Quote:First of all i grew up in one of the toughest neighbourhoods in Australia and have been in some extremely dark frames of mind throughout my childhood and adolesense. I was raised by a single mother and never knew my father, im not going into detail of my teenage years and early adulthood because i choose to keep it a distant memory. I believe i could walk a mile any mans shoes. Since then i have somehow become successful and have managed to end up in a good community and my kids are/were at a good school.
That's wonderful I am glad to hear you didn't let it get you down. Likewise I know of Muslim immigrants who've grown up in the bad neighbourhoods here to become doctors, lawyers, mayors of cities etc.
I am in no way stating their perceived discrimination is a justification for these actions or for anything else. Each person is responsible for their own resilience and for rising up out of their situation to better it.
Quote:Before you go any deeper i know what goes on in middle eastern countries to well. I don't believe we should be there and dont support that
Whilst I appreciate the sentiment that's not really part of this discussion. This is about you claiming that Islam is the cause for you wanting to remove your children from their school. My position is that Islam has nothing to do at all with you wanting to remove your kids from their school, it's about there being bullying at the school, which has absolutely nothing to do with Islam at all, and in fact seems to be something endemic in Australian culture.
Whilst it doesn't excuse the behaviour of any bully, I think that if Middle Eastern immigrants here (who could be Christians as well, not all Middle Eastern immigrants are Muslims) is being a bully, it's more than likely a behaviour they've learned here than brought with them from the Middle East. again that doesn't excuse it, but in fact they're just adapting to the Australian school system, in which bullying is rife. Therefore linking it to Islam is just completely inappropriate.
Quote:As for my children being racists think again. I myself have many African, Asian and European friends and my children have grown up around them there entire lives and they often bring home friends of different nationalities. Australia is a multicultural nation.
As I said, I'm not saying they are. I don't think that I grew up as a racist either nor in an overly racist household, but at school sometimes we would use racial differences as a means to taunt others (I grew up in a very Anglo-dominated area, where foreigners were few and far between). I don't think kids are thinking racially, they're just looking for anything to taunt other kids with. If the other kid isn't fat, doesn't wear glasses, doesn't have a bowl cut, doesn't walk funny or speak funny, or have gherkin and cheese sandwiches for lunch etc. yet he's got darker skin, or sounds a bit 'woggy' then that's gonna be the only option left with which to taunt him isn't it? Again not saying your kids did that, but many kids do, even if they're not doing it for overly racist motivations.
Quote:As for the teachers, they have been confronted in an aggressive manner to stop teaching things that naturally get taught in Australian. For example this year Christmas will not be taught and rarely mentioned. Why? Because thats what started all of this in the beginning. There will be no end of year carols or anything like that.
Well Australia is a secular state, and we all pay taxes, which fund government schools. Why should my taxes go to teach kids about a certain religion in a public school? If you wanna have your kids taught Christmas and other Christian festivities, then by all means send them to a Christian school, just as I can send my kids to an Islamic school if I want them taught about Eid, Hajj & Ramadan. I do not expect a state school to teach them these things, and I don't think it's appropriate in a secular state to do so either. Australia is changing (nay! has changed), and you need to come to grips with this.