From North Jersey: Bullying targets ‘the other’

Who deserves to be bullied?  Forgotten in this recent cycle of events is an alarming epidemic of school bullying directed at Arab-American, American Muslim, and Southeast Asian students.  They have had to endure such verbal abuse as:

“You terrorist.”

“People can’t get jobs because of you.”

“You blow up buildings.”

“You are Muslim, you should go home.”

In post-Sept. 11 America, this is the sort of student-on-student bullying Arab-American, American Muslim and South Asian youth experience in our public school districts. Often this harassment escalates from name-calling to physical threats and violence, like the case of an Arab-American Muslim eighth-grader. The youth underwent surgery earlier this year to insert pins and a plate to repair his jaw, broken in two places after an assault by a schoolmate who had subjected him to racial and religious bullying.

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Tags: anti bullying bill of rights new jersey, arab americans, bullying, muslim americans, racial religious discrimination, religious freedom