Last week, in upstate New York, many residents of a small town got all bent out of shape. Pine Bush High School decided to celebrate National Foreign Language Week by reciting the Pledge of Allegiance in a few different tongues. The plan was to have students narrate the pledge in Italian, Japanese, French, Spanish, and… […]
Month: March 2015
When racism is a minor offense
Imagine this. A ninth-grader sits in school every day. He has no disciplinary problems. He is the only black student in his French class. His teacher constantly refers to him, in front of other students, as “the thug.” On one occasion, she says, “Look, the thug is here.” On another, she calls on him by […]
She wished there were more Palestinians like me
This past Monday night, I participated in a panel debate at the Jewish Community Center in West Bloomfield, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit. The panel consisted of five Jewish Americans and me, a Palestinian American. The audience was almost entirely Jewish, with a couple Palestinians. Somehow, my eyes found them immediately. Basically, it was about […]