“unsettling words and images associated with the event”

“unsettling words and images associated with the event”

K-12 IMPLOSION UPDATE: Concord-Carlisle ( Massachusetts) official backs 9/11 Muslim poem reading:
A Concord-Carlisle School Committee member is defending a high school principal who read a Muslim poem on Wednesday’s 9/11 anniversary — but failed to line up anyone to recite the pledge of allegiance that morning.
“I’m disappointed at the reaction that some of my community,” said School Committee member Philip Benincasa. “I think what the principal was doing was an attempt to offer young people a glimpse of what binds us together as people. This was an attack carried out by extremists, not by a religious group that is as peace loving and valued member of our community, our culture, and our world as any other.”
In response to complaints, Concord-Carlisle High School principal Peter Badalament apologized for not having a student available to read the pledge on the morning of 9/11, according to school spokesman Tom Lucey. A student who was supposed to read the pledge was at a scheduled internship and Badalament had failed to find a replacement. The poem was read later in the day, not in lieu of the pledge, Lucey said.
“We had the well-being of students at the forefront of our thinking when we chose to acknowledge 9/11 by reading a poem that focused on cross-cultural understanding rather than unsettling words and images associated with the event,” the principal’s statement read. “We greatly respect all those who died and suffered loss on 9/11, the responders who gave their lives, as well as those who have served and continue to serve our country. We remain grateful for these heroic citizens.”
The poem, “My Grandmother Washes Her Feet in the Sink of the Bathroom at Sears” by Syrian poet Mohja Kahf examines the clash of cultures that happens in a midwestern bathroom when her grandmother prepares for the “wudu,” a daily prayer ritual, awkwardly washing her feet in the bathroom sink.
- See more at: http://bostonherald.com/news_opinion/local_coverage/2013/09/concord_carlisle_official_backs_911_muslim_poem_reading#sthash.OnstGyCo.dpuf