Posted on 08/10/2006 9:20:22 AM PDT by americaprd
For one particular sophomore at Dearborn Fordson, the teasing began a few days after the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
"Hey, bin Laden," fellow students would yell in his direction as he walked the hallways. Others would point and call him "the terror squad."
Why would students single out someone to be teased about Osama bin Laden, good-natured or not? Well, it doesn't help that his first name is Osama.
Osama Abulhassan is a sophomore on Fordson's varsity basketball team. Having Osama as a name today must be like having had the name Adolf in 1943.
Sobhi and Wardeh Abulhassan came to the United States from Lebanon almost 26 years ago. They named the last of their five children Osama.
"They named me after a prophet," Abulhassan said. "He was a holy man."
From holy man to oh-holy-cow in five short months.
"I didn't hear of bin Laden until three years ago when he was in the news," Abulhassan said. "I didn't think anything of it until Sept. 11. Then I got a little worried."
Who wouldn't worry? Fordson has a large population of Americans of Middle Eastern descent, but Osama is not a common name.
"I don't know anyone here by that name," Abulhassan said. "I know of a couple in junior high named Osama. If my last name was close to bin Laden it might be a problem."
The good news is that Abulhassan hasn't encountered any problems from other teams.
No defender has said anything stupid to try to throw him off his game. No opposing player has made any bad jokes.
"I don't know, maybe they don't know my name," Abulhassan said.
I would like to think that even if opposing players know his first name is Osama, they are mature enough not to cause trouble.
That was not the case about a decade ago when the United States was involved in the Gulf War.
Fordson was singled out by some other schools as if Saddam Hussein was on staff.
Outrageous rumors flew, including one that some Fordson students had bombed Telegraph Road.
Conference officials called a special meeting, and some schools considered boycotting their games against Fordson -- home and away -- or trying to force Fordson out of the league.
"I got a call from someone asking if it was safe to come into the building," Fordson athletic director Mark Shooshanian said.
It didn't help that during pregame warm-ups in one of Fordson's first home basketball games after the Gulf War began, the Gap Band's song "You Dropped a Bomb on Me" blared over the loudspeakers. But not for long.
Thankfully, no one has any qualms about coming to Fordson's gym these days.
"People have been more sensitive to the situation," Shooshanian said. "Overall, our league has been fine. The athletic directors and the coaches understand the situation."
But I have to admit, it was a shocker seeing the name Osama in the Fordson scorebook.
"I'm not ashamed of my name," Abulhassan said. "My parents named me that and I'm proud of it."
Of course, that does not mean he is a bin Laden fan.
"He's fighting for a cause like the United States is," Abulhassan said. "But he's killing innocent people and that makes him appear to be a bad guy."
Abulhassan is at the opposite end of the good guy/bad guy spectrum.
A year ago he earned a 3.9 grade-point average, and he expects a 4.0 from the first semester this academic year.
He competes in football, basketball, track and baseball. He hopes to go to law school, but his first goal centers around basketball. A couple of weeks ago he scored 16 points against main rival Dearborn.
"My dream my whole life is to be able to play college basketball," Abulhassan said. "I'm just cherishing the opportunity I have now to play on the varsity. Hopefully, it will help me in the future."
Can you imagine what the Cameron Crazies at Duke would do to an opposing player named Osama?
Abulhassan would like to find out.
Contact MICK McCABE at 313-223-4744 or mccabe@freepress.com.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1680977/posts
Holy shiznit. Bumped to look closer after lunch.
I posted this on an earlier thread. Forgive the repeat to any who already saw it. I want to state it again here:
I have been one that has been very careful about avoiding the advocacy of "deport them all" that many have given in to when it came to Muslims because I felt it smacked of religious bigotry. Being part of a faith that has experienced it's share of bigotry, I didn't want to seem to be subjecting any others to that. Plus I'm never one to like to broadbrush entire groups based on the bad acts of a few.
But in light of these stories of suspicious Muslim behavior here with these Egyptian "students" and the terror plot broken up in the UK, I can no longer hold to my former position of tolerance towards Muslims. It is becoming an increasingly unavoidable fact that we are in a clash of civilizations with these people, and we simply cannot allow them to live among us. I believe we must take extraordinary war time measures to deport Muslims and the UK would be wise to do the same.
We simply cannot continue to tolerate the threat that is among us. No more student visas, no more tourist entries, no more flights into this country from Islamic country, no more of these people in our country anymore. That's it. They had the opportunity to prove they could be trusted. They have proven they cannot be. They have had every opportunity to turn in the radicals in their midsts and they don't. I'm sorry, but I'm done. No more.
FDR had the right idea in rounding up the Japanese. In a time of war, and I believe this is WWIII, you cannot have your enemy living among you. And I believe radical Islam has much more potential of grabbing hold of the loyalties of Muslims than mere nationality did for Japanese or German heritage Americans did during WWIII.
I know many will slam me for this, but I am just awake to reality now. I wanted to not see it, not believe it, not dare think it. But I can no longer avoid it.
MOST EXCELLENT CATCH!!!
The poor baby. Got teased into becoming a islamoterrorist. Fry him.
This is an awesome find. Yes, it's almost certainly the same guy. Same name, same age, same location, same religion -- a pattern is beginning to develop here.
Yikes.
Is this the same guy???????
I did not want to come to this conclusion. I have spent 5 years resisting it. I do not like the feeling of knowing innocent people will be hurt by this. But when I weigh in the balance our safety versus their continued presence among us, I just cannot say I am for tolerating their being here and our security being the price of that.
Anyway, I come to this now not without a great deal of pain. It's the same as a spouse who concludes they cannot carry on with a stormy marriage. You want to still care for that person you're married to and you still want the marriage to work, but when you step back and seriously assess the situation, you realize you cannot save the marriage. But in deciding that there is still pain. It is the same in my decision that we must divorces ourselves from Muslims.
Great catch....I am impressed.
Appear? you have got to be kidding me. An obvious sympathizer.
Given the reporter's note that he was surprised there was an osama on the basketball team, my guess is Muslims aren't too plentiful in Dearborn, but I'm not form there, so I can't say for sure. The kid profield here has the same name, same town, same religion, and is the same age. Sure as hell seems like the same guy.
LOL. You would make a great Judge Judy. Just the woman to handle those poor wittle guys.
Or, he already was one, just lying low and trying to blend in and be a regular guy.
Dearborn is probably the most Muslim city in America; the fact actually gets quite a few comments here on Free Republic.
I didn't know that. I wonder why the reporter's surprise then? Muslims can't jump?
Just like those kids in NYC schools who knew what was going down on 9/11 and brought their cameras to school that day or stayed home. And there was that boy who tried to tell his teacher but his brother shut him up.
GOOD muslims are deadly, bad muslims are time bombs..
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