what you know about islam really ?

I see a world of decent, honorable men and women who are Muslims, who are hostage to the hateful, violent and extravagant rhetoric of some Imams and other Muslim demagogues.

I have a basic academic understanding of Islam. I know a couple of Muslims, one from Turkey, the other a recent convert to the faith (and and very interesting person). The people I know seem to me to live day to day lives that aren't different than the moderately religious Christians or Jews I know.

I view Islam the same way I view any other religion.

I have a management role in a UK school. I see Muslim boys with cavalier attitudes to females, and lacking an academic "work ethic" relative to their female relations. I see Muslim girls having integration problems regarding participation in sports, music and artwork. I see whole families taking their children out of school during term time for whole months to visit their relations "back home".

No doubt other groups like orthodox Jews display a couple of these aspects but they do not seem seek residence in democratic counties for predominantly economic reasons.

These are typical problems relating to any immigrant minority. Hopefully as a school administrator you are taking your responsibility to the needs of these students seriously.

A community that has trouble accepting diversity is going to present more challenges and problems to the children who are growing up in it. Our schools in my very diverse city do a great job with considering and meeting these needs.

Nice way to put it.

I disagree with your use of the word "typical" for which I am tempted to substitute "idiosyncratic". When the OP asks "what I know" or "what I see", in 30 years, I have not seen this conjunction of persistent issues in connection with any other minority group. The fact that "Islamic Terrorism" has shown to be "home grown" in the UK has been linked by some to these issues, but I have no intention of pursuing that argument.

Bull Fresco,

What you apparently feel about Muslims is the exactly that people have felt about many minority groups. It is the same thing being said about Hispanics in the US and the same thing that were said about Jews and African-Americans.

We have a fair number of students who are recent Muslim immigrants in our community. We don't have a problem accepting them and our schools don't have a problem educating them.

You have a responsibility to these children. It would be a shame if prejudice got in the way of meeting the needs of students.

You're the one peddling bullshit. I know of no one who has made such specific allegations as Fresco is making with regard to Jews and African-Americans.

I think "Lacking Work Ethic" and "Cavalier attitude toward women" is pretty standard racial stereotype fare.

I don't know of anyone who has ever accused the Jews of lacking a work ethic, and i don't know of anyone who has ever alleged that Jews and African-Americans take their children out of school for months at a time to visit relations back home.

Islam is a religion, not a race. Criticizing Muslims is not racism. I see you displaying a knee-jerk liberal attitude toward anyone who criticizes Muslims. Your claims are ridiculous and you don't have a rhetorical leg to stand on.

"Prejudice" implies forming opinions without of evidence. The evidence for extended absence is objective, as is the academic achievement records of Muslim boys versus girls. I can guarantee that my own school makes every effort to counter these ongoing issues since the student is the "client" not the cultural group. But where chauvinist theocracy tends to prevail over egalitarian democracy, integrationists are going to have their work cut out.

I view Islam the same as I view any other religion. If someone made these comments about Jewish students or Catholic students, what would the reaction be?

Disparaging Muslims is now acceptable in a way that is not accepted any more for Jews or Catholics or any other religion.

I don't think it is right.

I could not disagree more.

The OP raises the issue of "Islam". By doing that he sets up a "universe of discourse" which by definition must focus on that particular religion.
By attempting to negate that focus you are basically telling the OP he was wrong to even raise "an issue". But only a fool would argue that there is no issue with "Islam" given the current nature of world events. It is a truism to say that the majority of Muslims are law abiding "good" people, but when it comes to general attitudes to the majority culture, there are other truisms which can validly be considered to be problematic. In the same sense, we can validly argue that Catholicism has exacerbated problems of over-population or AIDS in the third world, or that Zionist expansionism has undermined the moral high ground that some Jews felt they occupied, post-holocaust.
None of these arguments can be called "racist" or "prejudiced". They are merely statements of sociological truisms which we may be tempted to sweep under the carpet for "expediency".

As for attitudes to Jews and Catholics, he knows little about his own homeland. Antisemitism is and long has been a commonplace in the United States. In 1915, a defrocked Protestant minister revived the Ku Klux Klan on the occasion of the lynching of a Jew in Atlanta. He had been convicted of murdering a white girl (modern criminoligists are convinced the prosecution's "star witness" was actually the murderer) and was dragged from the jail and hung. Look up Leo Frank sometime. Antisemitism did not end in 1915, either. It is alive and well today.

At the end of the 19th century, the lily white movement was common throughout the United States. They were anti-Catholic ("lily," meaning Protestant) and anti-black. That has not ended. Millions, perhaps even tens of millions of fundamentalists in the United States deny that Catholics are Christians. None of these prejudices have gone away, none of them are uncommon, and none of them are all that rare. Many, many people claim that Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons are not Christians, and that includes intelligent, well-educated people who post at this site. I've never seen anything like the virulence of those sho attack Jehovah's Witnesses except for the antisemites. Max is living in La-la Land.

How is the anti-Jewish and anti-Catholic prejudice you describe different than the prejudice experienced by Muslims? People in the majority culture have disparaged all of these minority religion/ethnic groups.

I view Islam the same way I view other religions. It is a fallacy (and a dangerous one) that the experience of Muslim immigrants in the US (and the West in general) is substantially different than these other immigrant groups. And it is a fallacy to suggest that the reaction of the majority culture is different.

First, it is a straw man to allege that i've suggested the reaction of majority cultures is different. Apparently, you don't pay attention to what you write yourself. You claimed that people accept prejudice against Muslims, but would not tolerate similar prejudices being expressed toward Jews or Catholics--and that's bullshit. It also a straw man to allege that i've suggested that the experience of Muslim immigrants is substantially different than the experience of other immigrant groups. I've no more said that than that i said the reaction of a majority culture is different. I guess it's easier for you to make your argument if you allege things i've said--which i haven't said--against which you are prepared to argue.

How Muslim immigrants are treated in the U.S. and the west in general is not at issue here. Fresco was talking specifically about his experience in the educational system in England. I don't know whether or not what he is saying is true--but it doesn't matter, because what i am objecting to is how you flew off the handle and started calling him racist, and then alleging that the things he has said have been said of Jews and African-Americans. Both of those claims are false. Once again, Islam is a religion--Muslims aren't a race or an ethnic group. Once again, i know of no one who has ever alleged that Jews lack a work ethic, or that Jews and African-Americans absent their children from the educational system for long periods of time while the visit back home.

It sure is easy to make an hysterical argument if one is not wedded either to the remarks which have gone before, nor what one's interlocutor has actually written

State the evidence for your "fallacy". In the UK press you will find the following.

And note the significance of the phrase "visiting back home".

Aren't Jews "white"? To an outside observer the racial classification system in the US looks decidedly arcane... well, the fact that it exists at all is quite a shock.