Marking Period 1: Monday #3

This article deals with the way Muslim Americans react to reactions to 9/11.

In the picture above, Muslim children are shown gathering materials to go home from a normal-looking school.  Though the girls are wearing hujub (hijabs,) boys and girls can be seen wearing American-style t-shirts and sweatshirts, supporting the statement by American Islamic multimedia leader Abdul Malik Mujahid that "diversity is as American as apple pie."  These pure white headcoverings above conjure up conflicted feelings in the eyes of the modern American:  a garment we're taught is one of the enemy... on a child.  A cluster of girls in the back are chatting; as are some little boys in the front.  If they were wearing baseball caps instead of hujub we would think no differently.

As a north suburban father living here, Rashid Ghazi made his film "Fordson" about the lives of Muslim football players at a high school in Michigan fasting during Ramadan to make a point about the way Muslims combine their culture with American life just as any other group in the United States.  The children above, innocent yet prey to the ignorant prejudices of our society, should be considered as normal as Catholic school children with ever-present crosses around their necks or Orthodox Jewish children in kippot (skullcaps).  Staring directly into the camera is volunteer chairman of the MCC Full Time School in Morton Grove, where these children go to school and learn about the events that led to 9/11 and the way other minority groups (African-Americans, Jews, Roman Catholics) have made progress in terms of equality.  Appearing quiet and kindly, this man helps lead a school that in many ways teaches students more sensitivity than most other schools.

Marking Period 1: Monday #2

This is an editorial of an editorial of the article I summarized last week. I didn't do the original editorial because I a) didn't entirely understand it and b) frankly, the parts I did understand, I didn't agree with.

Cathy Lynn Grossman's editorial starts off asking the audience if they believe evangelicals were snubbed because so many other religions were present at the National Cathedral prayer service in honor of 9/11.  It cites Mollie Hemingway of Get Religion, who doesn't understand why so many of the non-monotheistic religions were represented when various Protestant branches were not.  Grossman mentions that Roman Catholic and Jewish clerics were fine with the set-up of the service, following up with a quote of Hemingway saying her (2.6 million-person) Lutheran congregation avoids mixing with other religions, suggesting that it is silly for Hemingway to be miffed if she didn't want other religions present in the first place.

Similar to Hemingway, current leader of the Evangelistic Association Reverend Franklin Graham is quoted as focusing solely on how Jesus relates to 9/11, not calling for "brotherhood, forgiveness, mercy or interfaith understanding," which was the theme of the interfaith service.  The leader of the fifth largest Protestant congregation ran his own service in protest - despite refusal to pray with other religions.  The head of Hemingway's 2.6 million person church was fired after he participated in the Yankee Stadium prayer session because he was "joining in prayer with pagan clerics," but the decision was overturned; today, he preaches the required message of Jesus and more Jesus.  The editorial wryly ends with a mentioning of Obama's reciting of Psalm 46 at Ground Zero, showing that the evangelicals were technically represented.

Marking Period 1: Monday #1

I'll be summarizing this article from the New York Times.

Ten years ago, a mass prayer ceremony with many different religions represented was held in the Yankee Stadium on the second Sunday after the 9/11 attacks.  This past weekend, a secular commemoration service was held at Ground Zero, and in the planning of Mayor Bloomberg faced harsh criticism from a few religions - mostly evangelicals.  Similarly, a service without an evangelical cleric was held at the Washington National Cathedral; this general lack of "equal representation" is being referred to as the loss of "civil religion," a phrase coined to describe the generalized way the American government once looked at the sacred.

Mayor Bloomberg defended his decision in saying that the moments of silence allotted throughout the commemoration service he believes are often used for personal prayer, and his point was further supported by the lack of opinion from the Archbishop of New York, Timothy M. Dolan, and the executive vice president of the New York Board of Rabbis, Joseph Potasnik.  In spite of this, Fox News and an evident divide among Protestants still criticize, even when religious leaders are present at such events.

(Well, you can't please everyone.)