid and much more so the free intermingling of the genders.
In addition , if these are more recent immigrants they might be a bit afraid or unable to socially relate to their neighbors.
As you have seen, one of the reactions in this case is to withdraw to the degree that they appear to be antisocial.Surely they mean no harm by it, but maybe they will open up over time. I have been in this boat myself and felt at times that I must be coming across in a bad way, over time though, I like to think that the inevitable interactions over the years with people who constitute the dominant culture in this society has helped me to convey that we are rather more normal than the strange people we may initially appear to be.
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