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Debbie Almontaser, the erstwhile founder and principal of the Khalil Gibran International Academy, resigned this week after controversy arose over a t-shirt. With less than a month before kids report to school, Almontaser resigned when she failed to initially denounce a t-shirt that was being sold by a group called Arab Women Active in Arts and Media that read "Intifada NYC". Almontaser said that the word "intifada" literally meant "shrugging off" in Arabic and was supposed to be a feminist slogan connotating women shrugging off oppression. That is indeed the literal Arabic translation of the word, according to our dictionary. The general understanding of the word, however, relates to an armed uprising that has resulted in thousands of deaths in the Middle East and includes urban warfare, bus bombings, and terrorism. Critics were appalled that Almontaser would defend a shirt that appeared to advocate a violent uprising by Arabs in New York City. After public criticism, Almontaser denounced any association of the t-shirt with violence.
While the Khalil Gibran International Academy was supposedly going to become an insular "madrassa" and a haven for non-assimilationist Arab immigrants, the Post reported yesterday that the school didn't quite fill that bill. Only two of the teachers and six of the enrolled students were fluent in Arabic already. 75% of the 44 students who want to attend the bilingual school are black, in what is described as a lack of diversity.
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This is a stupid controversy driven by brainless haters. The "intifada" shirt sounds like any other would-be "revolutionary" slogan adopted by some little advocacy group. Ultimately the slogan doesn't matter and Almontaser's opinion on it doesn't matter.
bklynd is correct.
Almontaser's resignation is a terrible outcome for the school. I wish the Board of Ed had anticipated this kind of fiasco -- or read it correctly, when the NYPost started baiting them as a "madrassa" - and given the school and its carefully chosen head better support. Shame on them and the mayor for not handling this better, and robbing NYC students of a good learning opportunity. Instead, we can all learn that bullies win.
Arabic is a language, not a religion. Anyone that thinks the NYC public school system would be opening a religious school of ANY denomination is either not thinking so clearly, or working some hateful inflammatory agenda.
It's awful that Bloomberg and the Board of Ed cave to the lying half-truths and drivel in the NYPost.
The school was neither a madrassas nor intended for muslim students unwilling to assimilate. It introduces to New York a successful model in education that has been tested widely elsewhere in this country and the world. In the Washington area Japanese-Immersion (public) schools with which I'm familiar, non-Japanese students predominated. Their families had no relation to Japan, but a keen interest in having their children acquire fluency in a difficult language and exposure to a foreign culture. It is a shame that New York's narrow bigotry denies its youth such a great educational option. Some cosmopolitan city - a bunch of yahoos is more like it.
Altmontaser also happens to be a 9/11 denier (truther), it is no secret that this school will be teaching a mythical history of the Middle East and America, including the Muslim Arab terrorist attacks on 9/11/01.
'Dhabah' never should have been in this position in the first place, and intifada directly refers to the Palestinians terrorist war against Israel.
Anyone who believes otherwise needs a history lesson.
There is a shortage of Arabic speakers in the U.S. Government right now...If I recall don't the intelligence agencies and U.S. Army have a desperate need for fluent Arabic speakers?