Well, if this isn’t the ultimate irony, I don’t know what is. The Stop the Madrassa Group (SMG), the organization responsible for the attack on the Khalil Gibran International Academy (KGIA) before it even opened, is now calling for the closing of the school on the grounds that it has become “chaotic.”

The group issued a press release yesterday calling for an “immediate investigation into chaotic conditions at Arabic Public School.” The Group is correct in stating that there is chaos at the school. What it fails to explain is that this chaos is a direct result of their spreading vicious lies, resulting in the loss of the school’s founding principal and the continued failure to support the school by the DOE.

When you read about the Jena 6, it feels like you must be reading about something that happened more than 50 years ago before the Civil Rights Movement. It's hard to believe that it is happening in 2007.

There is some good news, but the battle is not over yet.

Background Info for those of you not yet familiar with the Jena 6

The Jena 6 incident started at Jena High School when some black students sat under a tree that had been traditionally reserved the white students. The next day, nooses painted with the school colors were hung from the tree. The students responsible for hanging the nooses were expelled but the School Superintendent later reversed their expulsions referring to the noose hangings as a “prank.”

A year ago today I wrote about the suicide of Sunil Kumar Verma. Sunil was born in Bhopal, India, in 1972. On Dec. 2nd and 3rd, 1984, the negligence of Union Carbide (now part of Dow Chemicals) killed Sunil's parents and five siblings, and left him with ongoing psychological problems. Those psychological problems dogged him for twenty two years, and a year ago today, Sunil hung himself. Meanwhile, those who were responsible for the death of his family have gotten off largely scott free. This one is for Sunil.

What negligence am I talking about? Well, some of our younger readers may not know about Bhopal, one of the most disgusting moments in American corporate colonialism. It was an event that killed some 20,000 people and left over 100,000 affected. And corporate America, responsible for this disaster, has done almost nothing to clean up the mess and take responsibility. Here is a description of what happened from the International Capaign for Justice in Bhopal: