When you come from a small place, it's always fun when your hometown gets coverage in the media. It's even more fun when the media gets things wrong. And it's simply hilarious when the racist blogosphere includes it in their doomsday predictions.
Our story begins at a Øren school in Drammen. Last year, before christmas, a fifth grade class planned the usual show, an evening event where the kids show what they've learned to their parents(singing, dancing, etc). No problems so far. However, it was decided that the santa hats was not to be worn. Instant big trouble. The national media reported it, the racist blogosphere seized it. An obvious example of liberals bending over to the demands of muslim immigrants! We need to protect our culture and the right to wear santa hats!!
The usual outcry from the racists is that journalists do shoddy work, they don't dig deep enough to discover the facts and they don't check their sources. Well, the racists failed bigtime.
Was it really a liberal imposing multiculture on innocent children? Were muslims involved? The answer is, of course, no. I don't work at the school myself, but I have colleagues and friends who work or have their children there. So, here's what actually happened:
The teacher of the class sent out an invitation to a "santa party". One of the kids in the class is a jehovas witness, and they regard such icons as satanical. So, the kids parents informed the school that they would not take part if such hats were present. The teacher then had a choice. Have the event without hats or without the kid. The latter was chosen. Why? Because building a proper learning enviroment is extremely important. Having one kid absent from such an event could disrupt that(social isolation, etc etc). As the hats were not deemed integral to the event, they were dropped. A new invitation was sent out. As is usual, one kids parents didn't get the message, so they were asked to take off the hat when they arrived. They told the media about that, and then muslims were blamed as usual.
Was the handling perfect? No. After some days, the principal told the media that it wasn't muslims behind it, it was a christian group. That's the only thing I take issue with. If the people want to be idiots, let them, there's no reason to give them information about pupils. But it can be forgiven considering the ammount of pressure she was under(reporters were outside her house etc).
The racist blogosphere, however, cared little about the facts, as long as it allowed them to attack muslims. Pathetic. Needless to say, they did not post a follow up clearing up the mistake. I have my doubts they are even aware that they were wrong, or that they care that they were wrong. As long as they can play the "muslims are destroying our culture"-card, facts don't seem to be important.
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