Texas Teacher Suspended...

[Andara Bledin]

... for asking a Muslim girl if she was grieving over the death of her "uncle."

Article at the Washington Post

Fox Nation has a much, much shorter article that confirms that the teacher said, "I bet that you're grieving." It goes on to say that he made other bigoted comments before walking away laughing, leaving the girl in tears.

And, being Fox, the comments section has a heavy dose of hate and bigotry itself, although there are a few here and there showing some class and the ability for higher thought.

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[MaggieTheCat]

Holy balls. I read some of the comments on the Fox article. That is completely ridiculous. I would have expected a few like that, but so many! :\

Also, maybe it's just me, but I don't see anywhere in the articles where it states that the girl actually was grieving. Some of the commenters were making jibes that the girl probably didn't grieve during 9/11...but what's to say she was actually grieving over bin Laden's death? To me, it read like the teacher took a shot at her simply because she was Muslim. I could be wrong, of course. The article doesn't really state either way. But just because she is Muslim, does not mean she supported bin Laden or is sad over his death.

[Andara Bledin]

From something my boyfriend mentioned to me from the forum he read about it on, the girl was confused at first and it took at least one more comment from the teacher for her to understand what it was he was trying to say to her.

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[HYHYBT]

Some of the commenters were making jibes that the girl probably didn't grieve during 9/11...

I didn't notice an age mentioned, but if she's in school now, there's an excellent chance she wasn't even old enough to know what was going on ten years ago.

[Rapscallion]

9th grade, I think, which places her about 14 or so?

Rapscallion

[Andara Bledin]

Yeah, she would be about 14, now, which would mean she was about 3 when the towers fell.

So add another dollop of rampant ignorance on their part.

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[RecoveringKinkoid]

Well, since probably close to two hundred THOUSAND muslims are dead due to Bin Laden, she may well BE grieving an uncle or two.

That guy needs to lose his job.


Excuse me, I misspoke. That dickless scrap of bigoted human debris needs to lose his job.

[Plaidman]

Excuse me, I misspoke. That dickless scrap of bigoted human debris needs to lose his job.

Wow. That's pretty insulting towards the other dickless scrap of bigoted human debris. They have the excuse of not being teachers.

[XCashier]

There was an awful lot of this type of crap right after 9/11; lots of abuse directed at Muslims and Middle-Easterners as "revenge" for those horrible events. I remember a (then) local-to-me story about a convenience store owner getting killed by someone "avenging the deaths". The kicker? The victim wasn't even Muslim; he was Sikh. But because he had a beard and a turban, they assumed he was in cahoots with the terrorists.

This is no different. As someone else pointed out, she was a small child when 9/11 happened; she couldn't possibly have had anything to do with it. This cowardly bully teacher took out his misdirected anger on her, just because she happens to be Muslim. (Oh, and many Muslims hate Al Qaeda and Bin Ladin, precisely because they're getting painted with the same brush when they've done nothing wrong.) I agree with RK; he needs to lose his job.

[MadMike]

Not cool (on the teacher's part.) Not cool at all. That's all I have to say on this.

[Boozy]

(Oh, and many Muslims hate Al Qaeda and Bin Ladin, precisely because they're getting painted with the same brush when they've done nothing wrong.)

More importantly, because Muslims were overwhelmingly the target of Bin Laden's terrorism.

[Rageaholic]

Yeah the comments on the fox nation article are horrible, even for FOX standards. On another article, I recall a comment saying that she's to blame for "not understanding what it is to be an American". Even by nationalist bigot mindset, WTF does that mean?

[Miss_Maple_Leaf]

How the hell was that asshole suspended instead of outright fired?

I hope that girl's parents are demanding that he be sacked. A like him has no business teaching children.

It's bad enough he was thinking such things, but to actually say them to her? That's scum-of-the-earth low, that is. That poor girl.

[Andara Bledin]

How the hell was that asshole suspended instead of outright fired?

Because this is America, and everybody deserves the right to an investigation, at the very least.

He's on administrative leave immediately to show that the administration takes the accusation seriously and are going to act swiftly to determine the facts. If, as is likely, all of the kids involved (girl and multiple witnesses) are telling the truth, then it's likely that administrative leave will become a much stronger form of sanction.

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[Ginger Tea]

I honestly would pull my child from his class if he wasn't suspended, I would much rather my child go without an education than one from that kind of mindset.