School officials in Georgia are looking for a student who left a note for a Muslim teacher telling her she should hang herself with her “headscarf,” following the election of Donald Trump.
According to Tom Boggioni of Raw Story, Mairah Teli, a 24 year old language arts teacher at Dacula High in Gwinnett County, discovered the note in her classroom on Friday.
Opening it up it she found it contained two crudely drawn American flags and the message: “Your headscarf isn’t allowed anymore. Why don’t you tie it around your neck and hang yourself with it off of your neck instead of your head.”
The note was signed, “America!”
Teli believes one of her students wrote the note and she said she told her class she would be happy to speak with them if there were questions about her traditional hijab.
Teli believes the note was inspired by Tuesday’s election of GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump. Degrading and spreading lies about Islam and Muslims was an important part of Trump’s campaign, and now we are seeing the beginning of the aftermath of that hate speech by the president-elect.
“I feel children feel safe making comments that are racist or sexist because of him,” Teli said in an interview.
While school administrators are searching for the hateful bigot (this also falls into the dictionary definition of terrorist), Teli took to Facebook to thank supporters.
“I am overwhelmed and deeply touched by all of the outcry and support that I have received in the past 24 hours. I can’t even begin to articulate how touched I am to be receiving messages from all over the country with your support. I want to sincerely thank you for your kind words and well wishes. I feel your support affirms that our country is built on morals of compassion and kindness,” she wrote.
After stating the school has been fully supportive of her, she wrote to the Dacula Family, “I want to assure you that our school and Gwinnett County Public Schools are doing everything they can to ensure the safety and well being of our students and staff.”
Once again we see racist people being empowered by the bigoted speeches of president-elect Trump. Trump has not yet told any of his followers to stop these actions, which is silently supporting the wave of hate crimes that has grown since the election. It is good to see the school support freedom and try to find the bigot that has been taught religious freedom should not apply anymore in America and that Muslims should kill themselves.