Hit A Jew Day
Several students at Parkway West Middle School in suburban St. Louis are facing suspension for inventing "Hit A Jew Day," during which they smacked Jewish students.
District officials said Thursday they believe that fewer than 10 children of the district's 35 Jewish students were struck."Mo. students face punishment for 'Hit a Jew Day'" (Thanks, Gil Kaufman!)
District spokesman Paul Tandy said that in most cases, the students were hit on the back of their shoulders but one student was slapped in the face.
It began with an unofficial "Spirit Week" among sixth-graders that started harmlessly enough with a "Hug a Friend Day." Then there was "High Five Day."
Soon, though, the days moved from friendly to silly. Next there was "Hit a Tall Person Day" and, finally, "Hit a Jew Day."
the latest
latest episodes
"from friendly to silly"
::head tilt::
Seriously, every time I read that sentence, my head tilts to the side in confusion.
Oh. I thought that was 'hit' as in, "I'd hit that."
I can't keep up with the kids anymore and their lingo. I think I need a nap.
I always suspected the fascist undertones of Spirit Week myself.
If it was "hit on a Jew day," then I probably unintentionally participated in their spirit week as well!
Trey and Matt must be very proud.
Looks like it's time for Ground a Sixth Grader Month!
#6 wins the thread
Wait.
Why the hell does the school district know or care the exact number of Jewish students?
Speaking as a tall Jewish person, I would like to announce that I plan to observe every day as Hit An Asshole Who Hits You Back Day.
I think #5 is pretty close to the truth. Satire of antisemitism is so pervasive in popular culture and, lets face it, literary education is not that great in the U.S. Its honestly no surprise that these types of jokes get co-opted by kids who don't understand what satire really is. Instead of "haha this is funny because its so wrong" it becomes "jew jokes are just funny."
Jew jokes, when serious, are obviously not okay, but satire of bigotry is encouraged and applauded. This is a mixed message for anyone who isn't fully capable of understanding satire, that is further muddied when issues of free speech are brought up.
I watched this happen at my elementary school and there weren't even any Jewish students. Its not pure satire, but its also not real bigotry. Its a strange grey area, and I think says a lot about how my generation and younger generations misinterpreted and regurgitate mass media.
There's no easy answer to this problem. Yea the students will be punished, but they probably won't fully understand why they're being punished.
Why was their outrage about / punishment for hitting Jewish kids, but not for hitting tall kids?
This is pure racism...
Those tall people need to be looked after too!
MWSchmeer, you win teh internetz!
This is why I find things like South Park so distasteful. Kids don't get sarcasm, and satire is a form of sarcasm. Even teenagers have trouble with it sometimes.
As the father of four teenagers, I can assure you that teenagers get sarcasm.
Sixth-graders, not so much.
Xopher, South Park is not a show intended for a young audience, despite the medium of animation. And "but of course children are going to see it anyway" is not a good enough argument for making the entire world child-proof.
These children were exposed to a joke they were not experienced enough to understand. Nothing new there...
Can I just point out that South Park is rated TV-MA? As in, kids/teenagers aren't supposed to be watching it, thus, no problem with not understanding the satire. Chalk another one up for clueless parents.
@#10 POSTED BY CHRIS L:
I don't think there's a grey area, but the key is very blunt. Here's the deal, when non-comedians tell a "joke", it often reflects what they really feel on some level. And most professional comedians know that the best joke has its premise rooted in some truth.
So the deal is there really are no "jokes", but it's all based on some truth. In a hackish attempt at comedy, the ham-fisted truth comes out. From a pro-comedian, a more eloquent truth comes out.
So yeah, you're right. But it's not just with Jews. Look at Dave Chappelle pulling the plug on his Comedy Central show. People were taking his work the wrong way and he was basically sick of it. And personally, the amount of people I have met who used Chappelle jokes as ways to express their own racism was pretty sick.
Hope these kids learn something.
@#15 POSTED BY DEEPEYES:
@#16 POSTED BY MRQUIZZICAL:
You two crack me up! Anyone who thinks kids are not watching South Park has had some powerful Kool Aid. Yeah, legally it's for adults. But guess what?
We could also discuss how Grand Theft Auto is marketed to kids.
Or how Joe Camel was not made to appeal to old fogey's.
Hmmm... Hit a Jew day.
Very catchy, but I just don't think it will catch on in Yonkers, or the jewellery industry, or Hollywood, etc...
;-P
All the kids I know who watch TV regularly (some of the kids don't, believe it or not) have watched South Park.
And the effect is not, unfortunately, limited to children. Some adults are kind of dumb that way too.
#9 Anonymous:
When the assholes hit you back, it doesn't mean you should hit them again...
You guys are doing a great job steering clear of Godwin's law.
It's not just kids who don't get satire -- most adults have trouble with it. Like fundamentalists and the Written Word, they take satire literally. And forget metaphor. This is why psychologists use projective tests. They don't ask how do YOU feel? But rather, they show a picture, tell a story, play with a doll and ask you how you think the key figure feels. Unknowingly, most will describe their own feelings because it's too difficult to identify those feelings as one's own. Satire is too ambiguous and most people can't handle ambiguity -- hence, the popularity of fundamentalism (read anti-semitism). Lots of folks prefer having someone else make decisions for them -- particularly the serious ones, like right from wrong, who to vote for, what Jesus really meant. As a comedian recently said: Even Christ wore a bracelet that said "What would Jesus do?" Punishment rarely achieves desired results, besides revenge. The kids who participated in "Hit a Jew Day," and all other children in the school, need to be educated. Wouldn't be wonderful and informed if the school administration would invite behavioral experts, specializing in discrimination, into the school and allow them to work with the teachers in adding racial/discrimination lessons into numerous curriculum subjects? But I'm afraid that the facts reported in news stores of the incident suggest that administrators, teachers and parents at this school cooperated, if not directly then indirectly,in the event. Meaning their own mental states and beliefs surely influenced the children. Hopefully other school administrators, teachers and parents across the country will do more than shake their heads when reading about this and actually take some action to help ensure that it does not happen at their schools, with their children.
Sharon McEachern
But South Park was satirized on, of all places, PBSs kids show _Arthur_.
Why, if not that the kids know it.
The media is so slanted. See, what they didn't tell you is that the prior day was Hit a Methodist Day.
having grown up in the parkway school district, i can tell you that they are far more concerned with searching students' lockers and weeding out the 'bad eggs' (re: hippie libruls) then in enlightening the students. and the 'spirit week' crap gets extremely intense. they crammed that excrement down our throats! also, there is a very large jewish population in that area, and i'm a little surprised that they didn't rise up and fight the redneck power! very odd school district. that being said, one taste of the florida public education system had me begging to go back!
@6 Before I laugh, I want to make sure your use of the word "ground" is as in "ground beef".
keep it. And institute "kick a christian day" and "slap a muslim day" as well. Along with "stomp a sikh" and "noogie a hindu" days as well.
Don't forget the longstanding, traditional theme day in Hawaii public schools:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kill_A_Haole_Day
Here in NYC things like this get kids a criminal record.
Jack @17 - you can't apply that logic to 6th graders.
All they know is they saw everyone laughed at it sometime so it must be funny. A joke made by adults and with a cultural wink and nod to grownups was funny on south park, even if the 6th grader didn't understand exactly why.
It's a rare 12-14 year old who understands the context in which a racist joke is funny, nor that some people find them so deeply unfunny. It's a time of learning, not mastery.
Ahh, I remember that day... especially that exhausted moment when I realized that I could hit back all I wanted, but that it wasn't getting me anywhere.
@27: Interpret at will.
In my high school (where I was one of maybe 5 Jews out of about 1200 students) there were some guys who used to joke with me about playing "Beat the Jew." This was long before South Park.
IIRC, the "game" usually began when I'd come up to say hi. Someone would yell out "Beat the Jew!" and pretend to start beating up one of the other guys (who would pretend to be beaten). I don't think they ever hit me or even pretended to hit me. If they did, it obviously didn't bother me much as the only negative feelings I recall are the "guys, that's not really very funny" thoughts that ran through my head at the time (I'm not sure if I ever said anything).
I knew these guys pretty well (I'm still friends on Facebook with at least one of them) and I don't believe they had any sort of real anti-semitic intent or hate for Jews. I thought then (and still think now) that they were simply being immature teenagers and happened to choose that particularly un-PC way of giving me a hard time for being different. They could have yelled "Beat the redhead" or "Beat the tall kid" but "Beat the Jew" presumably had a snappier ring to it.
Likewise, I have very little doubt that "Hit a Jew Day" was intended to be a silly and slightly outrageous joke, not a manifestation of hate. That doesn't mean we shouldn't point out to these kids why it's in poor taste. Nor does it mean we shouldn't punish any kid who actually hit and hurt somebody else simply for being Jewish. But you have to put the immature antics of middle school children in perspective.
Life ("Hit a Jew Day") imitates art ("South Park"), which imitates life.
It's not just kids who don't get satire -- most adults have trouble with it.
Have you considered a career in online comment moderation?
I really enjoy the complicated arguments and somber statements that are being produced here...
...in response to the actions of 6th graders...
@#29 POSTED BY MDH:
Hmmm, kind of insulting to kids. As a child I knew the way "jokes" could hurt people and often got harassed and even beat up for not wanting to join in some "it's just fun" crap.
In my WASPy Jr High we had "beat on the Irish" day.
Like most kid memes it was almost pure fantasy. No one really got beaten on, Irish or otherwise.
I guess the educationally nourishing atmosphere of Jr High hasn't really changed much over the years.
@Mintphresh: I grew up in the same school district. (WEST COUNTY! REPRESENT!) Attended Parkway North Sr. High, to be precise. You're right on the money. Even in the late '80s, the emphasis was on keeping order rather than celebrating diversity. I was one of three Hispanic students in my school, and the only one who spoke Spanish or otherwise acknowledged my heritage. You can imagine the kind of crap I got once they found out my father is from Colombia. (Colombian in 1985 = coke dealer). I'm not at all surprised that this happened.
BTW, Parkway West is in Chesterfield. Not many synagogues in Chesterfield as compared to Ladue, Creve Coeur, or University City. A number of churches and one really cool Hindu temple, but not many synagogues.
"Speaking as a tall Jewish person, I would like to announce that I plan to observe every day as Hit An Asshole Who Hits You Back Day."
....Nonono, you demand equal time and hold a "Hit an Arab" day, followed by a "Make a Gentile do your Homework for you as Shabbos" day! :-P
"All the kids I know who watch TV regularly (some of the kids don't, believe it or not) have watched South Park."
...Studies have shown that those who blame Trey and Matt for the world's ills usuall suffer from terminal craniorectitis, and deserved to be give no sympathy and simply told to got to hell and die. :-P
HOLY SH!T @10 (Chris) - you fukking hit it right on the head!
i can't think of any better way to describe this problem. its a sad grey area. i think that educators are looked at as being preachy when they try to teach/inform about racism/anti-semitism.
#22, just for you ...
Ah-Hitler hitler hitler hitler
hitler hitler hitler hitler
hitler hitler hitler hitler
MUSHROOM! MUSHROOM!
Supply your own poorly drawn cartoon. :-)
I could see this as being an issue if this was at a high school, like the whole Jena Six situation; but this was involving 6th graders. I don't know about these kids, but when I was in the sixth grade, I didn't have enough life experience to have racist sympathies. These are kids, first and foremost, they did something racially insensitive that they probably didn't know was really that bad; no real need for the ACLU to get involved, done.
@ JACK
Hmmm, kind of insulting to kids. As a child I knew the way "jokes" could hurt people and often got harassed and even beat up for not wanting to join in some "it's just fun" crap.
Probably because you were actually raised by your parents. My mother made it clear that she didn't care what I'd see on TV or anywhere else: If I'd do something shitty to another, she'd do something to me. And I never found out what that something would have been, thank you very much ;)
how bout... beat the shit out of imcompetent parent day?
@Jack
"Hmmm, kind of insulting to kids."
Not sure these kids deserve better, do you?
I mean, 'hit the jew day', and you're worried about their widdle feewings?
Umm... what is wonderful about this?
@#46 POSTED BY MDH:
I'm not apologizing for them, but rather I think people dismissing bad behavior based on age is inherently patronizing. If someone is a jerk, they simply are a jerk. And if the parent's allowed this to happen they're jerks.
It's a circle of jerks I say.
IGNATZ! small freekin world! i graduated P.North in 1979. well, i woulda if i hadnt moved to fla. midway thru my senior year. talk about culture shock! i guess u would know all about that. yeah, not a real racially diverse group there at that time. went back for my 25th, and noticed a large asian contingency had moved to the area. progress, i guess. my fondest memory was streaking the swimming championships during my junior year with 4 other freaks. another time, we took all the chairs from the cafeteria and put them into the swimming pool. good times!
Umm... what is wonderful about this?
The fact that you're the one millionth commenter to ask the same tired question?
I think it is wonderful, in a sick, twisted kinda way.
"First they came for the tall people, but I did not speak out, for as a Jew, I'm really, really short."
It should be all kosher as long as there's a hit a protestant day and hit a blonde day and hit a 8th grader day etc. It's the exclusion which makes this somewhat loaded. Everyone deserves their hit a $stereotype day.
Then everyone will know what it feels like to be hit, and everyone will know what it feels to hit someone, which is also important.
Tolerance means inclusion, not exclusion... kids!
It's funny how we freak out when kids do what adults model for them. And, for the south park references... I think understanding humor as fiction is way better than censoring it. Don't you want your kids to be able to tell the difference and know when a joke is a joke?
Where's Tenn? She needs to weigh in on this.
@15: Kids ought to be educated about the difference between cartoon characters on tv and real life. Fiery farts and f*cking uncles is fiction. My stepson was singing that song cheerfully but no uncles were ever attacked.
The real issue I see here is the wide adoption of violence and inflicting pain as a source of entertainment.
Which of course is a result of parenting using violence and manipulation as dominant tools.
Check this out for some insight on child rearing and the results of violent upbringing:
http://www.naturalchild.com/alice_miller/never_right.html
"District officials said Thursday they believe that fewer than 10 children of the district's 35 Jewish students were struck. "
Oh thank Yaweh for that..... somewhat missing the FUCKING POINT though.
I think the real lesson to be learned here is that parents need to bother to learn how to use their TV's damned v-chip.
Though usuallly, when presented with such a response to how they could prevent their kids from seeing things they don't want to be seen, the retort is "effort?! DO IT FOR ME DAMNIT!"
Ignatz, MintPhresh, et. al, I hereby out myself: a non-white (one of maybe 10 in a class of >300) grad of Parkway North, 198X. I benefited from great, even gifted teachers there, but oh man the atmosphere in that place was 110% surreal. I don't think I'm misremembering just how truly surreal it was because of the brain v. puberty thing either.
The scene of this incident discussed in this thread is in St. Louis County (not the City of St. Louis--different in more ways than I could begin to quantify). St. Louis County is comprised of ~100 municipalities and each is a peculiar burbclave unto itself, complete with unarticulated rules like which ones are ok for Jews to live in, African-Americans to live in, etc. In St. L County, folks really do not Mix It Up. Realtors in St. Louis have a perverse and lengthy history of redlining, which doesn't help on the diversity front either.
As a kid growing up in "West County" I could never fathom why so many of my [white, Anglo] classmates were so sure of themselves about so damn much. Maybe it was something that Monsanto or McDonnell-Douglas or Boeing put in their water. Later on I found out the applicable phrase was "sense of entitlement." I saw with my own eyes how that sense was learned early and reinforced often by nearly every authority [white, Anglo btw] we schoolkids would ordinarily deal with.
As a parent, I see a huge difference between, say, showing my kid a YouTube clip of Monty Python guys slapping each other with dead fish and laughing, and fostering a kid's mentality that thinks the Hit Someone-Different-Than-the-Dominant-Culture Day is funny. The latter's a symptom of a system failure and will doom us collectively. I dunno if the school's bizarre, contrived "Spirit Week" (ConsideredOpinion@#3: you nailed it) becomes an excuse for bad behavior, or if it's merely inconvenient and embarrassing for the parents/administrators/etc. to see their own handiwork mirrored back to them so plainly.
Spirit Week every week, every freakin' day, on our own wild terms, BoingBoinger parents! Let's take it back! Culture jam now!
parents?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vb3IMTJjzfo&feature=related
Hit a Jew day?
My old Karate master is Jewish ,too bad
he is retired cause he can hit you back
alright fatally.
When I first read this article earlier today, I was aghast, but now a question is screaming in my head about the whole thing. I'm not quite sure how to word this, but I will try.
Is there any room for hope because the kids equated tall people with Jewish people?
Did the Jewish kids know they should be more offended than the tall kids, before the adults stepped in and told them? And did the kids playing the "joke" know that they were being offensive before the adults stepped in and told them? By making such a huge deal out of it, aren't we perpetuating anti-Semitism rather than curbing it?
I would assert that anti-Semitism and/or racism is not going to be truly dead until being Jewish is no different from being tall, which is no different than having freckles or wearing glasses or having brown hair or being African American.
In their messed up, adolescent, immature way, those kids seemed to have a good start on that. Until the adults stepped in and told them otherwise, anyway.
#8 poses the most intriguing question in this entire mess. Do you think the school district has a headcount of Catholics, African Americans and tall kids, too?
sis b, i know for a fact that they DO.
See? That's the frightening part.
distribution of federal funding in larger school districts is based on demographic make-up. i can't recall the name of the report but it was part of the E.O.M.& E.O.Y. runs and required by the Dept. of Ed. It was one page per school that gave break down of students, teachers and school admin. by percentage and counts.
I guess the moral of this story is that those who haven't heard of Kristallnacht are doomed to reinvent it, stupidly.
For those interested, here are the demographics of Parkway West Middle School. More detailed information is available here, or you can just go to the school's official website and have a look-see.
wonderful: full of wonder, astonishing, etc.
ACB that moral rings true and pretty much covers everything. for years now i feel as if i've been cast in an ongoing historic recreation. so good for me that i've found the craftservices table and have my own dressing room.
astonishing...yes that works well, Astonishing!
When I was back in school for my masters I met an undergrad who had gotten roughed up for wearing a Kippah(Jew skull cap). Otherwise this was a good school so I won't mention its name. From that day on I left my baseball cap at home and found the biggest Kippah I could find and let my tztzit hang out long. Of course I was an inactive reserve officer(had been a volunteer paramedic for a SWAT team, but quit) at the time and at over 100kg somehow as much as I wanted the boogymen to give me a hassle they never showed up.
Andre in L.A. @51, I don't know about effin' uncles, but flaming farts are real, though they don't auto-ignite.
don't auto-ignite... a pretty problem,worthy of wallanceandgrommitting if I'm any judge. A sturdy pair of over-trousers, asbestos-lined of course, gas sensor and interface to pizeo sparker driven by gluteal contractions....perhaps a small klaxon to warn passer-byes.
A properly indoctrinated small child understands sarcasm and satire perfectly well. Upon this their survival depends.
I set up my account just for this thread. ^_^
St. Louis County native, and I attended Parkway West Jr. High for a year. I was the typical overweight, undersocialized nerd, with the bonus of coming from a poor family (mom bought our house in Ballwin in the '70s before prices went up). Needless to say I didn't fit in with the children of wealth & priviledge. Eventually things got so bad that, bless her heart, mom had me transferred to Parkway South.
(8th grade wasn't much better, but high school wasn't bad.)
Graduated Parkway South Sr. High in 1994 and I'm still SO glad it's over. Pre-teen/teenage children can be absolutely evil.
Meanwhile, some braying poshos at Oxford recently had a Bring a Fit Jew Night.
"braying poshos", "Blacking up"; acquired, filed, thenk-yew.
South Park has nothing to do with the kids slapping jews. Its really easy for Parents to blame T.V for problems but if they were teaching their kids the rights and wrongs there shouldn't be a problem anyway.
If South park has this kind of effect and parents don't like it maybe the parents shouldn't be letting their kids watch it in the first place.
I Grew up watching south park so did all my friends but they've never let it change their views because its just a cartoon made for humour maybe Matt Stone & Trey Parker go over the top but it is meant for humour anyone taking it seriously shouldn't be on the streets.
One more point about south park is that their is only one character in south park that actually dislikes Jews, the rest don't show any form of hatred anyway.