In preparation for reading Farhana Zia’s The Garden of My Imaan, a lovely young adult novel about an American Muslim girl named Aliya, my students and I wrote down what we knew about Muslims. I teach in a public middle school where the majority of students are white and Christian, so I expected a steep learning curve. I encouraged all the students to write down their thoughts and ideas and to be open and honest about their thinking. Sometimes I would chime in and contradict incorrect ideas, but mostly I would just record student thoughts on the whiteboard as they recorded their thoughts on our worksheet.
Blog
April 13, 2015 - 12:00pm
A group of ‘Super Citizens' in Bosnia have formed to fight back against hate and prejudice.
During the Bosnian War, more than 8,000 citizens of Bosnia were victims to an ethnic cleansing genocide, primarily focused at Muslims. It was the worst the world has witnessed since World War II. While the war has been over for 20 years, people in Bosnia-Herzegovina (BiH) continue to fight for equality and against hate-motivated crimes.
These individuals are known as Supergrađanke, or Super Citizens. They focus their powers on promoting positive examples of cohesion from citizens of mixed ethnic and religious backgrounds. The group includes 20 “Coalitions Against Hate,” comprised of 120 organizations, including war veterans, women’s associations, youth, people with disabilities, eco-associations, schools, and social welfare centers.
April 10, 2015 - 10:10am
Members of the Not In Our Town team will be joining the Not In Our Town group in Bowling Green, OH (NIOT BG) on Tuesday, April 14, to commemorate the second anniversary of Bowling Green State University’s NIOT campaign that sparked a thriving city-wide effort towards diversity and inclusion.
The event will premiere the film, A Bowling Green Legacy, which profiles how campus and community leaders came together after two racially-motivated hate incidents shook their town. Leaders from the Black Student Union and school administrators organized community meetings and launched a Not In Our Town campaign, which became a partnership between BGSU and the city.
After the screening, the City of Bowling Green, BGSU, and NIOT BG will welcome campus and community members to a discussion and open forum.
April 9, 2015 - 8:59am
Groups across the United States are taking action to counteract the use of the R-word. The first step is getting people to recognize that casual use of the word is damaging. Seven years ago, the website rword.org, launched the “Spread the Word to End the Word” campaign to build awareness in order to stop the use of the R-word, and they have seen lots of progress (click to learn more).
April 7, 2015 - 6:10am
In the op-ed below, Marshalltown Times-Republican Managing Editor Jeff Hutton attends the career fair, but his conversations with students take a turn toward bullying.