Louisiana Against American Citizens

It's not what you think. These two times, the offenses were against Americans wearing Muslim religious garb.

The first was an incident during school at West Jefferson High School, when a boorish and ignorant teacher of world history (!), one Wes Mix, ridiculed and demeaned a young woman who is an observant Muslim, ending by yanking off her (religously mandated) headscarf, the hijab. (In my mind, this is akin to compelling a non-Muslim woman to bare her breasts.)

Reached at home Tuesday [February 3, 2004] night, Mix called the incident a "nonissue" and a "bunch of craziness." He said he was enjoying a dinner of red beans and rice and a beer. "I'm not worried at all," he said, adding that "all of this has been resolved."

The good ol' boy network seems to have saved Mix's ignorant hiney, because he has suffered no economic loss and is inflicting his brand of "history" on some other victims students at another, unnamed school.

The second incident occured Saturday May 22, 2004, at West Jefferson High School's graduation exercises, which were held at Alerio Center, one of three graduations held that day. Each of the graduates were given five tickets. Evidently, forgeries (to allow more family members to enter) have been a problem in the past, so the tickets were examined closely. Especially tickets held by Muslim women wearing the hijab.

One of the graduating seniors is an American boy of the Muslim religion; he gave one of his tickets to his sister, Ms. Maha Askar. Ms. Askar is an observant Muslim and wears the hajib (link is to a blog discussion with more hijab links). Instead of entering her brother's graduation ceremony, Ms. Askar was taken out of line, arrested, and later at the police station, forcibly disrobed.

When Maha asked the security guard why he had singled her out for inspection, as well as other women who were wearing the Islamic headscarf, the guard responded, “Y’all people always have fake tickets.”  When the police officer grabbed her to put her in handcuffs, her sister-in-law, who was accompanying her, told him “you can’t touch her like that,” to which he replied, “This is how we do it in this country.”

(Keep going to the bottom of the post, next page, for some more enlightened Louisiana cop stuff. See, you can tell a terrorist cause they move their lips! In prayer! (Somebody warn Baldilocks).

Just so you know I am not making this up, first there is the Wes Mix story. Can we start an annual "Least Suited To Teach World History" award and call it the Wes Mix Annual?

West Jefferson High School teacher reassigned in veil-pulling case Muslim family cites officials' fast action, Wednesday, February 04, 2004: By Rob Nelson, West Bank bureau

Sitting in Wes Mix's 10th-grade world history class at West Jefferson High School in Harvey, Maryam Motar said she had become used to the "jokes."

First, there were the times when she said her teacher thought she was of Indian descent and called her "Little Curry One."

Then came jabs about how Motar, an Iraqi, hailed from a Third World country, she said. Thursday's tease, the 17-year-old sophomore said, was about how she would "bomb us" if she ever went back to her country.

Motar said the final straw came Friday as Mix was passing out tests. After pulling back her religiously mandated head scarf, or hijab, Motar said Mix told her, "I hope God punishes you. No, I'm sorry, I hope Allah punishes you."

Motar said the teacher later told her, "I didn't know you had hair under there."

West Jefferson Principal Lale Geer confirmed Tuesday that Mix was removed from the school on Monday, and school system officials said he was transferred to another teaching position in an unnamed school after Motar and her family complained and sought support from the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Washington, D.C.

Superintendent Diane Roussel said the incident is under investigation.

"We have to get our facts together," she said. "I have to listen to both sides of the story. I do realize it's very offensive to the Islamic community. The concerns they expressed are sincere ones."

Reached at home Tuesday night, Mix called the incident a "nonissue" and a "bunch of craziness."

He said he was enjoying a dinner of red beans and rice and a beer. "I'm not worried at all," he said, adding that "all of this has been resolved."

Ibrahim Hooper, a spokesman for the national council, applauded Mix's transfer and said the council became involved after outraged Muslims in the area contacted the agency.

"They view (the transfer) as a good step, but they want to know what happens to this teacher and future students," Hooper said, calling the school district's reaction to the case "unusually swift."

Though she was able to brush off Mix's earlier remarks, the yanking of her head scarf went too far, Motar said. "There's no joke about it," she said. "It was disrespect. I don't think he's fit to teach." "We would never accept something like that," said Motar's mother, Haifa Gareb.

The hijab is commonly worn in public by Muslim women, along with long-sleeved shirts and pants, to preserve their beauty for their family and husbands, said Irene Salahuddin, a Muslim who lives in Gretna. It's a religious and cultural statement, she said.

Hooper said the scarves had become a magnet for anti-Arab behavior, especially in the midst of the war in Iraq. Motar said she never reported Mix's earlier remarks because making it through the school year was more important to her.

"I just thought it was stupidity," she said. "I didn't want to think about it. I just wanted to let it go."

Motar's uncle, Casey Kasim, who met with Geer on Monday, said he was shocked by such behavior from a teacher. "That's why I'm so disappointed," Kasim said. "I never expected anything like that from a teacher." Still, Kasim applauded West Jefferson's response. Geer "was very sympathetic, and his reaction to the problem was very good," he said.

Others in Motar's family said they are still waiting for an apology from the school district. Family members said they have endured rounds of taunting since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and the war in Iraq.

From angry shouts of "Go home" while sitting in traffic and references to Osama bin Laden, they have suffered hostility for months, they said.

Still, their goal was not to cost Mix his job, Motar's aunt, Samir Kasim, said. "We want him to understand to appreciate our religion."

Geer said he was shocked by the incident and said it was uncharacteristic for West Jefferson.

"This school is filled with a lot of different ethnic and religious groups, and we embrace it," he said. "We have kids from all over the world, and I'm just sorry this happened."

Well, I guess diversity training for the high school should be added to diversity training for the Jefferson Parish Sherrif's department.

Now we are on to the West Jefferson High School Graduation incident,.

Here is the full text of the press release from the Muslim American Foundation, which is followed by the full text from the New Orleans Times-Picayune .

Investigation Demanded Into Mistreatment at High School Graduation in Louisiana

Westwego, LA (May 22, 2004) - Maha Askar, an American-born 26-year-old Loyola University New Orleans graduate in Biology, was removed with excessive force from the Alario Center. She was there to see her brother graduate from West Jefferson High School, the same school which, earlier this year, had an incident with a teacher pulling off a Muslim student’s headscarf in class.

Ms. Askar was standing in the entrance line when a security guard removed her and spent five minutes examining her ticket to see if it was a forgery. When she complained, the police were called and placed her and her three teenage cousins in handcuffs after shooting one of them with a tazer.

Throughout the ordeal, which was witnessed by numerous by-standers, both the Alario Center security guards and police made statements indicating a prejudicial and pre-judgmental attitude. When Maha asked the security guard why he had singled her out for inspection, as well as other women who were wearing the Islamic headscarf, the guard responded, “Y’all people always have fake tickets.”  When the police officer grabbed her to put her in handcuffs, her sister-in-law, who was accompanying her, told him “you can’t touch her like that,” to which he replied, “This is how we do it in this country.”

At one point, during the commotion, her cousin complained, “You don’t have to do it like that,” to which the officer responded by shooting him with a tazer in front of dozens of witnesses who, by this time, were gathered around, filming and photographing the event. After the teen was already on the ground, witnesses report that the officer kept pushing the button on the tazer to continue to administer the electric shock. Later, after being taken into custody, he asked the police officer if he could see the video. The officer told him jokingly that he could watch it on America’s Funniest Home Videos.

Eventually, the General Manager of the Alario Center, upon being informed of the disturbance, arrived and shouted to the police to “Get her out of here, get her out of here.” Maha Askar was then taken into the police station and had her headscarf forcibly removed, even after she specifically pointed out that she considered that a violation of her person.

Maha had received the ticket from her graduating brother, who was given, along with all graduating seniors, five tickets by the school so that his family could attend his graduation. When asked how she felt about what happened, Maha replied, “Something like this makes me feel like a foreigner in my own country. I live here, went to school here, work here, and then after 26 years, something like this happens. It’s really quite unbelievable.”

The Muslim American Society’s Freedom Foundation is currently talking to the Jefferson Parish Police Department and will be filing a complaint with the Internal Affairs division concerning the events. The department has assured the Muslim community that if there was any improper conduct, it would be addressed and action would be taken. Further, the Muslim community is asking that Maha receive an apology from the Alario Center and that appropriate disciplinary action be taken with respect to the security guards involved in the incident. They will also be contacting the Civil Rights Division at the Department of Justice regarding what is becoming a pattern of discrimination against the Muslim residents of Jefferson Parish.

In the past, the Islamic Shura Council of Greater New Orleans has been invited by the Homeland Security Department to give seminars explaining law enforcement issues on dealing with the Muslim community. The New Orleans and Jefferson Parish Police departments have attended these seminars, along with 24 other local law-enforcement agencies