Earlier this month, a Catholic school in Birmingham UK called the police, reporting a seven-year-old Muslim boy for bringing a bullet to school. In actuality, the bullet was a simple brass cylinder the he reportedly told his classmates was a bullet for a rifle. The boy was described as “very distressed and intimidated” when police showed up at his home to interrogate him. The behavior of the school prompts the question of whether or not this was a blatant act of discrimination.
Neither the boy nor his mother have been named in this story. The account of the incident made its way to the press via an Islamophobia watch group called Tell MAMA. MAMA stands for Measuring Anti-Muslim Attacks. The group gives people the ability to submit complaints and reports of incidents through social media. The boy’s mother told the group, “It is ridiculous that no one used any common sense and that it was ever taken any further by both the school and police.” She stated that she was “angry about the way the matter escalated.” She believes that her son has been traumatized by the experience and has left him “mistrusting his teachers after they told him it would be a matter to discuss only with parents.”
The boy’s mother refused to allow police to speak with him. She also made it very clear as to why the incident occurred at all. “I don’t think the school would have escalated it if we were not Muslim. It was almost as though we needed to prove our innocence rather than they would need to prove that they had a reasonable basis for questioning us or proving our guilt.” It’s clear that Islamophobia is alive and well in the UK, and has thrown such a wide net of suspicion that it ensnares even the most innocent among us.
St. Edwards Catholic School responded with a denial of the obvious. “As a Catholic school, all our children are treated equally and we pride ourselves on the diversity of our pupil intake and community.” A spokesperson from the school told the press that they would have contacted the police regardless of the person’s religion. According to their version of events, the police were notified simply because a student brought a bullet to school. The school further commented, stating that the item was in fact examined and determined not to have been a bullet and that discovering such, no further action was taken. The boy’s mother stated that she doesn’t ‘want’ to sue the school, but she does feel that the issue needs to be addressed.
“They can’t deal with Muslim children in a different way from anybody else and they can’t bypass parents,” she said.
Sources: Tell MAMAuk, The Guardian.
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