West African kids in New York beaten, and bullied because of Ebola

Forum Gawd Tue Oct 28, 2014 4:57 pm

http://news.yahoo.com/ebola-discrimination-senegal-kids-nyc-bronx-105520236.html

In a sign that Ebola fears in the U.S. are far from dissipating, two schoolchildren from Senegal were allegedly beaten up at a school in New York City last week by classmates who called them "Ebola."
According to Ousame Drame, his sons, aged 11 and 13, were attacked during lunch on Friday at I.S. 318 Elementary/Intermediate School in the Bronx by a group of about 15 students. The students began taunting the 11-year-old when his older brother intervened, Drame said. The brothers were kicked and punched for about 15 minutes before a school safety officer stopped the alleged attack.
“It’s not a fight,” Drame told reporters at a press conference hosted by the African Advisory Council. “They assaulted these boys.”
Drame picked his children up at the school and brought them to a doctor, who recommended the boys be treated at a local hospital.
The New York City Department of Education and NYPD say they are investigating.
"We will not tolerate intimidation or bullying of our students, especially in this moment when New Yorkers need to come together,” Schools Chancellor Carmen Farina said in a statement.
Drame, who has lived in New York for 25 years, said his sons have been stigmatized and harassed at the school since arriving from Senegal a month ago.
“If they go to play in the gym, the kids tell them ‘Don’t touch the ball. If you touch the ball we will all get Ebola,’” he said.
According to the World Health Organization, Senegal — which had just one confirmed case of the virus — has been Ebola-free since August.
The alleged bullying in the Bronx is the most extreme case of Ebola-related discrimination in the United States since the outbreak in West Africa began, but there have been plenty of others.
Earlier this month, two students from East Africa who were supposed to begin classes at a New Jersey elementary school were pulled out after Ebola-panicked parents complained.
The Maple Shade School District sent a note to parents explaining that while the children had no Ebola symptoms and were from a part of Africa that was unaffected by Ebola, they would still remain home past the 21-day quarantine period.
Two weeks ago in Mississippi, "an enormous crowd of parents pulled their children out of school" after learning that Lee Wannik, the principal of Hazlehurst Middle School, had returned to work after a trip to southern Africa.
"As soon as I got word on Facebook I came and got my (children)," one parent told WAPT-TV. "I don't know about anybody else, but I am coming to get mine."
The Ebola stigma isn't limited to elementary schools.
Syracuse University's Newhouse School of Public Communications disinvited Michel du Cille, a Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post photojournalist who had been covering Ebola in Liberia, from participating in a portfolio review at the school after a student expressed concern. This, despite the fact du Cille had been back for three weeks and had not shown any symptoms.
“It’s a disappointment to me,” du Cille said last week. “I’m pissed off and embarrassed and completely weirded out that a journalism institution that should be seeking out facts and details is basically pandering to hysteria.”

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West African kids in New York beaten, and bullied because of Ebola

West African kids in New York beaten, and bullied because of Ebola

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