umm did you tell her he’s black, and Im pretty sure hes not muslim I have to laugh at people like that sometimes its better to just walk away
Maximina invited 50 users to read this post 1 year, 10 months ago.
Hm, well, about the Muslim comment: there ARE a lot of Muslim extremists who do believe that, and who do think and act like that. However, not all Muslims are like that, obviously. And is it possible she mixed up ‘Obama’ with ‘Osama’? And as for the smacking th black kids…well, maybe it wasn’t a racist thing, just a speech thing. White kids in my class would get given **** too, for not speaking eloquently or properly. But yeah, some people can be dolts.
As a society, there’s not much we can do about ignorance except stand up for what we know and believe in, which is equal rights and responsibilities for all human beings. Congratulations to you for finding the courage to fight an uphill battle. If you can change the thought process of one prejudiced person, then you have done the entire world a service.
Thank you.
you are completely right… as for those who act this way.. it is because they are uneducated… and being that she was talking to your friend who is gay.. maybe he should as her how she feels about him.. with out telling her that he is gay… let her state to him what she thinks of him.. and then when she realizes that she does like him.. tell her… let her see that gay people are normal people… i believe that if you make sure those children who are racist see that its ok to be next to a person of differnt color… and that we all have brains and lungs and stomachs and we all bleed red… maybe.. just maybe.. you could be that teacher for them that their parents should be…
Lil-bit that would be a good idea, but my friend who is gay is a teacher who does not like other people to know. She feels it is a private matter and does not want to deal with others judging her. Plus, many of our students are homophobic, so she is most worried that one of them would find out. I would love to see the woman’s reaction if she ever finds out my friend is a lesbian. That would be priceless!!! I do my best to educate my students on the ignorance of racism and hate. My students tend to be prejudice against other groups of people. I don’t think a day goes by that I don’t try to enlighten them on the beauty of accepting diversity. I just don’t know how I am going to be able to socialize with this student teacher in the same way. She is actually the student teacher of my friend who is a lesbian. I believe it takes a village to raise a child, but adults are on their own. I don’t have as much patience for foolish adults who are not capable of intelligent thought.
Thanks Oregon for you kind words!!!
yeah.. i completely understand… and yes.. it would be priceless… lol… have you ever thought of maybe setting up groups.. such as having them sit next to other children of difference.. so that they are away from the norm of them who are this way.. so that maybe they will have to work together on a project so that they HAVE to interact among each other.. so that they can see for themselves?
They work in groups a lot. My classes are very small and consist of all students with emotional disabilities. I have students who are white and hispanic. There never seems to be any issues between these groups. Mainly my students hate other groups because they have very low low self-esteem and hating other people makes them feel better. Many of my students are battling serious mental illness and have had severe trauma in their lives. I do my best to try to enlighten. They really are good kids, but they have been dealt a tougher hand in life than the majority of us. I hope that one day they will see that they should not judge others because they don’t want people to judge them. I sometimes will use this line of thought with them.
aawww.. yes.. they are really good kids… i did daycare for 8 years.. and those are the kind of kids that i would get attatched too…
you should let people know inform the people about this post a flyer or start a petition to change her opinion or you could write her a strongly worded business letter
that was a good post
just cause barack’s middle name is hussein and he was raised by an islamic terrorist doesnt mean hes an islamic terrorist. that being said, i dont plan to vote for him for my own reasons. i think that the whole racist thing is really depressing, and the worst part of all of this is, its like a disease rapidly infecting all of America, and soon, the world.
JesusMurphy wrote:
And is it possible she mixed up ‘Obama’ with ‘Osama’?
he was raised by an islamic fundamentalist, and lived in the Middle East for a short time. Still no excuse for such ignorance.
Baconator96 wrote:
JesusMurphy wrote:
And is it possible she mixed up ‘Obama’ with ‘Osama’?
he was raised by an islamic fundamentalist, and lived in the Middle East for a short time. Still no excuse for such ignorance.
Well, I what I meant was, maybe she was thinking of Bin Laden.
i know. and i was saying that anyone radically against him (that i know, anyway) says that kind of thing.
Baconator96 wrote:
just cause barack’s middle name is hussein and he was raised by an islamic terrorist doesnt mean hes an islamic terrorist. that being said, i dont plan to vote for him for my own reasons. i think that the whole racist thing is really depressing, and the worst part of all of this is, its like a disease rapidly infecting all of America, and soon, the world.
You need to check your facts. Obama never lived in the middle east. He did live for a short time as a child in South East Asia. He had a step father who was a nonpraticing muslim. Obama was never a muslim. He real father was an atheist. Obama is a Christian.
This post was not meant to be about Obama, but rather about ignorance.
you need to read my post more thouroughly. i got the M.E thing wrong, mixed it with SEA, and i got the degree of his fathers…mus..lim..ality? wrong, but i never said he was a muslim, and i moved on and continued to discuss the subject at hand.
It seemed like you might be implying that he had Muslim ties.
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now thats low, TJ, going to other posts to fish up stuff you can discredit and make you look like a good guy?
holy crap! when did i get in this post? discard previous statement.
Baconator remember this post was not about Obama. I asked TJ to come to this post!
this post is about how people are uneducated and treat others with disrespect.. not about anything else…
Thats why i said “disregard previous post”! i thought this was a different post.
OK Maxi, this is terrible, but no news. I will write when getting the time for it.
But we’ll have to stop that aide, because she is influencing young people.
I will come back to you on it!
Holy ****. That’s ridiculous…being a public high school student in Seattle, I am always shocked at how different it is in other schools…
At my school, we don’t have many problems with racism. But the Gay-Straight Alliance goes around and facilitates discussions in freshman class about homophobia and harassment. It’s actually really helpful… students are more likely to listen to other students than adults. It sounds like you have a diversity club. If they are willing to put in the effort, it might be a good idea to organize something like that.
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this country has proven for the past 8 years that the right to vote should be taken away from the people. Seriously. The people can’t be trusted to figure anything out anymore, and the amount of attention and time they spend in politics and learning exactly whats going on is non-existant. I say let the people listen to their alternative rock, their funk, their country, their rap, their pop, their whatever, let them live in blissful ignorance but for god’s sake, don’t let them vote anymore.
i had a bit of a culture shock when i started going to a public highschool instead of a charter school, at the charter, everyone is so friendly and most of them at least try to be intelegent. But when i started attending this school, it was awful. I expected it to be bad, but not this bad. Hardly anyone cares about any one but themselves, and the rate of intelectual rot is astounding. It deeply sickens me to hear freshmen discussing their G.E.Ds.
I did not really understand the GED part of the above comment… whether or not it was bad. Because of not having lived in the US, I don’t have any practical experience from it. But I know the reasons for introducing the tests, and those intentions are not bad.
I keep in mind that the capacity to absorb intellectual influences along a very rigid and standardized pattern, is not neccessarily tied to a certain intellectual capacity. It is so easy to believe that somebody is “dumb” because of language barriers or a different cultural or social background.
But the topic is about a more serious problem. We always want to put people in groups, where one characteristic automatically imply other characteristics. Scientists do it all the time, so they will be able to explain things to other people. Or by assuming things, which they later try to prove (se C.G. Jung and W.H. Sheldon’s works in psychology).
It is so easy to get stuck in those traps. Blacks are “like this”, and gays are “like that”. Latinos, Norwegians, Asians, disabled people, politicians, teenagers, Republicans, you name it. They all have their individual characters, but they are labelled according to “established” but most often a narrow-minded and simplified set of characters.
But we tend to forget that the key is within ourselves. What is “established” characters? Who did establish them, and in what context? It could in some cases be healthy to make assumptions even before letting the person prove his personality. For instance, I would be more “on guard” to a male friend of my daughter, than to a female friend. Not because of what that guy has done, but because I keep gender roles in mind. Dependent of the intensity of their relation, that guy will have to prove his case before I am feeling at ease with him. Now let us say that my daughter falls for this guy and becomes his girlfriend. A lot of other things will then pass my mind. Should the guy be a recently immigrated Iraqi or Turkish guy, I will be very much on guard for that guy’s cultural background and (possible) alien views on women. And to be honest, that is a well grounded fear. If not by other reasons, at least statistical. So the poor guy will have to prove his characters before I am calm.
It would be stupid to say that it is not so. It would also be stupid to make the assumption that all people are honest, flying a gold watch and a too full wallet at night time on bars, when drunk. And it would most probably be more dangerous to do that in Harlem at night, than on Wall Street (this comment not having to do with colors, but with social environment).
It is not illegal to be a racist. Anybody is allowed to think whatever they want, about any single person or about any group of people. It is our own thoughts. If we show them, it tells more about ourselves than about the subject for the thought.
But we are not allowed to show it in actions or propaganda, if it discriminates somebody because of their race, background or other “group things” which are not related to the individual person.
Rightfully so.
And we must be clear on one point: If I look down on a Norwegian because of what OTHER Norwegians have done, that is a problem within myself and not with that particular Norwegian!
Shall we leave that problem unattended, or not?
Well, we know that the problem is causing a lot of trouble, even wars, so of course it must be adressed!
If we regard ourselves as being civilized, having a civilized society, we will have to adress this in all public areas. It is our duty to encourage all citizens to have free and unprejudiced minds. Some of the “cultural characteristics” which we are afraid of, are also due to “those groups’” prejudiced ways of treating their environment. So at the end of the day we will want ALL people within our system to be free of inherited prejudices, and to look at everybody else as individuals.
And where do we reach all people better to teach this, than in our schools? We also reach them earlier in their lives, when pre-set assumptions have blocked less of their brains.
Our schools are therefore the area of our society, where it is MOST important that all personnel have discrimination-free minds. Maybe that is not even totally possible.
But it is possible to agree upon that it is totally unacceptable! It is therefore also possible to discipline, or even to remove, the teacher who shows it in argumentation or action.
Crikey, I wonder how this person would cope being in a room with a black muslim who was gay!!! It frightens me that someone can hold such beliefs and work with educating children… Dont teachers have to undergo training in religion and culture?? She sounds prejudiced and racist… shame your friend feels the need to keep quiet about her sexuality (although I understand why)If she could scare her with a complaint of being prejudiced in the workplace maybe getting a warning would make her reflect on her beliefs or at least on vocalising them so freely. I am amazed that people still hold these views… but when you ask them why, they dont know, they just believe it to be true. The amount of times people have said to me ” it’s just my viewpoint, but being gay is wrong” or ” I’m not racist, I just dont believe in mixed relationships” Lol… no reason, no logic. How do challenge something when there is no argument there in the first place? Good luck Max!!
I saw a citation from Baconator96: “i think that the whole racist thing is really depressing, and the worst part of all of this is, its like a disease rapidly infecting all of America, and soon, the world.”
??
Racism infected America some hundred years ago. It was there also before, but not much of a problem. It has been all over the world ever since the development of mankind. As a matter of fact, racism is decreasing. But it is decreasing very slow, and very much because of the work of heros like the one you are celebrating tomorrow.
And we must never rest in this work, because most of it is yet to be done.
Thank you all for your replies. You support means everything!!! I will continue to intellectually challenge racist and discriminatory words and actions. The woman I was talking about is in her late 40s, so I doubt I will change her. The next day at work I could sense a weird vibe from her, which is fine with me, because I am so ok if she never tries to have another social conversation with me. I find that my students who are racist are much more open to having discussions that challenge their views, than adults I come across. I agree Molotok that we need to teach students to accept diversity at younger ages, but unfortunately that is not being done in the U.S. I don’t think that racism began in the U.S. Racism stems from insecurity and the need for people to feel superior over others. Racism has been part of history for thousands of years.
Maximina, I admire the work that you do. You may not ever know if you’ve goten through to any of these kids, but I promise you you have and will again. They may not truly understand your teachings on this type of subject for many years. But you have ‘planted’ good seeds for these kids. The rest is out of your hands. Much like the ignorance of many adults.
I often get people who want to tell me racist jokes in the area I live in. I dont ever let them get out the punchline. I simply say, “I dont appreciate humor that has to degrade groups of people, thanks for the thought though.”
Ive learned that the harder I try to reason with them on this topic, the more ignorant they prove themselves. I stand my ground and take no part of thier ignorance, but I choose not to fight about it.
In return, sometimes, though rare, someone will ask me why I feel the way I do. Thats when I know I have a chance to enlighten them. Something in them wants to not feel alone in accepting others for who they are.
I congratulate for escaping the bonds of ignorance. But you must understand that isnt an easy path for a lot of people.
A lot has been said here, but what can we do? We can celebrate MLK day with all the fervor of one who was once indentured or enslaved! HAPPY MLK DAY.
Definately congratulations to you. All you can do is voice what you feel and believe. If they don’t like it well too bad, atleast maybe it will make them think. Racism is such a stupid thing. I believe that people are people and only their individual actions should depict who they are. In a perfect world everyone would put aside any previous misconceptions and take people for who they are. Good luck to you and thanks for your reply to my post. The advice made me feel a lot better about my situation and it’s good to know that their are still intelligent and compassionate people out there.
When you can spare ten minutes uninterrupted, watch this and I guarantee you will be riveted to your seat. The Middle Eastern situation to us here is such a muddle, few of us understand, Iraq, Iran, Suni-Shiite, Islamic Jihad, Palestinian, Lebanon, Israel, Muslim-moderate/radical, etc. This is a first-hand account from a well-educated, experienced woman who watched her homeland infiltrated, overrun and nearly exterminated by our enemies. Afterwards, you will have a much clearer understanding of what has been just headlines and politically biased media releases. I found it to be worth every second. She even paints the picture of present day Eurabia…the Europe, that is no more and why.
http://multimedia.heritage.org/conten…
I can’t find words strong enough to encourage you to see and hear this.
Please find time to listen to the entire text and the questions that follow. She doesn’t mince words, so brace yourself.
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Maximina edited this post 1 year, 4 months ago. Read the previous text »
Living in a land of ignorance!!!!! Today I was having a conversation after school with this woman who is a student teacher at my school. She is a well spoken, well dressed, and a seemingly educated woman. I thought she was a compassionate woman with a good heart. Up until a few hours ago, I really like this lady and was hoping when I resigned at the end of the school year she would take my position. Her and I were talking after school when she revealed to me that she would not vote for Obama because he is a Muslim terrorist who is plotting with the Arabic world to take over the U.S. She also informed me that all Arabic people are evil and they like that we are killing them, because then they can go to heaven and be with there virgin brides. She said Muslims don’t honor life and any of them would easily kill there children if it meant they could hurt a U.S. soldier. She also talked about working with a teacher in Detroit who use to smack black students with a ruler when they didn’t talk like proper white people. She said she thought this method was very effective and that this teacher was very admired in her district. I was floored, shocked, appalled, and offended. I just found out that she had a conversation with a coworker of mine about how the only reason people are gay is because something bad happened in their life and that it is evil to be gay. The coworker she was discussing this is gay, but she didn’t know this. Earlier in the day one of my students was discussing with one of my aides how black people should go back to Africa. When I jumped into the conversation and started to challenge him, my aide, who happens to run a club about accepting diversity, starting making excuses for him. She said that is how he was raised. Hell my father is one of the most racist people I know and my mother would only let our black friends use paper plates and cups. My parents moved me to a small racist town when I was 9 to get away from black people. Ignorance is not in your genes and how your family acts should never be used as excuse. Ignorance is not bliss, but rather the true sin of our world. Being the feisty girl that I am, I challenge each and every ignorant person I come in contact with. It is tiresome. I try to have intellectual conversations with my students who pledge allegiance to the confederate flag. I do ok with racist students, because I believe there is hope for them. I feel if they can develop the capacity for intellectual thought maybe the light bulb with go on. I have less tolerance for ignorant adults. I am so sick of having to hold my tongue, but I have to work with this lady for the next four months. I challenged her ignorance with intellectual arguments, but I couldn’t say what I really wanted to say because he may have offended her. As a society what can we do about the ignorant?
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