School can be a hostile place. Put a large number of kids together from extremely diverse backgrounds, families, and upbringings, and there is bound to be friction between the varying textures of their differences rubbing up against each other. For many Middle-Eastern or Muslim students in American schools, this friction has become much worse since the events of 9/11.
On September 15th, 2001, mere days after the destruction of the World Trade Center, the Seattle Times published an article regarding the opinions, thoughts, and fears of several middle and high school students of various backgrounds on the subject. The students expressed their sadness and concerns about what would happen as a result; all were in disbelief, and had varying opinions on what should be done in response to the tragedy. Some feared a third world war, and others were eager to see the U.S. retaliate.
Most of the thoughts expressed and stories shared were full of sorrow, confusion, compassion, and solemnity, such as one would expect. But some of the anecdotes revealed a less pensive, accusative underbelly to the repercussions among students; one that was already starting to breed prejudice. The older brother of ninth-grade Pakistani twins Anam and Rathore Maham had told them about some peers of his blaming the Pakistan for the tragedy in his presence. Nader Salha, a Palestinian middle-school student in the Seattle area, was asked if he and his family were happy about the events that had occurred. Maureen Driscoll, a senior at another high school, voiced her disgust at students using "racist and dehumanizing terms" to describe Middle-Eastern people, and making a big deal of cutting the turban off of a magazine clipping of a Middle-Eastern man. These events were recorded one day after the 9/11 tragedy.
Looking back, the speed at which racism and hostility towards people of Middle-Eastern descent was able to develop in schools immediately following 9/11 is astounding. It is hard to believe that these nasty things were said the day after the event. I, too, experienced this sudden wave of disdain in my school in the following days and years.
9/11 occurred when I was in first grade. I was bewildered by the event, and too young to understand the gravity of what had happened; all I knew was that some horrible people had blown up the World Trade Center for no good reason, and that many people had died. Though I don't remember it, my mother says that students in my class were asking me if I "knew the person who did it," or "if my dad was the man who drove the plane into the buildings." These questions and others like them apparently prompted me to come home from school one day and say, "Mommy, maybe it would be better if I wasn't around anymore." My mom was understandably horrified, and I had to see the school counselor for a few months afterwards in order to talk through the events and what people had said to me (Again, I remember none of this, but it evidently made a large impact on me at the time.)
On the bus ride to school one morning in seventh grade, I overheard the conversation of two boys sitting in front of me. They were discussing Al-Qaeda, and one of them said, "I think we should just kill all of the Pakistanis; that way, we KNOW Al-Qaeda's been taken care of!". The boys around them then began piping up with cries of "Yeah, let's kill the Pakistanis! Kill 'em all!" I could feel my face burning and my heart pounding with anger, and I leaned over to them and hissed, "Oh, so you wanna kill me, too? I'M Pakistani." The boys fell silent after that, but I felt like crying for the rest of the day.
With maturity and time, one would think that these immature comments would have stopped--at least I thought they would have. However, I was completely wrong. In my freshman year of high school, I made it into my school's top choir. I was overjoyed, and desperately wanted to fit in with all of the older choir members. One of the sophomore boys in choir with me assigned all four freshmen nicknames; one was Shades, one was Chipmunk, one was Prince Charming, and I was Our Little Terrorist. It didn't really bother me at the time it was given, but the more I thought about it, the more uneasy I felt. I told my mom about the nickname, and she was none too happy about it, though it was intended to be lighthearted.
I have heard many other stories of people who are of Middle-Eastern descent--or even LOOK Middle-Eastern--being picked on in this way in their schools. I think that, eleven years after 9/11, it's about time that schools began implementing more discipline on what is said in the classroom and in the hallways.
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