We watched a movie recently called Idiocracy. It's a comedy, but parts of it were very sobering. In the beginning of the movie it talks about how intelligent people get together and have a family plan consisting of a couple children, if they have time in their careers. Conversely, dumb people seem to have no problem shacking up with multiple partners and spawning numerous children. It's the baby-daddy effect.
This is contributing to the dumbing down of America.
So Kelsey got home today and told me that her friend was in a fight today. Her friend is Muslim, and for religious reasons wears a head scarf. Apparently, another 7th grade girl took offense to this and demanded that she take it off. When the friend refused, the girl attacked her and was slapped with a two week suspension.
The reason I correlate this to the dumbing down of America is I can almost guarantee you that this attacking girl's parents are of the mindset that Muslims are terrorists and that if you are different there is something wrong with you. This kind of racial and religious hatred starts at home.
I have always tried to preach diversity to my kids, not by pointing out differences in people, but by not making it an issue. I'll never forget when Kelsey was in first grade and was trying to describe a child to me (who was African-American) by saying that he has skin color that is darker than ours. When the subject does come up of someone's differences I explain how we are all different in our own way and skin tone or religion are just a couple of ways we can be different.
Last year Kelsey's teacher was telling her class that a few years back, she sold her house to the 9/11 hijackers. She told them that they seemed nervous and they looked Middle-Eastern, you know, like the terrorists. I reminded Kelsey that we are half-Lebanese, and even though we don't look 'Middle Eastern' because somehow we inherited blue eyes and lighter hair, we have a lot in common with these people. I told her that if her teacher ever brings it up again to let me know, so I could have a talk with her. Either the teacher didn't bring it up or Kelsey was afraid I would get hostile with the teacher.
You know, like the terrorists would.
1 comment:
Yesssss. A similar thing happened in our ward. I took the opportunity to inform the YW that it is never appropriate to call someone a terrorist even while joking. I checked back on the situation and it sounded like she took a lot of flack for it at school.... lesson learned. It does not pay to be racist in CA.
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