Mom outraged as her daughter, 7, is given henna TATTOOS on school 'multicultural' day'

Daily Mail ^

[TigerClaws]

A Texas mother is speaking out after her daughter's school gave the young girl a henna tattoo the week before Christmas.

Tammy Samour was shocked when she picked up her daughter Leah, 7, from Ed White Elementary School in Houston and saw the second grader's hands covered in the designs, which are traditionally applied to the hands and feet of women during Hindu ceremonies and festivals.

That shock soon turned to outrage however as Ms. Samour says she never gave the school permission to tattoo Leah - and now the brown paste will not wash off her hands. It can take several days before the vegetable dye fades.

Ms. Samour also said that connections she discovered between the Hindu and Muslim faiths were of concern to her when she decided to do further research on the tattoo.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3372806/Mother-outraged-daughter-7-given-henna-tattoos-school-multicultural-activity-week-Christmas.html#ixzz3vDWuw5zm Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

[csvset]

Way back in ‘81, our ship had a port call in Tunis, Tunisia. Some of the locals had henna tattoos.

[Dead Corpse]

What you said, all of it. Kudos...

[Graybeard58]

At least here, the school gave the parents advanced notice of the planned activity and the parents didn’t opt out.

**********************************************************

They should have to opt in, the default position shouldn’t be, “go ahead and do it”.

It reminds me of the bad old days when shady companies would mail their products at random, along with a bill, to people who didn’t order anything. Some ignorant folks actually thought they either had to pay for the unordered product or mail it back, neither of which they were lawfully required to do.

[Politicalkiddo]

I’ve always wanted to get henna myself. Very beautiful, in my opinion.

[Politicalkiddo]

Hm. Nothing on my younger cousin. She repeated the Muslim prayer in school, you know, the one where you give up all religions but Islam, and my idiot aunt and uncle did nothing. Absolutely nothing. I would have sued. There would be heads rolling. But, no. So my cousin is essentially Muslim.

[Politicalkiddo]

Real henna is not a chemical. Real henna is a plant derivative and will not cause chemical burns.

[DaveA37]

“Something tells me in the future they’re going to have to actively ‘opt in.’....”

“Opting IN” should be made mandatory at every school in this country, parents could then decide where the radicals are before they send their kids to school.

[zek157]

So she agreed to something she didn’t understand?

Getting an opt out request should have provoked 1minute on Google to figure out what was going on. Low energy, or intelligence. Take your pick.

[zek157]

Your point is a vivid imagination if that is what you see in the pics.

[Bikkuri]

Bombay?
I totally agree with you on the differences between Islam and Hindu.. VERY opposite religions (if you can call Islam a religion, which I don’t)..

I can accept other religions, as long as they accept mine.. Hindu isn’t the problem.

[Rebelbase]

The real insult would have been had the kids been tattooed with ‘VOTE HILLARY’.

[Covenantor]

"This is upsetting to Ms. Samour as the tattoos were given the week before Christmas when Leah would be frequently photographed."

Lovely scorpion tailbon the left hand. So in keeping with Christian traditions.

"It's upsetting to go through Christmas with another religion's celebratory symbolism all over my daughter's hands,' Ms. Samour told KHOU. "

"The school points out however that they did notify parents that their children would be getting henna tattoos as part of Multicultural Day, where they also learned about the cultures of Spain, the United States, Australia and Israel."

And it is just a coincidence that these long lived stains were applied to all the naive young children during Christmas week. Given the complexity of the Hindu design, it's doubtful time was left for the other cultures. Perhaps Aboriginal body paint designs got short shrift, as well as the oppressed Arab Isreali flowing Islamic script, Allahu-ak-bar, Death to America, Death to Isreal, or the. islamic cultural contributions to Spain.

Having seen grade school kids asking to receive water soluble face paints the kids called "tattoos", I'm sure that this is what the parents thought would be applied. In the interest of comity comments on the ovine display here are withheld.

[Balding_Eagle]

Well Stevie, you may have thought being purposefully dense would allow you not to answer a fair question.

But it’s plain for all to see that you would be upset, and judging from the tone of your post you would be really pissed if your kids came home with Satanic verses tattoos on their hands,

[stellaluna]

No, she’s not bright but I would not have done henna on any child without written permission.

[DocRock]

It is also forbidden. Ye shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor print any marks upon you: I am the LORD. Lev 19:28

[Dead Corpse]

Wearing mixed fiber clothing today? SINNER!!!!

http://hill-kleerup.org/blog/2012/06/13/76-things-banned-in-leviticus-and-their-penalties.html

[HartleyMBaldwin]

No, real henna cannot cause chemical burns. The English girl was burned by paraphenylenediamine in the so-called henna applied to her leg. The material used for her decoration, according to the article, was “black henna”, which probably contained no actual extract of the henna plant.

[odawg]

“About the only thing correct in the article is that henna tattoos are difficult to remove.”

That alone is reason enough that whoever did it should be fired.

[Peet]

Should be good to go in six-eight weeks. But still...

---

Shorter lived and more colorful temporary tattoos (H/T Rhymes With Orange). I have tried this:

Print your images mirrored (If you print “MOM” obviously you don’t need to mirror that) on a laser printer.

DO NOT use an ink-jet printer - they don’t work.

Apply oil of wintergreen to the spot you want the temporary tattoo and apply the printed art to the spot. (Sorry, I don’t remember how long to hold it; you’ll have to experiment.)

Tattoo will wash off on a couple of days or so (I’m assuming we all wash daily here).

(*) Merry Christmas to all! (*)

[MD Expat in PA]

Ms. Samour told Click 2 Houston that while the family did receive this email from the school, it was her husband who read it and it made no difference as neither one of them had heard of henna tattoos.

Ms. Samour also said that connections she discovered between the Hindu and Muslim faiths were of concern to her when she decided to do further research on the tattoo.

So they got (admittedly her husband got and read) the email from the school saying that they would be doing henna tattoos as part of a lesson about Indian culture but since they never heard of henna tattoos, they didn't think to investigate beforehand or opt out or tell their daughter that she shouldn't get one, but after the fact they had the time to research "connections" between the Hindu and Muslim faiths; the "connections" of which I am unaware, aside from the long hatred of and conflicts between the Hindus against the Muslims. And I see nothing particularly "religious" about the henna tattoos.

The mom seems to be upset that "Especially that Christmas is next week. We have family photos, opening presents, church, and she is going to be wearing that on her hands throughout the holiday," but yet as evidenced in this picture, her 7-year-old daughter is sporting some pretty funky nail colors and designs, some of them rather chipped and cheap looking, but then again the mom might use nail polish remover before family photos and going to church.

With that being said, the school should have had the parents positively opt in via a signed parental permission slip for the henna tattoos, even if only temporary, and given more of an explanation of what it was, other than "we will be doing henna".

FWIW, when I was in middle school back in the mid '70's in Baltimore, my home room and US History teacher got married. She was a great teacher BTW. She met and fell in love and married a US Army Captain who was stationed at Ft. Mead at the time, a native born Hawaiian - i.e. Polynesian. After she returned to school, after her honeymoon, she did a special lesson with her husband on Hawaiian/ Polynesian history and culture. Keep in mind that back then, it was considered an "inter-racial" marriage so she may have had some motivation to dispel some prejudices in our very blue collar Baltimore neighborhood and school that while had both whites and blacks – had no Asians.

But it was cool and not only for our class but for the entire school. Her husband prepared some traditional Hawaiian dishes for us including poi and a pork dish (not Spam) and some sort of chicken and rice dish, all of which were delicious even as I was the only kid who actually liked poi, and as I recall and he talked about growing up in Hawaii and how other cultures – European and Japanese have influenced Hawaii and how US Statehood was a good thing from his perspective as a US military serviceman and as I recall, politically conservative, and he taught us some Hawaiian words and pronunciations, and we listened to some traditional Hawaiian music and watched a short movie on traditional Hula dancing and we made and wore lei's. While this was not part of the "official" lesson plan and syllabus for the year, I don't recall her having to get special parental permission either.