Bullied For Its Faith, Muslim Family Fights Back Through Education
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Noshaba Afzal (right) — with daughters (from left) Maimona Afzal Berta, 23, Sana Afzal, 16, and Honna Afzal, 18 — says bullying of Muslims has become a "safety issue."
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It started with a sign pinned to Sana Afzal's backpack after the election in 2016. "I like Trump, you're fired."
At the 16-year-old's new high school in Gilroy, Calif., just outside San Jose, kids whispered in her Spanish class: "Allahu Akbar" — "God is great" in Arabic — in a derogatory way.
And then there was the English class assignment involving a Fox News opinion piece that linked Islam, her religion as a whole to a horrific stoning in Afghanistan. The article was accompanied by a picture of a young woman in a headscarf — a lot like the one that Sana chooses to wear as a Muslim.
"One guy ... like saw the picture and saw me and was like 'it's the same thing,' " she said.
He was linking her to this terrible act in a country she had never been to and knew little about.
"It was bad, horrible," she said. As she retells the story months later, she trails off and starts to cry.
Going from middle school to high school is always hard, figuring out who to sit with, making friends, etc. But doing it as a Muslim kid of color who covers her hair is even harder.
Teaching tolerance
More than 42 percent of Muslims in the U.S. report bullying among their school-age kids , according to the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding, a think tank that researches issues that affect American Muslims. And in California, it's more than half, according to the Council on American-Islamic Relations. And with the rising anti-Muslim hostility, the Islamic Networks Group, an advocacy organization that counters religious bigotry with education, says bullying is becoming almost the norm for Muslim kids.
The Afzal family says they are facing that anti-Muslim sentiment in many parts of their lives: at the daughters' schools and in the efforts to build a mosque where the community can pray. But they're dealing with it by telling their own stories through educating administrators, classmates and neighbors.
"It was tough. You know, in our days, it was — you get slapped with 'kick me' signs," Sana's mother, Noshaba Afzal, said. "But it wasn't a safety issue."
A lot of what we believe is that religious-based bullying is based on ignorance and miseducation.
Noshaba worried about her daughter's safety especially after incidents like one in Portland, Ore., in 2017, when two men were killed protecting a Muslim girl from an attacker.
So Noshaba helped her daughter figure out how to respond to the bullies. They chose education. The Afzal family contacted the school and two advocacy organizations, including the Islamic Networks Group or ING.
"They deal with situations where they are being targeted or called terrorists. In some situations, this actually comes from the administrators and teachers," said Ishaq Pathan, who runs the youth programs at ING.
He worked with the school to create a presentation about inclusion and understanding people's differences, including Muslims. Now it's a model that ING pulls out when other schools ask for help — a half-dozen times so far.
"The main thing that we're focusing on is religious-based bullying," Pathan says. "And a lot of what we believe is that religious-based bullying is based on ignorance and miseducation."
This year, the school says, it has pulled the offending article from the English class. And Sana says things are better. Her battle is mostly over, but her family's and her community's is not.
Seeking a place to pray
The family of six prays in a remodeled barn in nearby San Martin with the South Valley Islamic Community . The community has been trying to build a mosque with a community center and cemetery for years, but the project has been a lightning rod. Noshaba remembers the first land-use meeting at the City of Santa Clara Planning Commission in 2012.
"Person after person got up and just blasted," she said, " 'we don't want them here. They're bringing Sharia law. You guys are terrorists.' "
The rhetoric was shocking, she says, interspersed with concerns about the building's environmental impact — an issue often raised to block mosque construction. Since then, it has been six years of legal back-and-forth. Noshaba says you have to make a choice at moments like these: Accept it, or say: "No, this is not the America we want it to be. And we know America can be what we want, where it's inclusion and it's our rights. And we just want to practice."
The opposition has been led by the People's Coalition for Government Accountability and the Gilroy-Morgan Hill Patriots. But Georgine Scott-Codiga, who speaks for the Patriots, says it's not about Islam.
"The bottom line is these people came and bullied themselves into the neighborhood," says Scott-Codiga. "All the traffic, all the cars, the noise. We want to protect that land."
And, she adds, she understands why people are worried about Muslims changing "the way of life."
The Patriots post anti-Muslim rhetoric on its Facebook page and have invited an anti-Muslim speaker, Peter Friedman, to present on his views that Islam is a threat to America.
In 2012, the planning board approved the permit for the Islamic center — and then was sued. The South Valley Islamic Community voluntarily gave up the permits and started the process again, this time with pro bono legal help. The group says the wider community is supportive, but the opposition is loud and trying to bankrupt it before the mosque can be built.
Teachable moments
Meanwhile, Noshaba's eldest daughter, Maimona Afzal Berta, is a 23-year-old special education teacher in San Jose, Calif., who also wears a headscarf. She says the bullying and problems started for her in fall 2016.
"I'd hear someone shout from outside my classroom, you know, say, 'You're working with ISIS or you're a terrorist,' " she says, recounting the bullying this spring.
Others would bang on her windows and doors, and some would say "shoot her" and motion like they were firing a machine gun.
She talked to the administrators, and Maimona helped them put together a program to teach kids about inclusion and celebrating diversity.
"So at the end of that school year, it was like, 'wow, like, we made some progress,' " she said.
And so last fall, she was excited to start teaching again. She showed up early to her classroom at Fischer Middle School on Sept. 11 to prepare for a lesson. But as she turned the corner to her classroom, she saw hate.
I'm not the issue here. It's not even these students. It's the fact that we haven't done a good enough job of educating our students.
"And I find the windows and doors vandalized with words associating me with terrorism," she says, stopping to gather herself, crying as she recalls the vandalism. "You know, 'ISIS,' just like very hateful words — profanities. And I was just like shocked."
Maimona went to the school again. She says an administrator asked whether she wanted to change schools.
"Your solution is essentially to get rid of me?" she said. "I'm not the issue here. It's not even these students. It's the fact that we haven't done a good enough job of educating our students."
Imee Almazan, the principal where Maimona teaches, says Maimona turned her trauma into teachable moments for the kids.
"She has such great courage to speak up against the injustice that she had experienced specifically here at our school," she said. "And school is, you know, school is supposed to be a safe place for everybody, right?"
She says children mimic what they see around them, and she believes it's no coincidence that this started happening at a time that Donald Trump started professing not only anti-Muslim sentiment but also rhetoric against immigrants and other minority communities.
Maimona says she realized that if this was happening in her school, a place with a majority student body of color, then it was happening other places, too. So when a seat on her neighborhood school board opened up, she applied.
In front of an all-male board, she made her case.
"I am the granddaughter of a refugee and an orphan who fulfilled his dreams in this country through an educational experience," she told them.
She was up against five other candidates all vying for a seat vacated by a board member on the Franklin-McKinley School District board who had been accused of corruption.
At first, it was a tie between the two female candidates.
And then Maimona was chosen.
She went to the podium and was sworn in. And the men on the board all welcomed her, telling her they were excited to have a woman of color among them.
She did this, she says, not only to change things for herself but also for her younger sister, for other Muslim families and for any child who feels like an outsider.
"I'm just honestly in shock," she said after being sworn in just over a week ago. "I mean. I've never seen a board member who looks like me. It seems like a dream right now."
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The other Newstalkers article that addressed this story viewed it solely from the point of view that the Muslim groups were trying to indoctrinate American schoolchildren with the Islamic religion.
That is what happens when an islamophobic conspiracy site is used as the source (World Net Daily).
Half of that article was taken up with links, some over 10 years old, that purported to be about American parents accusing their local school of indoctrinating kids with Islam. I looked at a few of those links. They were mainly instances where the local schools were teaching the kids a little about Islam as part of a history, geography, or world cultures class. Nothing wrong with it at all.
We can't allow bigots to dictate what will happen in our schools.
Thanks for seeding this John - it's nice to see the contrast between a straightforward report of a topic [deleted]
I don't know why anyone would seed from those sites, unless they are desperate. If you can't find something to corroborate your story in the MSM, it may not be worth discussing.
It's clear that particular seeder is an Islamophobe with an agenda against CAIR. No sane or rational person would cite World Nut Daily or a hate group like FCDF, much less an op-ed which goes off on such a bizarre and irrelevant rant as that one did.
"The community has been trying to build a mosque with a community center and cemetery for years, but the project has been a lightning rod."
"it has been six years of legal back-and-forth"
Could you imagine if this was a Christian group trying to build a Church but getting blocked by some anti-Christian group for 6 years? Fox News and every angry Christian in the nation would be down there demanding their right to build a place of worship. Just more evidence of how hypocritical most Christians really are. They don't actually believe in freedom of religion, they believe in freedom for their religion.
Personally, I'd love to see all religious organizations, including Islamic groups, lose their tax exempt status and were banned from injecting their religious views into schools so no teacher would be assigning projects like copying Koran scriptures in Calligraphy or doing any Christmas, Easter or Halloween art projects, plays or musicals. I wouldn't be opposed to a world cultures class that teaches children about different cultures and religions, but not one of indoctrination, just general information about Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Judaism, Hinduism etc. where they are all presented as equal when it comes to veracity and validity.
But they aren't all equal-- Buddhism is better that the others.
(While the others want to commit jihad and forceably convert people & keep people from enjoying wonderful things like sex, Buddhists are peaceful and accepting-- all they want to do is be peaceful and sit around meditating on what is the sound of one hand clapping (And other stuff like that).
Great article, JR, the idea that Muslims are the ones throwing their weight around in America, is absurd.
What I think Christians are most afraid of, besides their ever present doubt of their own faith that they disguise with over the top public displays of devotion, is that the population of Muslims is growing (even though it's still less than 1%) while the number of those professing to be Christian has shrunk from well over 85% just a few decades ago to now just barely over 70%.
What I find interesting in the number of Christians that have left that religion is that some, not all, have become Atheists and, some, not all have become Wiccan, the rest are Agnostic.
I would really like to see the population of both religions reduce in numbers
I would love to see the membership of all organized religions reduce in numbers. That would mean that the number of logical, rational humans would be growing and I can't see how that would ever be a bad thing.
But especially Islam and Christianity. They seem to have the most militant adherents.
Did anybody notice the reply box????? Awesome!
I've also known some who have become Buddhists and others who have chosen to follow a spiritual (but not a conventional religious) path.
Yes, I haven't even thought of that but, my niece is a Buddhist and, she did grow up in "Christian" home, I use the quotations simply because I don't remember my brother practicing the religion that much but, he did live by the tenants set forth by Jesus, even if those around him didn't and, he didn't attend church every Sunday. She takes care of a temple in Vermont near her home.
I find it intriguing that when someone of the Islamic faith feels as if they are discriminated against, there is a horde of liberals to come to their defense and swear that Islam is exclusively a religion of peace...but if a Christian is persecuted in some way, that same horde give out a collective "meh, they had it coming anyway" response.
I am sure these people are very nice. I work with a young woman who came here from Afghanistan 16 years ago, and she is the nicest person you will find, but there are literally millions of Islamists that want to see the western world destroyed and the people here conform to Islam or be killed.
Liberals refuse to want to tackle this at all, but have no problem degrading the entire faith of Christianity, making idiotic comments like "spaghetti monster", or "sky fairy", etc, if one person did an atrocious act against anyone. Maybe it is because they know Christians are not going to call for their head and they are the easier targets.
a good point
Um, no. Every religion has it's bad elements and it's the right wing media that insists every Muslim is a horrible person plotting to blow you up. The backlash is the left wing claiming the same thing for Christians. Neither side is right.
About 4 million Muslims live in the USA today. If they were all evil, we would have known a LONG time ago. Lets put it another way...
Since 9/11/01, roughly 220 people have been killed by Muslim terrorists in the USA. In that same time frame, over 200,000 people have been murdered by fellow Americans that were NOT Muslims, (and if we want to break that number down, ~63% of Americans identify as Christian, which would mean well over 100,000 people have been killed by Christians in the USA, since 9/11/01). The constant bleating that Muslims are hiding in the bushes at every corner waiting to kill Americans is complete and utter BULLSHIT. Vending machines kill more people in the USA every year than Muslims do.
The VAST majority of Muslims ARE good people. But like any other religion, there are bad elements.
Um, never did I dispute that all religions have their bad actors. On the contrary, I STATED that most people that follow Islam are good people, even STATING that the people in the article are probably good people, but there are literally millions who want to kill or force everyone in the western world to conform to Islam.
I am going to be very honest here. Never have I seen ANY liberal, on NT, or any other comment board, come to the defense of Christians around the world when they are being persecuted. What I have seen is exactly what I STATED, that the left gives out a collective "meh, who cares" attitude when a story of Christian persecution is posted, but quickly come to the defense of anyone of Islamic faith that state they have been discriminated against, quickly going to the defamation of Christianity when an person of Islamic faith are discriminated against.
Maybe you just simply need to reread my comment to understand what I STATED...
Then you haven't been paying attention. Or you really don't like to give people credit for defending Christians who are suffering real persecution around the world such as China, the Middle East...and Israel. Yeah...Israel persecutes Christians, too, but nobody ever wants to talk about that
This part? MILLIONS? Proof?
Show me where liberals have defended Christians persecuted worldwide. I know of many conservative groups that have been outspoken of the atrocities in the Middle East and China, but have ever seen a liberal group do the same.
OH!!!!!!!!!!!!! You want GROUPS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Is that what the young un's call moving the goal posts?
TBH....I haven't see any liberal GROUPS speak about any religious persecution. I have seen individuals who have defended Christians who are are suffering real persecution.
Here ya go...
Salafists constitute a minority of the Muslim population. For example, in France, estimates range from 5,000 to 20,000 – out of a Muslim population of over 4 million. Security experts estimate a worldwide number of 50 million out of 1.6 billion Muslims.
Are you seriously suggesting that there are no liberals that are Christians? Please tell me you're joking.
He wants groups, Mr Frost. Groups.
That could be because liberals don't tend to organize into hate groups and thus don't try to demonize entire religions, much less bully children based on bigotry and ignorance.
That's funny. Maybe you have never heard of Black Panthers and Antifa? You can google them if you like.
Neither one is a hate group, and the Black Panthers don't even exist anymore.
However I'm not surprised that you dislike people who are actively opposed to fascism.
You don't like Antifa? So you are pro fascist? Hey, I don't agree with their violence at all, but I do agree with their message. Fascism SUCKS.
Not all Muslims are evil - just check out this seed:
Not a prayer...I won't read any of your seeds, nor post on them because you'll just flag anyone as, "off topic" if you don't agree with them. So again, no thanks.
probably has to or several people in green uniforms with stern faces come knocking
LOL. Your loss is my gain MISTER Frost. As it happens, when you actually went OFF TOPIC I flagged you for it. The final decision was not mine, it was the moderator's, and obviously the moderator agreed. Anyway, ignorance is bliss - now you can flag that as a "sweeping generalization".
By the way, I won't miss you, so thank you.
Agreed, Tessylo. His staying off my seeds is no loss to me.
Than don't bother - don't trouble yourself looking at my photo essays, my movie articles, or anything I post. If I were capable of blocking you I would. You're not looking at them is no loss to me, because "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn" (thank you, Rhett Butler).
And there is the problem Buzz, you alienate anyone that you don't agree with. Instead of having a rational debate, you slam people or offering a different point of view and if that isn't bad enough, you seek to silence their voices. Sorry, but when you do that, you are looking for an echo chamber that only supports what YOU have to say. That's not an environment that supports a healthy debate.
I respect your opinion and your point of view, but I will not take part in your seeds given that you do not foster an environment where debate is welcomed.
I will say no more on the subject, good day to you Sir.
If you're gay in Russia, Uganda or the Republic of Georgia you have very good reason to fear for your life due to the rampant Christianity in those benighted shit hole countries. This video is a good example of what Christians do when they aren't constrained by secular government, where Eastern Orthodox priests in the Republic of Georgia recently led a violent mob of 20,000 rabid Christians who were trying to stone to death 50 gay rights activists:
And note that the Georgian government knows who the leaders and many of the perpetrators were but has done nothing to apprehend or charge them:
And that's just one example. American evangelicals not only have their own history of violence against gays but they've been supporting Uganda's "kill the gays" bill and many other extreme anti-gay bills around the world. Heck, it wasn't that long ago that Christians in the US were lynching not just gays but also "witches", black folks, mixed-race couples, Jews, Mormons and even Catholic priests.
American evangelicals still trying to breach the wall of the separation of church and state with religious freedom bills and claims that hate crime prosecutions are a violation of their religious freedom.
These fundamentalists are scum. Bring on the lions!
Thanks for that link! What a hoot.
I like how these Christian-based hate groups like the AFA, FRC and Liberty Counsel will claim not to be hate groups while simultaneously hiding the lobbying and legal work they're doing overseas to reinstate or maintain criminal penalties against gays. No surprise that these groups are also Islamophobic and explicitly oppose the 1st Amendment rights of Muslims.
Our local newspaper has as a frequent guest columnist a local pastor. Today's column was about how Hurricane Florence was God's way of trying to get our attention. He says it's dangerous to say for sure that we know God's reasons for doing anything, but it just might be because of abortion, Hollywood, and not accepting God's word.
This Christian is blaming nonbelievers, and believers who believe differently from him, for a hurricane. I'd say that's a form of bullying.
Wait a minute - I always thought it was Teh Gayz who were responsible for the sky demon's wrath. Now you're saying we have to blame Hollywood and abortion too?
I do like the fact that the great sky demon practices collective punishment. Very logical to drown a few infants because it opposes abortion.
He doesn't quite come out and blame it on "the gays", but he does mention Sodom. So, ya know...
There used to be 2-3 people who wrote 2 op-ed letters per month that could have been confused with satire because of their extreme religiosity. The newspaper is failing and will likely fold in less than a year but their letters were always amusing when they were passed around the office.
My extremely conservative Catholic (Opus Dei member) uncle posted a screed on Facebook on Thursday evening that hurricanes, tornadoes, wildfires, floods, and famine are the work of God because mandated prayer is not longer permitted in public school. I was tempted to address his many fallacies but I am already the black sheep of the family so I passed.
For the record, as long as there are tests there will be prayer in public school.
There's one nonbeliever who regularly trolls this pastor's articles. I'm fairly sure it's a fake account, because it showed up after another account that made similar posts disappeared, and was presumably banned. It's kinda funny, but it's sad that nobody, or very few people, seem to see anything wrong with blaming nonbelievers for a hurricane, but plenty of people see something wrong with calling out the guy blaming nonbelievers for a hurricane.
I used to respond to the letters in the newspaper's online forum until I was aked by the editor to stop because apparently my replies generated too much controversy. I was as polite as I am here but still people were very offended. I never let on to the editor that we knew each other because my oldest sister was the circulation manager for their southern district and I had worked there part-time in high school and summers in college.
We had one gentleman, a retired AF (IIRC) colonel, who used to write letters to the editor in support of separation of church and state, etc. He was openly a nonbeliever, which is cause for comment in our community. His letters were unfailingly polite and well-written. He passed away some time ago, and I miss reading his letters. The quality of letters to the editor since then have suffered greatly.
"Larry Robinson" seems like the kind of guy to write very lengthy and irate letters to his local paper.
He has been blaming more lately, he often starts with something of local interest and changes it to a sermon
I don't usually read his column, but I did this time because I figured Florence would be my fault somehow (and yours, too, of course
). I expect it to be a sermon, because that's his thing, but I think you're right - he's been much more blamey lately.
Funny how hard it is for them to connect the God's wrath dots of natural disasters when the majority land on the religious heartland.
There's a reason for that (see my comment #1.1.40)
He does realize that the prayer will be a protestant prayer, right?
I will never understand bible thumping Catholics.
He's not what you would call a deep thinker.
Neither can I, but since I'm not a member of that club I stay away.
Why are you mocking belief in FSM by calling it idiotic? You need to be more tolerant of people's beliefs.
Praise his great noodliness FSM.
The Holy FSM Chronicles tell us we will be mocked and ridiculed for our belief, and we are!
It's not a coincidence that pasta looks like DNA.
RAMEN!
I saw a good one on Face Book the other day showing the "metamorphosis" of pasta. It started with a shell then ended up as a bow tie. Funny as hell.
I saw that the other day. I'm a member of a Pastafarian Facebook group. They have some really good pasta recipes.
Please cite a credible example of liberals not opposing the persecution of Christians.
Sounds like liberals actually support the 1st Amendment but you don't.
Huh? What the hell are you talking about?
Utter nonsense. What I frequently witness are Christian fundamentalist attacks on Islam being countered by liberals and progressives, not with claims that Islam is a religion of peace, but that Christianity and Islam are mirrors of each other and that when a fundamentalist Christian points out a flaw about Islam they are often ignoring the four fingers pointing back at their own religion. So liberals and progressives are pointing out hypocrisy, not defending Islam.
I personally find Islam as infuriating as Christianity and don't want either pushed on my children as they grow up. I prefer a civil secular society where everyone gets to pick and practice whatever religion they want at home and in their churches, mosques and synagogues. Keep all religion out of public schools, court houses and our government and you'll find far fewer progressives pointing out the hypocrisy of one religion screaming for religious freedom while denying other faiths the same.
Bingo.
Yahtzee!
I love that game!