another antisemitic vandalism incident at Walt Whitman yesterday

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I live in bethesda and really have a hard time believing this represents a larger trend in the community. I suspect it is either a couple disturbed people or someone coming in from outside the community trying to stir up trouble. I wish they’d catch the person or people as I feel like this is probably a warning sign of someone who is disturbed and will go on to more dangerous behavior like a shooting incident or hate crime.

I wish people would stop downplaying the amount of antisemitism that has reared its ugly head here in Montgomery County. Having grown up here, I can tell you that I don't remember these types of incidents with any regularity. In fact, growing up Jewish in Montgomery County was pretty comfortable since we have a large Jewish population. What's going on today is becoming alarming. Just a few weeks ago I believe someone painted gallows and swastika's on the Bethesda Trolley trail. They have found swastika's at Montgomery Mall in the past week. My sister even received a very odd mailing at her Bethesda home with twisted facts about Jews recently. No doubt whoever is doing these things is disturbed but it seems to also be representative of something in our culture that people want to normalize these incidents. They aren't normal, they are very scary and we could be going down a very slippery and dangerous slope.

This isn't completely new to the area. I grew up in in Rockville, and both my elementary school and high school were vandalized with antisemitic graffiti in the 1980s (high school was the year before I started there, elementary school was when I was a student).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:And now this:

https://twitter.com/bdubbsonline/status/1604511608646025219?cxt=HHwWhoCy9dKzr8QsAAAA

Hate incidents are all too common at the W's. With incidents including kids in blackface or n* word cards, it's no surprise, but this seems to stem from the lack of diversity at these schools compared to the rest of the county.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And now this:

https://twitter.com/bdubbsonline/status/1604511608646025219?cxt=HHwWhoCy9dKzr8QsAAAA

Hate incidents are all too common at the W's. With incidents including kids in blackface or n* word cards, it's no surprise, but this seems to stem from the lack of diversity at these schools compared to the rest of the county.

Or perhaps they just engender more publicity at Ws.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And now this:

https://twitter.com/bdubbsonline/status/1604511608646025219?cxt=HHwWhoCy9dKzr8QsAAAA

Hate incidents are all too common at the W's. With incidents including kids in blackface or n* word cards, it's no surprise, but this seems to stem from the lack of diversity at these schools compared to the rest of the county.

Or perhaps they just engender more publicity at Ws.

Or perhaps some parents look for ways to excuse it more and nothing ever improves because of it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And now this:

https://twitter.com/bdubbsonline/status/1604511608646025219?cxt=HHwWhoCy9dKzr8QsAAAA

Hate incidents are all too common at the W's. With incidents including kids in blackface or n* word cards, it's no surprise, but this seems to stem from the lack of diversity at these schools compared to the rest of the county.

Yes, but there's definitely a higher Jewish population at those schools compared to the county as a whole, so it's not a lack of diversity that's the root cause of antisemitic incidents there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And now this:

https://twitter.com/bdubbsonline/status/1604511608646025219?cxt=HHwWhoCy9dKzr8QsAAAA

Hate incidents are all too common at the W's. With incidents including kids in blackface or n* word cards, it's no surprise, but this seems to stem from the lack of diversity at these schools compared to the rest of the county.

Yeah, Whitman is only 33% non-white:

https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/regulatoryaccountability/glance/currentyear/schools/04427.pdf

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And now this:

https://twitter.com/bdubbsonline/status/1604511608646025219?cxt=HHwWhoCy9dKzr8QsAAAA

Hate incidents are all too common at the W's. With incidents including kids in blackface or n* word cards, it's no surprise, but this seems to stem from the lack of diversity at these schools compared to the rest of the county.

Yes, but there's definitely a higher Jewish population at those schools compared to the county as a whole, so it's not a lack of diversity that's the root cause of antisemitic incidents there.

+1 I'm usually the first to highlight the impact of residential and educational segregation on kids' understanding of the world, I don't think this is relevant. MCPS doesn't track religious demographics by cluster, but Whitman has among the highest representation in the county. In this case, antisemitism is absolutely the issue, but not antisemitism based on not knowing any Jews.

[Anonymous]

Horrible. Isn’t Walt Whitman predominantly Jewish?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Horrible. Isn’t Walt Whitman predominantly Jewish?

Not even close. Maybe 10 percent Jewish.

[Anonymous]

I have to be honest, I'm not sure if I was more depressed by the vandalism itself or the claim by PPs that DEI education caused it.

But last night on the way home I heard this story, and not to be Pollyanna, but it brought some tears to my eyes: https://www.npr.org/transcripts/1144230135

If the culprits are indeed students, their punishment should include putting in some time on this project.

[Anonymous]

Please remember just how white Poolesville is and how long bus rides are destroying our children.

KTHXBYE.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And now this:

https://twitter.com/bdubbsonline/status/1604511608646025219?cxt=HHwWhoCy9dKzr8QsAAAA

Hate incidents are all too common at the W's. With incidents including kids in blackface or n* word cards, it's no surprise, but this seems to stem from the lack of diversity at these schools compared to the rest of the county.

Yah slurs are never used in the east county Or maybe it is just so commonplace as not to make news compared to the once and a blue moon at the Ws. Go to a school in the DCC and tell the low-income Latino kids they can't use the N word anymore... good luck with that. But its ok right because even though its thrown around thousands of times a day in those environments, it isn't coming from a stupid well off white kid? Care to guess what the graffiti says at Kennedy HS in the boys bathroom? Einstine or Blair? Do you think the reaction would be the same when it happens at the Ws.

[Anonymous]

As the parent of Jewish kids and the descendant of Holocaust survivors, it means a lot to me to see mcps schools name antisemitism and to see so many in my community speak out against it. Often I think Jewish kids feel like they just have to deal with that stuff because they have the privilege of being (at least in my own kids’ case) White. Thank you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And now this:

https://twitter.com/bdubbsonline/status/1604511608646025219?cxt=HHwWhoCy9dKzr8QsAAAA

Hate incidents are all too common at the W's. With incidents including kids in blackface or n* word cards, it's no surprise, but this seems to stem from the lack of diversity at these schools compared to the rest of the county.

Yah slurs are never used in the east county Or maybe it is just so commonplace as not to make news compared to the once and a blue moon at the Ws. Go to a school in the DCC and tell the low-income Latino kids they can't use the N word anymore... good luck with that. But its ok right because even though its thrown around thousands of times a day in those environments, it isn't coming from a stupid well off white kid? Care to guess what the graffiti says at Kennedy HS in the boys bathroom? Einstine or Blair? Do you think the reaction would be the same when it happens at the Ws.

This. people overlay their societal bitterness on kids and then nitpick to fit the narrative. Kids are universally oblivious and or stupid so the chance of actual disproportionate stupid stuff is really 0 so what is different is the attention and the fake outrage. This isn't mentioning the hypocrisy of labeling all W rids rich racists and screaming bloody murder when people insinuate that east county school are all poor gang members.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And now this:

https://twitter.com/bdubbsonline/status/1604511608646025219?cxt=HHwWhoCy9dKzr8QsAAAA

Hate incidents are all too common at the W's. With incidents including kids in blackface or n* word cards, it's no surprise, but this seems to stem from the lack of diversity at these schools compared to the rest of the county.

At the more diverse schools, kids seem more understanding of others, unlike the segregated schools. This seems to happen constantly at the W's. Just search this forum and you'll another incident like this every couple of months at one of the W's. Sure, it's easy for some parents to pretend this goes on everywhere, but it doesn't. Incidents like this make the news.