"Kick-A-Jew Day" - where are we, Nazi Germany or Florida USA?

[stusegal]

Well this is upsetting. Interesting little video about "Kick A Jew" day at a school in Naples, Florida. Naples, Florida!!

I'm sure you'll find the below video as unbelievable as I did, so this is a link to an independent article in the Naples News that confirms this disgusting behavior and the lukewarm reaction of school officials in Naples, FL.

Am I the only one who has the feeling that if it were "Kick The Ethnic Group To Which Barack Obama Belongs Day", these little bigots wouldn't have got off with a slap on the wrist?

Comments

[stephenhsegal.livejournal.com]

Perhaps you will recall Stacy's dumbfounded adult realization that her middle school in Pennsylvania was actually permitted to have an annual "Slave Day"?

Anyway: I had a sinking feeling when I heard this that these kids were inspired by something on "South Park," which is kind of like "All in the Family" in that Archie's behavior was supposed to be appalling but lots of less sophisticated viewers just saw him as a good straight-shooting American. And yeah, it looks like this is in fact the case:

In South Park’s “Kick a Ginger Day” show, foul-mouthed Eric Cartman spreads the word at school that red-haired kids, or “gingers,” are genetically defective, evil, and out to get non-ginger students. But when classmates dye Cartman’s hair red as he sleeps, he rallies other red-haired students with chants of “Red power!” Only after inciting the red-haired kids to round up non-gingers for “extermination” does he learn that he’s been the victim of a prank. At the show’s conclusion, all the students sing about brotherhood.

Intended to be satirical, the show played off virally-spread events aimed at Jews, homosexuals and other minorities. But satire can be lost on the young. On Monday, two 12-year-olds and a 13-year-old in Los Angeles were arrested for bullying fellow red-headed students physically and over the Internet after they saw the episode and Facebook page.

The “South Park” episode, first shown in 2005, was itself supposed to be a lesson in tolerance but misfired, with harassment of red-haired students taking place at schools across the U.S. and Canada over the past few years. The show is rated for “mature audiences only,” which means that it may have content “unsuitable for children under 17,” according to Federal Communications Commission guidelines.

So: probably not so much actual anti-Semitism as stupid kids finding stupid reasons to act like stupid assholes. Which, of course, doesn't make it any more palatable.

[alanashinean.livejournal.com]

That's really disgraceful. And I don't have the slightest clue why this is acceptable in any form to anyone.