Here in Cincy the talk over the weekend involved a “victory over those evil Mooslem types” up in John Boehner country as students at a high school up in Mason were bullied out of an exercise in religious tolerance, mainly because the religion in question wasn’t Christianity.
A group of Muslim students organized a one day challenge to their fellow students to wear a hijab to school for a day in order to promote religious understanding of Muslim culture, and if you know anything about the northern suburbs of Cincinnati (which is John Boehner’s district up all the way up to Dayton), you know damn well “religious understanding of Muslim anything” sure as hell doesn’t exist there.
What started out as a cultural awareness effort by Mason High School Muslim students this week morphed into a fierce 48-hour debate about prejudice, freedom and religion in public schools.
By the end, Mason High School canceled the “Covered Girl Challenge,” and principal Mindy McCarty-Stewart sent an apology to district families. The challenge was student-sponsored and voluntary, meant to combat stereotypes students may face when wearing head coverings, McCarty-Stewart wrote.
“As word spread beyond our school community … we received many strong messages that made me reconsider the event’s ability to meet its objectives,” she wrote. “I now realize that as adults we should have given our students better guidance.”
Even afterward, though, the episode and arguments illustrate the fault lines in Greater Cincinnati – and the U.S. – over where cultural awareness ends and promoting a religion begins. And where avoiding controversy ends and turns into bigotry.
When the right-wing hatemongers got wind of this, the students found themselves as targets, with the blogs claiming that the school was “forcing all female students to wear hijabs” and attacking the student group for perpetuating human rights violations against Muslim women. By Thursday, the principal had canceled the April planned event completely while the half the wingers were screaming THE GREAT BETURBANED HORDE IS FORCING SHARIA LAW and the other half were concern trolling about how hijabs are demeaning to women in ‘Murica.
The reality is that this event happened without too much trouble at other schools and universities in the US, and again it wasn’t a problem even when it happened at high schools in the Midwest.
But somehow, Mason, Ohio became a firestorm. Maybe nobody noticed until it happened in the House Speaker’s home district, or maybe it was just because there was an opening in the Perpetual Right Wing Outrage calendar, and the Big Wheel came up “Islam taking over our schools” or something. Most likely it became low-hanging outrage fruit when a school e-mail account was used by accident to promote the event, but I have to think that if it was “Bible Challenge Day” organized by students, this wouldn’t have registered a blip.
Mike E
Solution: A bible in every burqa!
Big ole hound
Southern Ohio must be a proving ground for the ultimate redneck. I was there once…nice countryside.
Lee
It must be miserable to go through life that scared of everything.
mainmata
Except that “Bible Challenge Day” would have provoked poutrage storms over which version of the Bible to use: the Protestant one, the Catholic one (no Revelations), the Torah, etc., etc.
Tommy
Stuff like this makes me sad. Not long after 9/11 we had a Mosque open a few miles from my house. Now my district is pretty blue, but there were no protest. Nobody was upset. Across the street high-end houses started to be built. Then a CVS and QT.
In fact they have a day care facility and it is open to children of any religion and he is widely thought to be about the best in the area. It is almost 50/50 between Muslim and Christians.
In fact my brother and his wife thought of sending their child there, and would have if it was closer. As best I can tell the Mosque and all it brought was a net win for our community.
MattF
It’s pretty clear that “Sharia” is the new “commie pinko.” I’m now waiting for a new House “Protection of Christianity Committee” to parallel the old HUAC.
Comrade Dread
Of course it wouldn’t. Because Jesus, while riding a velociraptor, handed James Madison the Constitution written on two tablets of stone dictating forever that America was a nation where you’re free to practice your religion free from government interference so long as that religion is Christian, otherwise, big pointy rocks were to be cast at your head.
Roger Moore
@MattF:
I’m sure they’ll come up with a name that’s a little bit more subtle than that. My big question is how the wingnuts can tolerate being so afraid of everything all the time. It has to be exhausting, and I’d think they’d try to have some kind of scale of priorities.
japa21
@mainmata: The Catholic Bible does have Revelations. The New Testament is the same for both Protestants and Catholics. The Catholic Bible includes Old Testament books that were written originally in Greek. The Protestant Bible does not.
Aardvark Cheeselog
As I looked at the OK City bombing anniversary coverage yesterday, I had a flashback. At the time, my daughter could have been this kid, and I was deeply affected by that.
The most vicious, deadly, hateful, barbaric, bloody act of terrorism ever against innocent Americans was committed by a white right-wing nutjob. Not by a brown, bearded, foreign-born Muslim. How anyone can open his mouth about terrorism in this country without mentioning this fact before anything else, I just don’t understand.
debbie
@MattF:
Except most of the agenda of the Far Right is nothing more than Christian Sharia. Sharia isn’t about beheadings; it’s about the forceful imposition of a small group’s rigid code.
MattF
@Roger Moore: Fair question– I think they choose fear because the alternative to fear looks worse.
Aardvark Cheeselog
@debbie: I have a fantasy that we take these people up on enforcing Old Testament laws. We could start with the most vocal supporters of the idea, and stone to death any of them who’ve ever eaten a cheeseburger or a shrimp cocktail, or worn a cotton/wool blend fabric.
Roger Moore
@debbie:
But to them that’s all the difference in the world. They don’t object to Sharia because it’s theocratic; they object to Sharia because it’s imposing the wrong theology.
Baud
@Aardvark Cheeselog:
You mean, at the time, right?
CONGRATULATIONS!
They’re demeaning to women everywhere. That’s about the only thing any of the mouth breathers got right with this one. The notion that God finds women so offensive that they need to cover themselves from His sight cannot ever be made OK.
Frankly, if the Muslims hadn’t gone there first I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see the fundies insist that women wear at least the headcover and preferably the whole-body tent thing, so as to not show off their sinful ladybits and to protect the innocent Baby Jeebus.
I’ve been to that part of the world and I cannot imagine who thought that this was a good idea, or that it wouldn’t generate an insane amount of backlash. Ohio is the very definition of “flyover country” and, at least the part I was in, far more nastily racist than anyplace I’ve been in the South.
You might be able to do this a hundred years from now. But not today.
Bill D.
@Aardvark Cheeselog: Well, that was true for a number of years.
artem1s
@CONGRATULATIONS!:
gotta agree with the demeaning to women thing. If the call had been to all students to try out the covering thing, that would be slightly more acceptable. but really, my objection is that schools should be free from religious indoctrination of any type. there is too much peer pressure and slut shaming of women in the academic arena as it is. why anyone would think this would be a good idea is beyond me. If a student wants express his/her religious practice thru dress, as long as it doesn’t violate standing dress codes, then fine. foisting it on anyone else, no matter the religion, volunteer or not, is not something the school should condone. does anyone honestly believe that this wouldn’t have been universally mocked if the students had promoted yamaka day or temple garment day? and yes, I think there would (and should) have been an outcry too if there had been bible day or ten commandment day.
Gene108
@Aardvark Cheeselog:
The big difference between American Fundies and the Taliban is the Taliban want to impose those old-timey restrictions on a 21st century civilization.
The Other Bob
If we are comparing terrorist acts in the U.S., the most prolific killer of Americans in the country was performed by the KKK and sympathetic individuals.
One estimates shows that from 1882-1968, 4,743 lynchings occurred in the United States. The second largest terrorist act was on 9-11 followed by Oklahoma City.
By far, right wingers have killed more Americans than any other group.
Gin & Tonic
@Bill D.: With “number” = 6.
elmo
@CONGRATULATIONS!:
Remember when Bowe Bergdahl’s father was shown in public with the full beard he’d grown in solidarity with his son? Diminutive little ginger guy, and the hate thrown his way for growing a “Muslim beard” was torrential and relentless. Meanwhile, the same people – exactly the same people were throwing orchids and roses at Phil Robertson (“Duck Dynasty”) for saying everyone should live according to his religion and oh by the way you could hide a feral cat colony in his beard.
Big ole hound
@CONGRATULATIONS!: Right you are. the southern part OH, IN and IL are far more racist than the traditional south. Back when I traveled there 45 years ago it was unreal and the next generation seems to have continued the bible thumping and hatred of non-whites.
Tommy
What is that phrase:
Seems we have gotten to the point we can’t have cool educational experiences anymore. Heaven forbid the students learn a little about another culture and faith. Forge stronger bonds with their fellow Muslim students. And maybe, just maybe some idiot will say something hateful to them so they can experience, if only for a brief moment, what it is like to be a Muslim in their town, every freaking day.
Bill D.
@Gin & Tonic: Point taken. Still assimilating my morning coffee here on the west coast.
Lee
@CONGRATULATIONS!:
Didn’t know that. I always thought hijabs were more of a modesty thing. I thought offensive to God was the burqua.
boatboy_srq
@Roger Moore: Xtianity is fear, plain and simple. Xtians are trained to be in abject terror of the Flames of Hell, their Just Due for sex/debauchery/dancing/tolerance/economics. It’s translated to conviction of Righteousness and Election by participation in the One True Religion (which holds that position because its advocates insist it does), which contributes to FundiEvangelicals’ epistemic closure: they don’t look at conflicting experimental data because they’re simultaneously convinced they’re right and terrified they’re wrong.
@Comrade Dread: You’ve been reading David Barton again, haven’t you? Because that really does sound like how his screeds distill down.
Gex
@mainmata: Not eve remotely. Note that a school in Oklahoma handed out Bibles in class one day without much complaint at all. Quit pretending like Christians would pick on each other like they pick on anyone else. That will only happen once they’ve eliminated everyone else. Otherwise they are quite happy to set aside their differences and present a united front against all other faiths and non-believers.
ETA: Although they’ve now opened themselves up to the Satanists demanding equal access to hand out materials and a nice cease and desist request from the secular groups.
Botsplainer
As I’ve been saying for about 10 years now, Cincinnati is the biggest city in Appalachia.
You’ve got a Potemkin village downtown and a couple of McMansion slices of heroic paper-shuffling Bootstrap-Americans between the river and CVG, the rest is a wasteland of crumbling infrastructure, reeking of poor planning policy and abandonment.
scav
Actually, isn’t the whole head-covering thing burqua etc thing all an after-development of something originally only meant for Mohamed’s wife(ves)? Because golly it’s in good company there. Look at Nuns for fishes sake and the little lace things etc still being donned in churches, at least kippahs even the score a bit, but there’s a lot weird to play with.
Roger Moore
@Aardvark Cheeselog:
I would strongly suggest backing off on that. Before you go on about people ignoring laws they don’t like, you should make sure you understand them yourself. Most of the forbidden practices in Leviticus do not have any specific penalty assigned to them; God simply says not to do them. The only food-related violation with a penalty, for instance, is eating blood or anything with blood in it, and the penalty for that is ostracism (being cut off from their people). The most plausible reading of those restrictions is that doing the forbidden things that have no specific penalty attached (e.g. eating shellfish) renders the person who does it unclean, and they need to be purified- possibly by something as simple as bathing and waiting until morning- before they’re allowed to participate in religious rituals.
There are also strong theological arguments that those rules no longer apply. Jesus specifically challenged the food-based prohibitions (“Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man; but that which cometh out of the mouth, this defileth a man.“), Acts makes a point that most of the prohibitions in Leviticus don’t apply anymore.
dr. luba
@scav: This was about hijabs (modest head coverings), not burqa, which is a full-body garment.
While I think both are ridiculous, I will note that many of the new immigrant women at our othodox church wear head coverings in church. It’s usually a scarf, which is not that different from a hijab. And when I’ve entered chruches abroad, modesty has often been enforced (type of clothing, head covering, etc.).
Many christians in the USA may have gotten away from this enforced modesty, but christianity in general hasn’t.
blueskies
The whole exercise seems pointless to me. How about we have Yamaka Day? Is that going to help me understand the Jewish kids in my class? How about Silly Red Shoe Day? Will that help me understand the Catholic kids in my class? Oh wait, that was just the one Pope…
Gah!
After all this, I think the French have the right idea. Nobody gets to wear anything with religious overtones.
“Man will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest” and similar good thoughts.
boatboy_srq
@scav: There is a very high modesty quotient in all those things. Amish and Mennonites also follow similar wardrobe requirements, and Puritans themselves were adamant about covering up. The distinction is the degree of coverage. IIRC this is just one more way people of faith can be discriminated against by other people of (different) faith: Amish, Mennonite, Jewish and other followers with specific dress codes have always been treated less-than-equally for those requirements. Part of what drives me batty about Xtianity is the double-standard: dresses and sleeves of a certain length and collars of a certain height are required, but anything more than that is SoshulistSharia; there’s very little defined as “acceptable” in between, and plenty of Christians whose faith dictates they dress in a more “modest” fashion than the Xtian rules allow.
aimai
@Roger Moore: Yes but the limitation of those things (the relaxation of the laws) to “things people eat” is a misreading of Peter’s vision. See, e.g. Fred Clark at Slackvitist. He makes clear that its not the foods that are rendered cleansed for the purposes of eating, but the people who eat them who are cleansed for the purposes of social interaction and religious (and commensal) communion. Its a metaphor for all kinds of opening up to free socialization with “the other” not a straight up release only from food laws.
Grump
To give you some idea of the demographic Mason,Ohio is right next to Monroe.Ohio which is where Touchdown Jesus is.
Tommy
@scav: Nuns are a perfect example, but those I know and/or run into long ago stopped wearing whatever those things are called.
Now I know a few Muslims. Parents came from Iran and Pakistan. Neither the ladies nor their mothers wear a hijab unless they are at a Mosque. I’ve never had a long conversation with them about it, but I don’t think they don’t wear it because they are scared to.
I just think as with nuns things are changing with how women practice their faith.
boatboy_srq
@aimai:
And yet it’s used that way by Xtians to eat baby back ribs and cheeseburgers and shrimp etouffe, and whinge about Teh Ghey the whole time.
Peale
@dr. luba: I never quite understand when I go to certain protestant churches in the US where people attend church in shorts. That just wasn’t done in the Lutheran church I grew up in…maybe over in ELCA, but in the real true Lutheran Church your personal comfort was not important. In fact the more uncomfortable you were in the hot summer the better for your damnable soul. Feel the same way about American and Australian tourists in Europe. If you plan on going to religious and high cultural institutions, try to wear pants.
evodevo
@CONGRATULATIONS!: I taught HS in rural southern OH for a century one year (1970) …. puts the redneck parts of Alabama to shame. Backwards, fundie religious, white nutjob wingers to a T. I got in trouble for mentioning evilution in my biol. class. Yes, I can’t imagine how they thought a little ecumenism would go over well….
aimai
I would like to second the discomfort some posters are expressing for the idea that the Hijab should stand in for religious tolerance or that people should be encouraged to accept the dress/religious modesty prohibitions associated with any religion in order to become sympathetic to the experience of its adherents.
This is extremely problematic for women students and I fail to see why non muslim female students should submit to the double ostracism of the muslim female students while the male students (both muslim and non muslim) go about their merry way. If people wanted to ask their fellow students to accompany them in attempting to pray five times a day (with ablutions) while going about an ordinary school day that strikes me as a very thoughtful form of outreach that might expose some non muslim students to the practices and issues facing observant muslims. But “wear a hijab to school day?” Absurd. Not only is the Hijab not required by all Muslims its specifically an extremely politicized act–like wearing bible sayings on a tee shirt–in a public space in a modern society. It came back into fashion for western muslims as a backlash against modernity/secularity and an attempt (especially) to enforce traditional codes on women rather than on young men.
Gin & Tonic
@blueskies: It might help you understand “the Jewish kids in your class” to first understand what the head covering for men is actually called.
sparrow
@artem1s: I have to say I agree with you guys. I am 100% supportive of people of any religion wearing pretty much whatever they like, and I would fight very hard against any kind of hijab ban or similar nonsense. But honestly, I’m not sure I could do the hijab-wearing-in-solidarity thing. And that’s because I’m fundamentally against the idea that I, as a female, need to cover up to prevent bad things from happening to me (or bad thoughts to happen in nearby innocent males). I understand that it is more complicated than that for muslim women that freely choose their dress. But for me, that is the origin that can’t be explained away, and it makes me feel uncomfortable. So… yeah. I would wear a “religious freedom” shirt or something in solidarity, but not the hijab. Just no.
Tommy
@Peale: LOL. I am an atheist but raised a Methodist until I got to the age of Confirmation, then my parents let me decide if I still wanted to attend church. I didn’t.
I’ve always felt as “major” churches go Methodist were on the liberal side. Our Ministers get married. There are now openly gay Ministers.
I say that all just to note I’ve never been to church with somebody wearing shorts.
Roger Moore
@aimai:
But there’s more than just that one passage. The section I was referring to was Acts 15, which includes:
That seems to pretty clearly lift the restrictions on things like food (with the exception of blood and strangled animals) and dress while leaving in place all of Leviticus’s sex rules, i.e. letting them still hate on Teh Ghey.
scav
There’s a lot about social control wrapped up in prohibitions about clothes and social signaling by same. The “Hijabs bad!” freakout closely allied to the retroactive retouching of girls ‘too-racy’ high-school year-book photos, and the shouts to ‘Pull up your pants!’ and the Dreaded “HOODIES!!!’
Tommy
@sparrow: I at first was all in with this idea. But as a male and reading the comments of women here, I can see you don’t find this idea that great.
I try very hard to have empathy, walk a mile in the shoes of others, but I am also not perfect. I didn’t ponder that only women are required to do this. I am kicking myself for this because I have a niece (no kids myself).
I hope NOBODY ever tells her she can’t do something because she is a girl and not a boy. I kind of just did that here myself a little. Bad Tommy :)!
sparrow
@Tommy: No worries. For me, the reaction was an emotional, and not a rational one. I could maybe see myself wearing one if it were in response to something heavy, like a ban (so, solidarity in civil disobedience) and would feel more comfortable if men were also doing it.
Villago Delenda Est
Fuck this shit.
Time to start feeding these motherfucking “Christians” to the lions. Wholesale.
Cervantes
A few nanoseconds for discussion and reflection — including lots of loud complaining — and then the event was canceled (before it occurred, obviously).
Still, all in all, I imagine the student event organizers learned a valuable lesson.
Could be!
@aimai:
In all the coverage I did not notice non-Muslim girls complaining about having to “submit.” Were there such complaints? I missed them. I thought participation was voluntary. And if there was any peer pressure at all, in which direction was it exerted?
Betty Cracker
@scav: True, but the fact that most of the opponents are assholes doesn’t make the project they’re trying to quash a good idea.
Frankensteinbeck
I don’t like head coverings, but neither do I see any problem in Islamic students organizing a voluntary Hajib Day as a ‘walk a mile in another person’s shoes’ thing. Especially if a bunch of girls try it and go ‘Well, this is stupid.’ I wouldn’t have a problem with Wear A Yamulkah or Wear A Talit Day. Cross cultural experimentation is good. The only counter-argument I’ve heard here that I have real sympathy with is Aimai’s suggestion that it might make already Muslim girls feel pressured that the most backwards parts of their culture are presented as essential to Islam. It’s kind of outside my experience, but if that’s going to be a real emotional pressure, it would be unacceptable and a deal breaker to me. It’s sure not what the Cincinnati locals are complaining about.
@Lee:
‘Modesty’ means ‘sex is offensive to God’, with an emphasis on the female body’s role. It’s only a question of degree. Take out the ingrained gut feeling that sex must be somehow bad, and public nudity is limited only by weather. It all comes from the religious foundation cultures are built on, and at the extreme end gets mighty ugly.
Rafer Janders
@boatboy_srq:
Except the “modesty” most often seems to apply to the women, and not the men.
Tommy
@scav:
I can speak to both of those things.
First I never had a hoodie, well until about eight years ago when I started to go bald in my late 30s and just shaved my head. I was not doing the combover. If you have never been totally bald you might not realize how much warmth hair gives you. A hoodie, even when it is 50 or 60 out is nice.
I have these painter pants I bought when I was 155 and not 132 pounds. I still use them because they are comfortable and have a lot of pockets that makes working in my yard easy. Also a huge rip in the rear end.
I got on long underwear so not like my ass is hanging out, but my mom was like “pull up your britches” and “I can see your underwear.”
I was like mom do you realize how old and out of touch that makes you sound …..
scav
@sparrow: To an extent, the idea that one would ‘better understand’ what others face by wearing what they wear is utter nonsense, especially as everyone would be wearing them at the time. I can however see a point in at least two other sorts of signalling by wearing them: a sort of I am Spartacus, all the Danes wearing yellow stars move; or an attempt (probably in vain) to remove some of the social freight of wearing them (the specific signaling is less weighted if subsumed in the larger societies noise by making it a random fashion choice). But all those decisions should be left up to individual’s comfort and styles.
boatboy_srq
@Rafer Janders: Amish/Mennonite/Puritan dress requirements are defined for both sexes, but for the others you’re absolutely correct. Patriarchy is as it has always been.
My problem with it is the “Three Bears” nature of the standards Xtians use. At least the various denominations/sects that have defined attire follow a well-outlined set of requirements; it’s the Xtian “know it when I see it” pattern that is so ridiculous, where the “too much” and “too little” are defined in broad strokes and the “just right” is divined from inference as not one of the first two.
Tommy
@sparrow: That was my thought, make men do it as well. Maybe a better “learning” experience. Make men walk a mile or at least a day in the shoes of somebody that has to wear a hijab.
scav
@Betty Cracker: I’m not saying any of this is a good idea, mostly just (to continue with the clothing theme) pointing out there are probably no white hats in this gun fight.
JMT
I think it’d be great to have male students wear the hijab for a few weeks. Also high heels.
Cervantes
@CONGRATULATIONS!:
I was not aware of this reasoning. You found it somewhere in the Koran or elsewhere in someone’s teachings?
Cervantes
@artem1s:
Isn’t that a rare — perhaps unique — use of the word “foisting”?
Villago Delenda Est
@aimai:
Fundie twits do not do metaphor, or allegory, or any of that un-“Christian” stuff.
ESPECIALLY all that hippie crap in red.
blueskies
@Gin & Tonic: Not really. It’s just not an effective educational tool. But hey, if you want all the kids to wear ruby slippers for a day, sign me up!
Tommy
@JMT: Totally in with the high heel thing. I am a shoe snob as a male. The amount of money I have spent on shoes might blow your mind. I would NEVER ask a woman to wear high heels. Never! Not in a hundred years.
blueskies
@JMT: See? I’m on board with this idea and long as the the high heels are ruby red with sequins.
Villago Delenda Est
@blueskies: We’re not in Kansas anymore, Toto!
THANK GAWD!
Aimai
@Cervantes: there are quite a few subsidiary but common meanings to words like foist or submit that dont conflict with the day being theoretically volunteer. This cant be understood merely by arguing semantics.
Germy Shoemangler
I see today that Charles Pierce is posting bible quotations that don’t get quoted very often by people like huckabee and santorum:
The rich person speaks and all are silent; they extol to the clouds what he says. The poor person speaks and they say, “Who is this fellow?” And should he stumble, they even push him down.
— Sirach: 13:23
Villago Delenda Est
@Gene108: I’m not seeing a difference here.
scav
@blueskies: Add in those little cheerleader skirts too, or would that be overkill? Nylons required?
Mike in NC
95% of the stupidity in this country can be traced back to religion.
Villago Delenda Est
@Aimai:
But that’s what Cervantes DOES!
cain
Big Wheel you say? These lyrics are apropos I think! :-)
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Botsplainer: As I’m sure you know, lots of central and southern KY Appalachians relocated to Cincinnati for industrial jobs. In fact the city counts its Appalachian employees. I’ve a story about that I’ll tell upon request.
There are indeed some freakish fault lines in Cincinnati, including east and west. Mason, oddly enough – given its rabid redneck bigot neighborhoods – has quite a few Muslims. I know a couple, and I’ve wondered how they manage. And the uproar (not only parental but from many not in Mason) over a student sponsored cultural education event puts the conflict right out in the open for all the US to see.
Germy Shoemangler
@scav:
TORONTO (AP) — The Bata Shoe Museum in Toronto, Canada, is hosting a new exhibit opening May 8 called “Standing Tall: The Curious History of Men in Heels.”
The show looks at men’s footwear from the early 17th century to the present, including its history, variety, function and significance. The exhibit will be on view through June 2016.
The show also serves to celebrate the museum’s 20th anniversary.
Exhibits will range from military boots to cowboy and biker boots to footwear worn by John Lennon and Elton John, along with footwear from the musical “Kinky Boots” and current heeled fashions for men. Some early examples of men’s heeled footwear were heeled riding boots that helped men secure their feet in stirrups. Details at http://www.batashoemuseum.ca
Cervantes
@Villago Delenda Est:
Coherence isn’t your thing. If you can’t threaten it with a tumbrel, you’re lost. I get it. Not to worry.
Villago Delenda Est
@Mike in NC: To include those who worship Adam Smith but have never cracked open his most famous work.
Villago Delenda Est
@Cervantes: I see I’ve made a mark. Good.
Cervantes
@Aimai:
So we can disregard “foisting” and substitute what?
For reference, here’s the relevant phrase again:
What can this mean? What would you like it to mean?
Feel free to help me with the meaning of “submit” as well.
Or is meaning not relevant?
scav
@Germy Shoemangler: Ooo, thanks, but if we’re doing men in silly shoes, there also should be room for those long medieval pointy-toed ones that required external strings attached if I remember correctly? And I can’t wait to see the entries from all the Fops and Dandys and Macaronis from the Georgians. Pink Wigs!
Germy Shoemangler
1. To pass off as genuine, valuable, or worthy: “I can usually tell whether a poet … is foisting off on us what he’d like to think is pure invention” (J.D. Salinger).
2. To impose (something or someone unwanted) upon another by coercion or trickery: They had extra work foisted on them because they couldn’t say no to the boss.
3. To insert fraudulently or deceitfully: foisted unfair provisions into the contract.
Where I grew up, I heard the word only if someone was trying to cut into a line: “Excuse me, but I wuz here foist.”
Cervantes
@Villago Delenda Est:
Not one, several!
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Grump: And the weirdest thing, for me, is that Monroe (home of Big Butter Jesus (aka Touchdown Jesus) is right up the road from West Chester – where the Islamic Center Of Greater Cincinnati opened in 1995. Of course West Chester is also just west of Mason…
And Mason is in Warren County, which for my money is the reddest county in Ohio. I was stunned to see there were brave folks in 2008 and 2012 with Obama bumper stickers and signs on full display. Damned few, but there were some.
Woodrowfan
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): yep/. I was born and raised there (Dayton area) and the old joke was that a Daytonian was a “Briar” (a Kentucky native) who was driving to Detroit but ran out of gas. The Birchers were strong in the counties between Dayton and Cincy and more than a few of the towns were “sun down” towns. It’s always been redneckish, but after the big factories (GM, DELCO, NCR) shut down or moved the area became even more rightwing as the union influence disappeared.
Germy Shoemangler
@scav: I’m assuming the fancy, pointy, uncomfortable shoes of antiquity were statements: “I don’t have to do much walking and I certainly don’t have to work”
The wigs? Maybe they covered the lice.
schrodinger's cat
I don’t get the connection between women’s hair and modesty. Its not just the Muslims either. Catholic Nuns cover (or used to) their hair as do Orthodox Jewish women, even among Hindus, widows were required to shave their heads, thankfully a practice that has almost died out.
Lee
@Frankensteinbeck:
Who knew that me wearing modest clothes is because I am fearing god’s wrath. /s
I think you are inferring too much in the concept of modesty.
scav
@Germy Shoemangler: Shoes likely, but I don’t get the wigs, especially as they shaved their heads underneath so I don’t think the hiding lice thing holds for multiple reasons — might just be a statement about the different breed of head insect one could sport about town (horsehair rather than domestic). The pink (I forget if that was either Charles Fox or the Prince of Wales) is just icing.
Waldo
Can we have atheist tolerance day? It’s so easy: Wear what you want, eat what you like, don’t pray and don’t sweat the afterlife. Also, don’t feel compelled to kill the non-nonbelievers.
Germy Shoemangler
Imagine there’s no heaven, it’s easy if you try. No hell below us, above us only sky.
@Waldo: All schoolchildren everywhere could join hands and sing the above.
Villago Delenda Est
@Waldo: Pretty radical, Waldo. Live and let live…I don’t think the “Christians” could tolerate that for more than about 15 seconds. 25 seconds, tops.
Amir Khalid
To my admittedly limited knowledge, neither the Quran nor the Hadith goes into any great details on how much needs to be covered. That was developed over centuries of cultural tradition, some of it dating back to pre-Islamic times.
Here’s the thing about the modesty part of it, for many a devout man of conservative bent, and not just Muslims: the more of it you impose, especially on women, the better. I’ve said that some of the more extreme approaches reach absurdity: the burqa, as I’ve said here before, looks like an ostentatious — and for the woman, very cumbersome — display of modesty.
I’m concerned about men imposing their ideas of modesty upon the women and girls in their families. It is the woman who should decide for herself what clothing is modest and practical for any given situation. Muslim women nowadays tend to cover themselves rather more than I think really necessary, but as long as it’s their choice I’m okay with it.
Fortunately, in this instance there was no pressure being put on anyone to wear a hijab for conformity’s sake. It’s rather like the recent story about a Christian woman in America who decided to wear a hijab for Lent, and got a lot of positive feedback from her Muslim friends.
kc
Of course if the non-Muslim female students had worn hijabs, they’d be guilty of “cultural appropriation” and “cultural tourism.”
PurpleGirl
@schrodinger’s cat: The idea behind modesty is that men can’t keep themselves from being turned on by the sight of skin (forearms, legs) or hair. Therefore, women have to cover themselves so as not to entice men into sinful thoughts/actions. Some Orthodox Jewish women would wear a wig and then because they still looked attractive would pull a little of their own hair out from under the wig — being ‘sloppy’ meant not being attractive.
ETA: None of this is logical at all. Don’t look for logic in the ‘reasoning’.
Cervantes
@Frankensteinbeck:
I agree.
The suggestion is legitimate but I saw no reporting to justify it in this instance.
As I understand it, some Muslim girls voluntarily dress this way and are sometimes mistreated for it. If some of them organized the event so that other people could, if they wanted to, get a sense of how thus-dressed Muslims are treated, then surely that’s a good thing. No foisting or submitting is necessary.
I’m sure there are other Muslim girls who do not dress this way. Perhaps they feel no pressure to do so, or perhaps they feel pressure and withstand it; either way, more power to them: they can organize their own event to help others see things from their point of view. Again, no foisting or submitting is necessary.
And if there are tensions between the two groups of Muslim girls — if either group feels disdain for the other — maybe they should work to sort it out.
And if Muslim boys or men had anything to do with the event, I saw no reporting to suggest it specifically in this case.
schrodinger's cat
@PurpleGirl: Oh I get the general idea behind modest outfits. However, the idea that the sight of hair is enticing to men boggles my mind but then I am not male.
srv
I’m positive no liberal at BJ would ever complain about that. IOKIYAM.
J R in WV
@The Other Bob:
Plus all the Yankees and black Union soldiers they killed in the civil war!
Still going on today, look at the cops shooting and choking black men right out in public, on TV, with no repercussions!! How is that not right wing terrorism??
Denali
@JRT,
this
Villago Delenda Est
@Amir Khalid: There is a hell of a lot of “Islamic tradition” that dates to well before Mohammed was even born. It’s a cultural thing of Arabs, no necessarily of Islam, but it spread as Islam spread. Other cultures, as has been noted, share some of these traditions to a lesser extent. For example, heads being covered in Synagogues. Women wearing scarfs to mass. And similar heathen practices as far as “Christians” of the protestant fundamentalist flavor are concerned.
Villago Delenda Est
@srv: Fucking 1st Amendment. How does it work?
Legalize
@Botsplainer: And Hamilton County, in which Cincy sits, carried Barack Obama for president. Twice.
PurpleGirl
The Protestant Bible does so contain the Old Testament; where does anyone think they lread and earn about Leviticus, Genesis, Exodus, etc. The difference between the Protestant and Catholic bible lies in the what Revelations is included as — Catholics include it as the Apocrapha (added section) and Protestants assign it equal weight to the rest of the New Testament. Also the differences lie in who did the translation — Catholics rely on a translation from the Latin Vulgate and Protestants usually refer back to the King James English version translated from Greek sources. (This off the top of my head, without research into the several versions on my bookshelf.)
Tone in DC
@evodevo:
Just to pile on… this ecumenical gesture would have gone over REAL well in southern Virginia.
As for the dress code, I feel bad for the kids. Their parents lost it on an epic scale re: the daily outrage du jour.
Amir Khalid
@PurpleGirl:
Not sure if typo.
srv
@Villago Delenda Est:
It doesn’t in Public High Schools.
Where did you grow up, some commune?
PurpleGirl
@schrodinger’s cat: Hair has been assigned varying kinds of power by different cultures. Note that in the Bible, Samson lost his strength after his long hair was cut. Native Americans and a number of South American tribes ascribe power to long hair and that’s why even men wear their hair long and braid it for neatness. I’d bet that many older white men who wear their hair long see it as fashion and not because hair has cultural power.
PurpleGirl
@Amir Khalid: Probably a typo because I didn’t bring a Bible over to the computer desk.
Cervantes
@PurpleGirl:
See also 1 Corinthians 11:15, for example.
enplaned
I’m an atheist, and I find the hijab offensive, because it implies that modesty is necessary on the part of women because men just can’t help themselves.
Point is that a “hijab challenge” can be seen as a massively stupid thing irrespective of Christian sensitivies. I’d be appalled if my school district did any such thing.
I’m not surprised there was a reaction. I’d have reacted harshly too, and I don’t have the slightest bit of faith.
boatboy_srq
@PurpleGirl: There are days I think the Xtian Bible contains only the Pentateuch, selections from Jeremiah, Paul’s various letters and Revelations – and deliberately and explicitly excludes the Gospels because of all the DFH “love thy neighbor” cr#p.
Roger Moore
@PurpleGirl:
I think you should have double checked. The Apocrypha are books that are allegedly part of the Old Testament but which occur only in the Greek translation (the Septuagint) and not in the Hebrew version. They have generally been accepted as canonical by Catholics but rejected by Protestants. Catholics have traditionally given primacy to the Vulgate, a Latin translation, while Protestant translations like the KJV have been more inclined to go back to the original Hebrew text of the Old Testament.
As far as Revelations goes, it’s accepted as canonical by both Catholics and Protestants, but their reaction to it has been different. Catholics have always depended heavily on official interpretations of the Bible by Church fathers, which has tended to rein in more fanciful interpretations and lessened its importance to Catholic thought overall. OTOH, Protestants are more or less free to make their own interpretations, which has led to a lot of crazy interpretations and a tendency to obsess about the end times.
PurpleGirl
@Roger Moore: Re: checking — I decided to wing it and not do a more extensive checking because of time constraints. I wanted to write my answer before the thread died.
Roger Moore
@boatboy_srq:
There are some parts of Isaiah that Christians also love, especially the parts that foretell the Messiah. And Psalms, which is often treated as a book of prophecy, rather than one of prayer.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@PurpleGirl: On the Christian side, hair covering is specifically called for:
The reasoning isn’t modesty, but status:
J R in WV
As right-wing as Cincy is, it is also as far as I know the only major city where it is illegal to discriminate against people of Appalachian mountain heritage.
You can’t call people Hillbilly any more than you can call them Kike or Ni66er. Mrs J spent much of her career working to convince urban experts that Hillbilly was just as much an insult as the other racial slurs no longer in common use in the news media.
We have enjoyed driving trips through southern Ohio and Indiana, the country is beautiful, the rural roads are curvy and relatively empty in mid-day, so fun to drive, with nice woodsy views.
Needing to live there might be different, although since I’m living in rural W. Va. I may not notice a big difference.
rikyrah
1.5 Million Missing Black Men
For every 100 black women not in jail, there are only 83 black men. The remaining men – 1.5 million of them – are, in a sense, missing.
APRIL 20, 2015
In New York, almost 120,000 black men between the ages of 25 and 54 are missing from everyday life. In Chicago, 45,000 are, and more than 30,000 are missing in Philadelphia. Across the South — from North Charleston, S.C., through Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi and up into Ferguson, Mo. — hundreds of thousands more are missing.
They are missing, largely because of early deaths or because they are behind bars. Remarkably, black women who are 25 to 54 and not in jail outnumber black men in that category by 1.5 million, according to an Upshot analysis. For every 100 black women in this age group living outside of jail, there are only 83 black men. Among whites, the equivalent number is 99, nearly parity.
African-American men have long been more likely to be locked up and more likely to die young, but the scale of the combined toll is nonetheless jarring. It is a measure of the deep disparities that continue to afflict black men — disparities being debated after a recent spate of killings by the police — and the gender gap is itself a further cause of social ills, leaving many communities without enough men to be fathers and husbands.
Perhaps the starkest description of the situation is this: More than one out of every six black men who today should be between 25 and 54 years old have disappeared from daily life.
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/04/20/upshot/missing-black-men.html?abt=0002&abg=1&_r=1
rikyrah
Does ‘normal’ mean a white man in the White House?
By Leonard Pitts Jr. April 19, 2015
Maybe conservatives are done with dog whistle politics.
After all, NRA chief Wayne LaPierre traded his dog whistle for an air horn at a recent gathering of the gun faithful inWashington, D.C. “I have to tell you,” he said, “eight years of one demographically-symbolic president is enough.”
Subtle, it was not.
Still, as insults go, it was a rather neatly-crafted twofer. On the one hand, it demeaned the nation’s first African-American president and welcomed the day the White House is, well … de-Negro-fied. On the other hand, it also demeaned the candidate seeking to become the nation’s first female-American president and promised to save the White House from, well … woman-ification. Evidently, Mr. LaPierre wants America to get back to normal, “normal” being defined as when the president is white and male.
http://touch.baltimoresun.com/#section/-1/article/p2p-83322730/
chopper
@Roger Moore:
sounds like ol’ jesus was down with teabaggin’.
J R in WV
Speaking of long hair on men, and strength being lost…
Last spring I cut my pony-tail off. I’m pretty bald, since I was a young man, and now I’m an old. Last February I had shoulder replacement surgery, and I’m anxiously awaiting getting rehabbed enough to get the other shoulder replaced.
Coincidence?
I have to believe getting old and having strenuous hobbies (fancy construction and rock collecting) where I use heavy hand tools at length are why there was no cartilage left in my shoulder joints. Makes sense, right? Overuse for like 4.5 decades.
Building houses for my family and helping friends with new houses, chopping geodes filled with gemmy crystals from silicified limestone, one of the harder bedrock types around.
It has been great fun working with a crew of friends to build a new home for a friend whose house burned down in a tragic fire. But hard work, lots of sweat, 90 pound bags of Portland cement carried from the stack and dumped into a mixer a little more than 6 feet high.
But a haircut? Seriously? Nah, no way!
But I am letting it grow back out. Haircuts are uncomfortable and expensive, so why do that? Just brush it back and tie it up. Neil Young sang about it… “Almost cut my hair! Happened just the other day!”
Bex
@Amir Khalid: Don’t know if this is correct, but I remember reading that after Muhammad died, his wives elected to cover their heads as a sign of mourning. This practice then became traditional for Muslim women.
scav
@enplaned: There might be a case to be made on the basis of uselessness, but personal outrage, either religiously- or otherwisely-inspired ethics derived, may not be the best guide for school policy and instruction. Truth and Facts can very well be outrageous.
Bex
@Roger Moore: Actually it’s Revelation singular, not plural. The name of the book is “The Revelation of John.” Anglicans/Episcopalians accept the books of the Apocrypha as canonical.
enplaned
@scav: Personal outrage? Huh? As part of a tolerance exercise, they challenged students to adopt something that is associated with Islam — and which can be seen, on purely non-religious grounds (“women must cover up so as not to inflame men”), as offensive. This is a public school, it should be extremely careful of doing anything that aligns itself with a religion — any religion. That much is just Constitution 101. It should also be wary of doing anything that is consistent with imposing things on one sex but not the other. The implication of hijab is quite sexist all around.
Even if you agree that it was the done with the best of intentions, it still crossed the government-religion boundary. You don’t have to be a Christian to see something wrong with this. I don’t have the slightest doubt that the reaction of the Christian fundies was hysterical and disproportionate, but at the same time, this program was over the line, and those who promoted it deserve to be chastised.
Chris
Anecdotally, the only friend I’ve ever had who wore the hijab was an Iraqi refugee who chose to wear it basically as a cultural marker, the Muslim version of folks who wear a rosary without ever going to church. None of her sisters wore it, and neither “side” cared that the other was doing it differently – no “OMG you’re validating the patriarchy!” or “OMG you’re dressed like a slut!” controversies there.
Also had an acquaintance in the Muslim Students Association who used to wear the hijab and randomly stopped halfway through college. Her family didn’t disown her, the MSA didn’t throw her out – all that happened was she had to start worrying about her hairstyle.
I have no idea what either of them would think of a “hijab day” idea, but as far as wearing the scarf goes, people in this country do it for all sorts of reasons, and I learned long ago not to assume Patriarchal Oppression.
scav
@enplaned: I was merely commenting that your — or one’s — sense of personal outrage isn’t a reason to influence school policy. The legal requirements of church-state separation could very well be so, but outrage isn’t the motivating favtor of that.
Bill
Here’s an idea, how about we leave religion outside the school house?
Chet
@Grump: And, of course, the current one is a replacement, since the original was destroyed by a lightning strike some years ago. (Second Commandment solutions.)
Roger Moore
@Bill:
Even if you don’t want to preach in school- and I really don’t- you can’t just ignore religion. It’s an important part of what makes the world work the way it does, and everyone ought to learn something about it so they can understand the world better. Teaching children about people who are different from them and how to understand their viewpoint is incredibly valuable.
scav
@Bill: We’re also rather wrestling with the problem that it’s a also a cultural expression (with mixed implications and motivations) mixed up with sometimes, but not universally religiously justified rationales for same. Schools could have an interest in getting across the message that don’t judge the totality of what people are or believe based on what they wear. (Trans people might benefit among others.) Total hairball, not many white hats or clear boundaries in this hairball.
Betty Cracker
@Chris: You’re correct that women nowadays wear it for reasons other than patriarchal oppression, but that’s where it has its roots, and it continues to be a favorite tool of patriarchal creeps today. That’s why I wouldn’t be thrilled about my daughter participating in such an exercise. I think the school was well-intentioned, but they could have thought this through a bit better.
Roger Moore
@Betty Cracker:
Except it wasn’t actually the school that was organizing it; it was a Muslim student group. The school was apologizing because they thought they shouldn’t have let the students go ahead with it, but it was originally a student-led exercise.
CONGRATULATIONS!
@Roger Moore: Sure I can. Been doing it all my life, save for the parts where “religious” people decided to beat the shit out of me.
Sadly, the dead of countless unjustly slain millions are screaming from their graves proclaiming the same thing.
Only thing I ever learned from it is that it turns formerly decent people into raving lunatics and assholes.
You can keep your religion. I want no part of it whatsoever.
Ohio Mom
Yes, my adopted city, Cincinnati, deserves its reputation as “the northern-most Southern city.” And while things aren’t quite as bleak as Botsplainer paints is, you are right on that downtown is “a Potemkin village.”
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): Mason has quite a few Muslims for the same reason my neighborhood (a couple of jurisdictions to the south of Mason) has quite a few Muslims, and Hindus too: Mason and my school district are among the very “best” districts, so computer, medical, and other professionals move to this end of the Cincinnati suburbs for their kids. For all the Muslims in my neighborhood though, I don’t remember ever seeing anyone in a hijab; the occasional sari, yes.
@Legalize: Yes, Hamilton County went for Obama. We also would reliably send Democratic representatives to Congress until our district was gerrymandered in half. Instead of the City of Cincinnati and the close-in suburbs sharing the same district, the western half now shares a district with some very rural areas to the north, and the eastern half shares a district that snakes along the small towns along the Ohio river (that’s the district that send Mean Jean to Congress; the new guy doesn’t hog the spotlight like she did but he’s no better).
Betty Cracker
@Roger Moore: They were right to apologize for that, then. The point is, they should have known better since it was happening under their aegis.
@CONGRATULATIONS!: I don’t think anyone is trying to convert you.
kc
I would like to hear an explanation as to why some of the same (literally the self-same) secular liberals who have no problem bashing one historically oppressive patriarchal monotheistic religion bend over backwards to defend another even more currently oppressive patriarchal monotheistic religion.
kc
@Betty Cracker:
CONGRATULATIONS!
@kc: Motion seconded.
gocart mozart
I posted this over there.
gocart mozart
@CONGRATULATIONS!:
I have no explanation for your propensity for false analogies.
NotoriousJRT
Sorry, but a “Covered Girl” challenge would not be for me. Ideas like this give me the willies.