Anti-Islam t-shirts in American school.
We've heard about atheists being picked on in school, we've heard about pagans being picked on in school, and there've even been kids picked on for using sign language in school (see Jessie's comment)!
So I suppose it shouldn't be surprising that we can now see hate speech against Muslims in such an explicit way. However, far from it being students bullying while adults look the other way, one of parents is actively involved in printing the t-shirts.
I initially discovered this on Friendly Atheist, but on the actual news site there's a video to go with it with some interesting things said.
Interviewer - What was the reaction of Muslim children in the school? Have you met any?
Faith Sapp - I've met Muslim children, but I'm not in contact with any at the moment. I don't know why that is. We've just, I guess, never become friends or whatever; we've just never met in that kind of way.
I wonder why....
Wayne Sapp: "I mean how, what kind of stand would you take if today I said “the person who you have believed all this time was your mum, that’s not your mum, so don’t believe that”. And you had a shirt with a picture of your mum on it saying “this is my mum and I love her”. Would you take that thing off because someone says “that’s not true and you can’t wear it here”? It’s almost to that kind of a response, y’know? Do you fold and just say “we line up with everything the world tells us to just because they tell us to do it”, or do we somehow give some kind of a “yeah but this is what we believe; we’re willing to speak out for what we believe”. Will we line up with the dress code? Well, yeah sure, Faith lined up with the dress code today."
If Wayne had a point there, I'm not entirely sure what it was. It basically seems to mean that insulting Muslims is a vital part of Christian expresion. However, since there's apparently no Muslims insulting them, it's difficult to see how the analogy is supposed to work.
Dove Senior Pastor Terry Jones: "We are a Christian nation and what we are saying or propogating there are actual Christian beliefs. The front of the t-shirt says that Christ is the only way, which is what every Christian believes. And the back of the t-shirt is a result of the front of the t-shirt."
Interviewer: Do other denominations agree with you that Islam is evil?
Dove Senior Pastor Terry Jones: "Yes, they would have to. Otherwise they would not be Christian."
They seem to missing the more important point which would be what purpose such a claim would be meant to have in a school which consists mostly of Christians with a vulnerable minority of Muslim students.
Actually the video finishes with one final conversation with Wayne Sapp which touches on this issue. He is asked how effective he thinks this method will actually be in gaining converts. Essentially he replies by saying that there already tons of messages about joy and love out there and if those haven't done the trick, we need to start trying abuse instead.
"All of the Dove members interviewed said that, while they would not like a student wearing a shirt with an anti-Christian message on it to school, they believed students have the right to do it."
Somehow I doubt they'd stick to that stance when push came to shove. If it was decided that their t-shirts were acceptable at the school, it'd be interesting to see how they'd react to anti-Christian t-shirts alongside them.
"Jones said that, to him, spreading the church's message was "even more important than education itself.""
You know what? I believe him...
cross-posted to atheism.
So I suppose it shouldn't be surprising that we can now see hate speech against Muslims in such an explicit way. However, far from it being students bullying while adults look the other way, one of parents is actively involved in printing the t-shirts.
I initially discovered this on Friendly Atheist, but on the actual news site there's a video to go with it with some interesting things said.
Interviewer - What was the reaction of Muslim children in the school? Have you met any?
Faith Sapp - I've met Muslim children, but I'm not in contact with any at the moment. I don't know why that is. We've just, I guess, never become friends or whatever; we've just never met in that kind of way.
I wonder why....
Wayne Sapp: "I mean how, what kind of stand would you take if today I said “the person who you have believed all this time was your mum, that’s not your mum, so don’t believe that”. And you had a shirt with a picture of your mum on it saying “this is my mum and I love her”. Would you take that thing off because someone says “that’s not true and you can’t wear it here”? It’s almost to that kind of a response, y’know? Do you fold and just say “we line up with everything the world tells us to just because they tell us to do it”, or do we somehow give some kind of a “yeah but this is what we believe; we’re willing to speak out for what we believe”. Will we line up with the dress code? Well, yeah sure, Faith lined up with the dress code today."
If Wayne had a point there, I'm not entirely sure what it was. It basically seems to mean that insulting Muslims is a vital part of Christian expresion. However, since there's apparently no Muslims insulting them, it's difficult to see how the analogy is supposed to work.
Dove Senior Pastor Terry Jones: "We are a Christian nation and what we are saying or propogating there are actual Christian beliefs. The front of the t-shirt says that Christ is the only way, which is what every Christian believes. And the back of the t-shirt is a result of the front of the t-shirt."
Interviewer: Do other denominations agree with you that Islam is evil?
Dove Senior Pastor Terry Jones: "Yes, they would have to. Otherwise they would not be Christian."
They seem to missing the more important point which would be what purpose such a claim would be meant to have in a school which consists mostly of Christians with a vulnerable minority of Muslim students.
Actually the video finishes with one final conversation with Wayne Sapp which touches on this issue. He is asked how effective he thinks this method will actually be in gaining converts. Essentially he replies by saying that there already tons of messages about joy and love out there and if those haven't done the trick, we need to start trying abuse instead.
"All of the Dove members interviewed said that, while they would not like a student wearing a shirt with an anti-Christian message on it to school, they believed students have the right to do it."
Somehow I doubt they'd stick to that stance when push came to shove. If it was decided that their t-shirts were acceptable at the school, it'd be interesting to see how they'd react to anti-Christian t-shirts alongside them.
"Jones said that, to him, spreading the church's message was "even more important than education itself.""
You know what? I believe him...
cross-posted to atheism.