In Naples, the furor over "Kick A Jew Day" continues
Maybe you've been paying attention to this growing controversy. Maybe not. Either way, it might be instructive to take a look at what's happening in southwest Florida, in the wealthy retirement enclave of Naples.
On November 19, a few students at North Naples Middle School, inspired by an episode of TV's "South Park," instigated a self-proclaimed "Kick A Jew Day" at the school. The students, two of whom themselves are Jewish, kicked a number of other students; it appears that they did not specifically target Jewish students but, rather, students who were "different."
“What the school found out is that it wasn’t ‘kick a Jew day.’ It was a ‘kick a fill-in-the-blank day,’” [Collier County school superintendent Dennis] Thompson said. “Many of the kids who kicked other students kicked someone they didn’t like or someone who is different. The kid who was kicked the most was new to the school. That, to me, is the tragedy. These kids picked on someone who was new to the school.”The students involved were disciplined with in-school suspension for one day, and the superintendent says this isn't about religious intolerance. Before reading articles about the incident, I was inclined to agree, knowing only that non-Jewish students were victims of the bullying as well. But then I read about the "South Park" episode in question --which featured Eric Cartman kicking "gingers," or red-haired kids, and I began to wonder how that morphed into "Kick A Jew Day." It certainly seems to suggest that religious intolerance plays more than a passing role in the genesis of this incident, doesn't it, Mr. Superintendent?
The new student is not Jewish.
Thompson said it is unfortunate that one student was kicked for being Jewish but it seems to be an isolated case. He added that all of the students who were suspended had never been in trouble before.
“This is certainly not about religious intolerance. This is about, do you know who your child is communicating with? Do you know who your child is communicating about? The real lesson is that we need to understand what our kids watch and who they communicate with,” he said.
But you really only need go as far as the comments to the latest article about the incident to see that intolerance is a significant issue, at least among observers of the controversy (some of whom, it should be noted, do not live in Naples or even in Florida). Comment after comment suggests that this is just "something kids do" and that since the superintendent said it wasn't about religious, everyone should just shut the hell up:
Sounds like a witch hunt in the making to me! If the issue were anything else than hypersensitivity to the word "Jew",this would not even be newsworthy. How long will this "Holocaust mania" continue to cloud peoples minds that there are other people, other religions and cultures or no religious preferences at all that are just as important as those of the Jewish faith? Would "Kick a Muslim Day" be just as dramatic? As was stated by both the article and a previous poster this had absolutely NOTHING to do with raligion or culture? Get it?Well, the simple fact is that this wasn't about fat kids or short kids or Italian kids or Mexican kids ... and it would have been just as newsworthy if it were. Instead, somewhere along the way, this prank evolved from mimicking a cartoon to focusing hatred on a particular ethnic group. The fact that two of the miscreants were members of that faith is completely irrelevant. So, where do you suppose kids (at least the ringleaders) are learning that sort of hate, hmmm?
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Who cares? What a bunch of whiners. Only the rich Jews would get all this attention.
Pack up and move back to New York. This news isn't kosher.
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Kids don't pay attention to the religion of others unless their parents brain wash them.
Facts: There was 2 Jewish kids kicking others too. If you read all the facts, it looks like some kids were horsing around and kicking each other... no matter if they were Jewish or not.
It was the MEDIA that picked out the phrase "Kick a Jew Day" that would sell newspapers... and the MEDIA made an issue of the ONE PHRASE. It is the Naples News that created this problem!!
What are you going to do? Put the kids in jail for horsing around on the playground?
How come no issue is made by the media when kids single out the FAT kids... or the SHORT kids... or the ITALIAN kids... or the MEXICAN kids... or the WHITE TRASH kids... or the BLACK kids or the NERD kids?
Kids can be mean to each other for no reason other than there is nothing else to do at the moment.
It is the fault of the Naples News that this playground horse play got the worldwide attention it did. Do you feel proud of what you did Naples News by making the residents of Naples look like fools? ... just a question
One Collier County School Board member calls the incident a "hate crime." I don't know whether I'd go that far, but I do believe the district's response has been embarrassingly, even painfully tepid. It's a teachable moment ... but instead they appear to want to sweep it under the rug. And yet, in a town like Naples or an area like southwest Florida, I can't say I'm terribly surprised.
Labels: bullying, Collier County, Dennis Thompson, intolerance, Jews, Naples, religion, schools, South Park
posted by Sinfonian at 12:20 PM
