Menominee Seventh Grader Suspended for Saying "I Love You" in her Native Language

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SHAWANO, WISCONSIN - What's love got to do with it? Not much, especially if you say the words "I love you" in the Menominee language in front of a certain Wisconsin teacher.

Seventh grader Miranda Washinawatok, Menominee, found this out.
Miranda speaks two languages: Menominee and English. She also plays on her basketball team. However, two Thursdays ago she was suspended for one basketball game because she spoke Menominee to a fellow classmate during class.
Miranda attends Sacred Heart Catholic Academy in Shawano, Wisconsin. The school body is over 60 percent American Indian. The school is approximately six miles from the south border of the Menominee Indian Tribe Reservation.
"On January 19 I was told by Miranda she was being benched from playing that night. I found out at 4:20 and we were back at school at 6:30 pm so I could get to the bottom of why she could not play,"
said Tanaes Washinawatok, Miranda's mother.
"Miranda kept saying she was only told by her assistant coach she was being benched because two teachers said she had a bad attitude. I wanted to know what she did to make them say she had a bad attitude."
At the school, the teachers and coaching staff seemed to want to cast blame on each other, according to Miranda's mother.
"I wanted to talk to the principal, but he was not there before the game started,"
stated Tanaes Washinawatok. Being a persistent concerned parent, Washinawatok was back at the school by 7:30 the next morning to speak to the principal.
The principal told Washinawatok that the assistant coach told him she was told by two teachers to bench Miranda for attitude problems.
The alleged 'attitude problem' turned out to be that Miranda said the Menominee word

“posoh”
that means
“hello”

and said

“Ketapanen”

in Menominee that means "I love you."
Miranda and a fellow classmate were talking to each other when Miranda told her how to say "Hello" and "I love you" in Menominee.
"The teacher went back to where the two were sitting and literally slammed her hand down on the desk and said, "How do I know you are not saying something bad?"
The story did not end there. In the next session, another teacher told Miranda she did not appreciate her getting the other teacher upset because "she is like a daughter to me."
By the time, Miranda was picked up by her mother she was upset for being suspended.
"Miranda knows quite a bit of the Menominee language. We speak it. My mother, Karen Washinawatok, is the director of the Language and Culture Commission of the Menominee Tribe. She has a degree in linguistics from the University of Arizona's College of Education-AILDI American Indian Language Development Institute. She is a former tribal chair and is strong into our culture,"
states Tanaes Washinawatok.
Washinawatok has had a total of three meetings with school officials and was promised Miranda would receive a public apology, as would the Menominee Tribe, and the apologies would be publically placed.
"On Wednesday, a letter was sent to parents and guardians. A real generic letter of apology, that really did not go into specifics as to why there was this apology,"
Washinawatok told the Native News Network Thursday evening.
"I still don't think it was enough,"
Sacred Heart Catholic Academy is operated by the Diocese of Green Bay, which ironically has an option on its answering machine for Spanish, but not Menominee. A call put in late Thursday afternoon by the Native News Network was not returned by press time.

Slave game alleged at Gwinnett elementary school

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Some children at a Gwinnett elementary school played a tag-like game as slaves and slave catchers at recess, and a teacher allegedly participated, Channel 2 Action News reported.

The incident happened at Camp Creek Elementary School in Lilburn last week, the report said.
Three children and their parents told Channel 2 that a teacher organized and participated in the game.
The schools spokesperson said that there was a game, but the teacher did not participate.
The school district released a statement to Channel 2 saying, "The school district looked into concerns regarding four students who participated in a playground activity. The district determined that the activity was student initiated and that allegations regarding the teacher's involvement were unfounded."
Ericka Lasley told Channel 2 that her 8-year-old daughter said she was a slave and other students were slave catchers during a game similar to tag. The third-grade student said the teacher proposed the game based on what the class is learning.
"She would sit on the bench and the slave catchers would come up to the door and ask did she have any slaves," the girl said.
Charvia Rivers said her children told similar versions of what happened.
The parents told Channel 2 that the game is inappropriate and insensitive.
A district spokesman said diversity training is planned for all staff members.
Earlier this month, a teacher at Beaver Ridge Elementary School resigned and apologized after writing slavery-themed math questions for a third-grade homework assignment.

Offensive racist chant leads to suspension of entire hoops team

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An entire varsity girls basketball team in the Buffalo area has been suspended after its use of a racial slur as part of a pregame chant led to an in-school fight involving the team's only African-American member.

As reported by the Buffalo News and NBC affiliate WGRZ, among other sources, at least 12 members of the Kenmore (N.Y.) East High girls basketball team were suspended for their use of a pregame chant in the locker room that included the most offensive racial epithet associated with African-Americans. According to the News, the team would chant "One, two, three [N-word]" just before leaving the locker room.

When the team's only African-American member, Tyra Batts, voiced her concern about the chant, teammates told her that the use of the slur was a team tradition, and that they were not willing to stop using it. For the record, Batts said the team's coach, Kristy Bondgren, had heard comments in practice referring to her race but that Bondgren was unaware about the team's pregame chant.
"I said, 'You're not allowed to say that word because I don't like that word,'" Batts told the News in a home video she submitted to the newspaper. "They said, 'You know we're not racist, Tyra. It's just a word, not a label.' I was outnumbered."
Yet, as long as the chant continued, so did Batts' frustration and anger. Eventually, following weeks of other racially inappropriate references -- teammates allegedly made jokes referencing slavery, shackles and picking cotton -- a teammate used another disgusting racially insensitive insult, calling Batts a "black piece of [expletive]." That's when Batts could take it no longer and was involved in a fight on school grounds with the teammate who hurled the insult.
"It was a buildup of anger and frustration at being singled out of the whole team," Batts told the News.
Because of school rules, Batts had to be suspended for her involvement in the fight, as was the other girl involved in the fight. She was banned for five days, though she could have been suspended for longer for her role in the altercation. That changed because she told administrators of the reasons for her frustration, and her suspension was immediately shortened while Kenmore officials investigated the claims of racism.
When they discovered that the chant had indeed been used, the school swiftly suspended at least 12 members of the team for two days a piece on the grounds that the chant was a violation of the school's code of conduct. The school board also canceled all team practices for a week, canceled a scheduled team bonding trip and scheduled a mandatory cultural sensitivity training session for the entire team. The superintendent of the Kenmore-Town of Tonawanda School District also unilaterally rescinded a league-wide sportsmanship award which had been awarded to the school in 2010.
"The insensitive chant is absolutely unacceptable, insensitive and not representative of the diverse student body within the ... school district," Mark Mondanaro, the Kenmore superintendent, told the News. "[The pregame chant was] wrong, unacceptable, unfortunate and will never, ever be tolerated."

There's little question that officials reacted swiftly when they became aware that the racist chant was being used, but that hardly mitigates the fact that it was used in the first place, and that it appears to have been for some time. Add to that the fact that only two of Batts' teammates have apologized for their use of the slur, and the teenager's father was left to openly wonder whether the program -- which is situated in a town whose population is 97 percent white -- has quietly been fostering a culture of racism for longer than anyone realized.

"This wasn't something that just developed this year," said Raymond Batts Jr., Tyra's father. "This is something that's been ongoing for quite some time."

Asian Americans most bullied in US schools: study

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WASHINGTON — Asian Americans endure far more bullying at US schools than members of other ethnic groups, with teenagers of the community three times as likely to face taunts on the Internet, new data shows.
Policymakers see a range of reasons for the harassment, including language barriers faced by some Asian American students and a spike in racial abuse following the September 11, 2001 attacks against children perceived as Muslim.
"This data is absolutely unacceptable and it must change. Our children have to be able to go to school free of fear," US Education Secretary Arne Duncan said Friday during a forum at the Center for American Progress think-tank.
The research, to be released on Saturday, found that 54 percent of Asian American teenagers said they were bullied in the classroom, sharply above the 31.3 percent of whites who reported being picked on.
The figure was 38.4 percent for African Americans and 34.3 percent for Hispanics, a government researcher involved in the data analysis told AFP. He requested anonymity because the data has not been made public.
The disparity was even more striking for cyber-bullying.
Some 62 percent of Asian Americans reported online harassment once or twice a month, compared with 18.1 percent of whites. The researcher said more study was needed on why the problem is so severe among Asian Americans.
The data comes from a 2009 survey supported by the US Justice Department and Education Department which interviewed some 6,500 students from ages 12 to 18. Asian Americans are generally defined as tracing ancestry to East Asia, the Indian subcontinent or the South Pacific.
Officials plan to announce the data during an event in New York on bullying as part of President Barack Obama's White House Initiative on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders.
New Jersey parent Shehnaz Abdeljaber, who will speak at the event, said she was shocked when she saw her son's middle school yearbook in which not only classmates but also a teacher wrote comments suggesting he was a terrorist.
Abdeljaber soon learned that her son had endured similar remarks at a younger age but had kept silent. She complained to the school principal but has since pushed for workshops on bullying that involve teachers and students.
"We need a more creative approach and more interaction with the youth, empowering them to do something rather than just going through the framework of authority," she said.
The Obama administration has put a priority on fighting bullying. In March, the president joined Facebook for an online anti-bullying conference, where he warned that social media was making the problem worse for many children.
Duncan, the education secretary, warned that bullying had serious effects as it can lead to mental and physical health problems including dependence on drugs or alcohol.
Duncan also voiced concern about high rates of bullying at schools against gay and lesbians, an issue that has come into greater focus since a spate of suicides last year among gay teens who were harassed.
"We're seeing folks who somehow seem a little different from the norm bearing the brunt," Duncan said.
"We're trying to shine a huge spotlight on this," he said.
A number of Asian countries have also wrestled with bullying.
Japan stepped up measures in 2006 after at least four youngsters killed themselves in a matter of days and the education minister said he had received an anonymous letter from a bullied student who was contemplating suicide.

Bronx white supremacist principal fired

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A Bronx parochial school principal was fired Tuesday from his post at a largely minority school after the Daily News exposed his writings for a white supremacist group.

The dismissal of Frank Borzellieri from Our Lady of Mount Carmel School in the Bronx became a black and white issue: His opinions were deemed "incompatible" with Catholic teachings.

The firing was quickly hailed by the ex-principal's critics, including his old boss at another Catholic school.

"I'm so glad I just can't tell you," said Annemarie Zagaglia, former principal at St. Barnabas elementary school. "People are really happy."

Zagaglia had warned the pastor at Mount Carmel about Borzellieri's beliefs before he was hired in 2009 - but says she was ignored. The school's students are mostly black and Latino.

The Rev. Eric Rapaglia, pastor at the church, apologized to his parishioners for "my mistake in judgment." The pastor fired Borzellieri after consulting with authorities in the Archdiocese of New York.

Archdiocese spokesman Joe Zwilling said officials met with Borzellieri and reviewed "his opinions and beliefs as expressed in his books and columns."

Daniel Dromm, an openly gay teacher targeted by Borzellieri in the early '90s, praised the decision to boot the principal.

"I'm very glad that the Catholic Church did the right thing," said Dromm.

"The fact that this man was allowed to be in this position even after other teachers complained is outrageous."

Borzellieri, 48, bolted from his Queens apartment around 7 a.m. Tuesday after learning about the firing. A neighbor said he was well-regarded in their building.

"He's a very nice guy," the neighbor said. "He's friendly with everyone in the building. Everyone's shocked."

The News revealed that as a Queens school board member, Borzellieri tried to bar "anti-American" literature - including a biography of civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. - from school libraries.

His own writings included a 2004 book asserting "diversity is a weakness," and Borzellieri was a frequent contributor to the white supremacist publication American Renaissance.

Word of Borzellieri's racist ties caused a ruckus at the parish's Sunday Mass, where one parishioner stood to demand the principal's ouster.

White supremacist principal running Bronx school with majority black and Latino students

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A firebrand educator with ties to a white supremacist group is running a Bronx Catholic school where most of the students are black and Latino, the Daily News has learned.

Frank Borzellieri, 48, was quietly promoted to principal of Our Lady of Mount Carmel School two years ago - despite a history of controversial writings and campaigns, including a push to ban a biography on the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

In 2004, Borzellieri wrote the book "Don't Take It Personally: Race, Immigration, Crime and Other Heresies," in which he declares "diversity is a weakness" and says the rising black and Hispanic populations in America will lead to the "New Dark Age."

He has also written frequently for the white supremacist publication American Renaissance, with which he is still "intimately involved," the non-profit Southern Poverty Law Center says.

Borzellieri declined comment.

Mount Carmel pastor, the Rev. Eric Rapaglia, said he knew of Borzellieri's views, but didn't "see any cause for concern" when he hired him to run the 200-student elementary school.

"I knew of him from my last parish," he said. "Do I agree with all of it? No. But I think much of it is valuable and logical and reasonable.

"A lot of his ideas would actually benefit minorities," he added.

Borzellieri, who unsuccessfully ran for state Assembly in 1994 and City Council in 1997, previously made headlines as a school board member in District 24 in Queens, where he lives.

During his board tenure, from 1993 to 2002, he tried to:


Ban literature he labeled "anti-American" from school libraries. His targets included books on different races and culture, and a biography of King.


Remove an openly gay teacher and gay-rights activist from the classroom at Public School 199 in Sunnyside, and ban school employees from making any references to homosexuality.


Introduce a resolution calling for students to be taught that U.S. culture is superior.

Borzellieri's views rankled teachers at St. Barnabas School in Woodlawn, Bronx, where he taught English from 2006 to 2009.

"You can't have someone with those beliefs or who writes that kind of stuff working at a Catholic school," said Annemarie Zagaglia, principal of St. Barnabas School during Borzellieri's time there.

When Rapaglia was the pastor of St. Barnabas, Zagaglia warned him that teachers had legitimate concerns about Borzellieri. She said Rapaglia "dismissed the whole thing, and that was the end of that."

Rapaglia became pastor of Mount Carmel - in Fordham, Bronx - in 2009 and hired Borzellieri as principal that year.

A former teacher at St. Barnabas said she alerted the Archdiocese of New York in 2007 that students had complained Borzellieri was using them as "research" for his books, but the teacher never got a response.

Archdiocese spokesman Joe Zwilling said there is no record of a complaint against Borzellieri, but said the matter is under review.

Zwilling added that sweeping changes in hiring parish principals went into effect in 2009 - right after Borzellieri got the gig.

"Previously, pastors had great leeway and discretion in the hiring of principals," Zwilling said. "That practice usually worked well, but we saw room for improvement."

Parents of students at Mount Carmel voiced concern after the Daily News informed them of Borzellieri's past.

"I've heard kids say they don't like him," said one mother, a Jamaican immigrant. "I was wondering where the heck he came from. He shouldn't be teaching here. He could look at kids differently because they're black. It's not fair."
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