Posted on 04/26/2007 6:51:28 AM PDT by Irontank
A thoughtless adolescent joke is being investigated by local police as a hate crime.
If you need proof that hate crimes and state-run schools are two government projects that should never mix, look no further than Lewiston, Maine. According to the Maine Sun Journal, "On April 11, a white student placed a ham steak in a bag on a lunch table where Somali students were eating." The Somali students were Muslim and believe pork to be unclean. The offender, who is now being investigated as the perpetrator of a hate crime — albeit a calloused and thoughtless one — was a middle school student. In other words, the young "criminal" is in either Sixth, Seventh or Eighth Grade.
Sadly, this is not a parody. In what must be the greatest overreaction of all time, "Lewiston police are investigating, and the Center for the Prevention of Hate Violence is working with the school to create a response plan."
That's right, a "response plan" for a ham sandwich. Why doesn't the principal just mete out an appropriate punishment commensurate with the offense?
According to Stephen Wessler of the Center for Prevention of Hate Violence, having a ham sandwich in close proximity to Muslims is "an awful thing." "It's extraordinarily hurtful and degrading" to Muslims, Wessler added, according to the Sun Journal. "Incidents like this that involve degrading language or conduct are often said by the perpetrator as a joke. I know that conduct is never static," Wessler said according to the paper. "It's part of a process of escalation."
The Lewiston ham sandwich episode even has state officials in an uproar. During his April 24 broadcast CNN's Lou Dobbs reported that the Maine Attorney General is looking into the matter.
Clearly, administrators in the Lewiston school district, the Lewiston Police, the tolerance Gestapo at the Center for Prevention of Hate Violence and the Maine Attorney General's office have gone off the deep end. Lou Dobbs seems to concur. "Mr. Superintendent," the CNN anchor asked on his broadcast, "do you have any sense of proportion? These are children, you're supposed to be educating and one would hope imparting some wisdom and discipline. This is ridiculous." Ridiculous it may be, but the incident demonstrates the dangers of Orwellian hate crimes laws.
As far as that particular Maine school goes, the incident illustrates the difference between schooling for obedience and education. In their textbook Foundations of Education (Fifth Edition), a text that has been widely used in teacher training programs, Allan C. Ornstein of Loyola University and Daniel U. Levine of the University of Nebraska note: "The hidden curriculum is what students learn, other than academic content, from what they do or are expected to do in school. In addition to teaching children to conform passively in the classroom, the hidden curriculum may be preparing students ... to be docile workers later in life." "Thus, the prevailing socialization pattern in the culture of the school and classroom is one that places greatest emphasis on what [a study by scholar Gita] Kedar-Voivodas described as the obedient pupil role," Ornstein and Levine added.
"Hate crime" is a euphemism for thought crime and hate crime enforcement is little more than thought control. And that is the point of the "hidden curriculum" in at least that Maine middle school — to prepare its students "to be docile workers later in life."
My favorite quote:
Matthews said he was running down Lisbon Street planning to put a severed pig's head in front of the place where "dark people" congregate, not knowing it was a mosque, the place where local Somali Muslims worship.
The boy said that he felt better after several students apologized for the incident and said that the kids who did it were jerks, "but for the rest of my life when I remember middle school, this will pop up right away," the boy said, "it's like I'm back in Somalia being shot at all over again."
Here is the part from the "real" article:
On Thursday, several students came up to him and said, "Those guys who did it were jerks. I apologize for them, and I hope you feel better."The boy said they did make him feel better. "But for the rest of my life when I remember middle school, this will pop up right away."
Of course, the "Center for Prevention of Hate Violence" is the perfect parody name for an organization, too bad it's already taken by a real one.
The boy said that he felt better after several students apologized for the incident and said that the kids who did it were jerks, "but for the rest of my life when I remember middle school, this will pop up right away," the boy said, "it's like I'm back in Somalia being shot at all over again."
Here is the part from the "real" article:
On Thursday, several students came up to him and said, "Those guys who did it were jerks. I apologize for them, and I hope you feel better."The boy said they did make him feel better. "But for the rest of my life when I remember middle school, this will pop up right away."
Of course, the "Center for Prevention of Hate Violence" is the perfect parody name for an organization, too bad it's already taken by a real one.
I’m pretty sure that the Jewish organizations do this themselves, and the only law they have are laws which protect them from being regulated in their actions, and protecting their “kosher” copyrights and their right to sue and punish those who violate the rules of their copyright.
I wonder what would happen if a Jewish student sat down at their table to EAT with them. Would that be considered a hate crime?
here is the thread
Forget the ham sandwich.
Would it be a similar taunt to Muslims to wave a hamburger in one hand and a slice of cheese in the other, threating to bring them together?
Is it the un-Kosherness of it that's offensive, or is it particularly ham?
I know, I saw the story about the Dutch dropping the teaching of farm life because Muslim students flipped out over a DISCUSSION of pigs, let alone actually being around one.
-PJ
First, apparently Fox News picked up the PARODY article, and thought it was real, and ran an entire segment on their "Fox and Friends" show mocking people for quotes they never made. There's a video of the fox team quoting from the parody story at this web site as well:
On Tuesday, Fox & Friends reported these parody quotes and details as actual news. Poking fun at the students, hosts asked whether ham was “a hate crime…or lunch?” and showed screen shots of ham sandwiches, starving Somalians, belching, animal noises, and mock “reenactments” of the incident. Ironically, the hosts assured viewers several times, “We’re not making this up!”
I guess that's a little worse than a few of us being fooled about the story being a parody...
Then the "pig guy", the one I made fun of above who rolled the pig's head into the mosque, COMMITTED SUICIDE last saturday.
Somalis, others reflect on high-tension week in community relations
And then last Saturday, Brent Matthews, a Lewiston man who became known for rolling a pig's head into a Somali mosque last July, committed suicide at Marden's parking lot.
I guess once the country has gone crazy, there will be no telling the truth from the fiction. I still can't believe a guy accidentally rolled a PIGS HEAD into a mosque.
“...having a Jew in close proximity to Muslims is ‘an awful thing.’”
At what point do we submit?
John Birch Society???? They’re still around?
Ham is not a toy!
But displaying a urine-soaked crucifix is not a hate crime. That’s state supported art.The difference is that Christians will not cut your head off if you offend them.
Note: “police are investigating” “Hate crime”.
It didn’t take long for the armed enforcement squads of the political correctness nazis to be used to suppress dissident thought.
The police have limited resources. They can not do everything. While their time and energy is being used to investigate the placing of a ham sandwich, they are not investigating crimes such as murder, rape, armed robbery and carjacking.
I think I might be in trouble — http://youtube.com/watch?v=K_Yf7rfGKPw
The student in question should have been told that a bag of pork rinds would have achieved the same effect at lesser expense!
So, in some countries you could actually get a ham sandwich indicted.
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