Letter from the Editorial Board

Abstract

Letter from the Editorial Board Kate Allman In a recent Newsweek article, Denis Mac Shane brought national attention to “Islamophobia,” a term that has been used for the past two decades to describe an irrational fear of Islam that results in discriminatory practices towards those perceived to be Muslim. As William Dalrymple explained in a follow-up in the The New York Times, this renewal of those fears stems from the American tendency to see the Islamic world as a “single, terrifying monolith”–prejudicial perceptions that continue to result in the marginalization of Muslims from the social, political, and public life of the nation and our schools. While this journal is uncomfortable with the term “Islamophobia” for its etymological generalizations, we, like others, feel that Newsweek’s widespread publication of the term offers scholars an opportunity to raise questions about the current culture of fear directed towards Muslims in America. More specifically, we think that it is important to explore how fears targeted at Muslim students are surfacing in schools—particularly secondary schools—and how this problem might be addressed in and through curriculum and pedagogy. Three weeks before this letter was written, four high school students in Staten Island, New York, were arrested for charges of hate crimes directed towards a Muslim classmate. Specific details of the case have not been released, but authorities have stated that the incident in question, which occurred several months earlier, involved physical and verbal assaults that included repeated attacks to the victim’s groin and accusations of being a “terrorist.” The boy did not inform school officials or family about the events during the school year, hoping the assaults would end when the school year was over. During the summer, when the victim learned that two of the alleged tormentors were going to be in his high school class, he informed his family. We know this event is not an anomaly. Hate crimes committed against Muslims have only worsened due to the culture of fear that has arisen in the wake of 9/11. Last Spring, for example, a Somali student was verbally and physically harassed at a high school in Minnesota. Around the same time last year a group of fifteen middle school children were disciplined by a New York school board after physically removing a female student’s hijab without her consent and assaulting her with jeers like “bomb baby” and “towel head.” While acts of school violence pose important questions about bullying in secondary schools, they also raise important questions as to how such events position schools, curriculum and pedagogy as complex political and ethical spaces/stances/acts. Questions this journal is interested in exploring include: How are these violent acts in conversation with the militarized responses after 9/11? How do political attitudes towards the Middle East and Islam affect the ways in which students perform race, nationality, and culture in classes and on high school sites? How are students resisting victimization and expressing agency through their performance in schools? How are students using curriculum and classroom space as sites for authoring themselves instead of being read by others? To approach these questions, the High School Journal is currently accepting proposals for a special Fall 2011 issue entitled: “Education in a Post-9/11 Era: Remembering Pasts and [End Page 1] Charting Futures.” You can find this call for proposals on our website (soe.unc.edu/hsj); the deadline is March 30th. We hope that you will help us investigate these issues as we attempt to understand how the current socio-political climate affects both the lives of students and the practices and policies of American high schools. We look forward to receiving your proposals and continuing this complicated and much-needed conversation. [End Page 2] Kate Allman UNC-Chapel Hill Copyright © 2010 The University of North Carolina Press