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Student Leaves Ham Sandwich on Lunch Table Near Muslims, Suspended for Hate Crime
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A middle school student in Lewiston, Maine is being investigated by the police for a possible hate crime after he placed a bag containing a ham sandwich on a table where Somali students eat lunch. According to the school's superintendent, Leon Levesque, the student has been suspended, and more disciplinary action could follow pending the outcome of the investigation.
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Muslims, who believe pork to be unclean and highly offensive, were reminded of a man who threw a pig's head into a mosque located in Lewiston last summer. "That ham sandwich in a bag where we couldn't even see might as well have been that pig's head," said one of the traumatized Somali students, "and that cafeteria might as well have been the most religious building for Muslims in the state of Maine."
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According to Superintendent Levesque, "the school incident is being treated seriously as a hate incident." Police are currently investigating the matter alongside the Center for the Prevention of Hate Violence, who is also working with the school to create an anti-ham "response plan."
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"We've got some work to do to turn this around and bring the school community back together again." Said Levesque, "These children have got to learn that ham is not a toy, and that there are consequences for being nonchalant about where you put your sandwich."
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"Placing ham where Muslim students were eating as an awful thing," said Stephen Wessler, the executive director of the Center for Prevention of Hate Violence. "It's extraordinarily hurtful and degrading. They probably felt like they were back in Mogadishu starving and being shot at. No child, Muslim or normal, should have to endure touching a ham sandwich."
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Wessler continued, "incidents like this that involve degrading language or conduct are often said by the perpetrator as a joke. But unfortunately we don't live in a world where young children try to be funny, we live in a society in which these types of actions always escalate into violence against minorities."
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"If people think insulting Muslims with ham is okay, more degrading acts will follow. The Jews had to go through the same thing when the Nazis would force-feed them bacon; do we really want our schools to become concentration camps?"
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Added Levesque, "the incident does not reflect the moral values of the school staff and students. We need to take a look at this and review how a careless act is degrading and causes hurt to other people. All our students should feel welcome in our schools, knowing that they are safe from attacks with ham, bacon, porkchops, or any other delicious meat that comes from pigs."
PROOFS.
Um, are any of you looking at the same thing I am?
Wow. Just goes to show you were America is headed.
I'm astonished.
Three cheers for political correctness!
EDIT: For everyone who doesn't know, this is, in fact, a joke. Do not be misled by the topic's title, which clearly reads 'no joke'.
I repeat, This article is a joke.
Just clearing up any possible confusion for people whose sarcasm detectors are busted.
For all we know, the ham might have been spoiled. *rolls eyes*
Hurrah for political correctness!
No, seriously, this is awesome. Though I'm just waiting for the Humane Society to get on top of this. I mean, nobody's ever been attacked by a ham sandwich, right? This is going to encourage cruelty to ham sandwiches.
I'm glad I live a LOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG way away from Maine.
Stuff like this pisses me off.
Maybe as not as much as other stuff, but it still pisses me off.
"Placing ham where Muslim students were eating as an awful thing," said Stephen Wessler, the executive director of the Center for Prevention of Hate Violence. "It's extraordinarily hurtful and degrading. They probably felt like they were back in Mogadishu starving and being shot at. No child, Muslim or normal, should have to endure touching a ham sandwich."
I refuse to believe that isn't satire.
On the other side of the coin, this DOES seem too ridiculous. Maybe he confessed to doing it intentionally? It'd still be over the top, but less so.
So.
It was left in a brown paper bag? The students had no idea what was in it until AFTER they decided to go through this person's lunch?
Every quote more ridiculous than the last, I kept hoping and hoping the source link would be from, like, the Onion or something. Don't we have enough problems without inventing ubersensitivity issues like these?
*points you towards my post*
What Wonder said about it being a joke.
...Because if it was real, the bag would have been destroyed in a controlled explosion.
aeva please tell me you knew that this thing was an utterly sarcastic satire
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Muslims, who believe pork to be unclean and highly offensive, were reminded of a man who threw a pig's head into a mosque located in Lewiston last summer. "That ham sandwich in a bag where we couldn't even see might as well have been that pig's head," said one of the traumatized Somali students, "and that cafeteria might as well have been the most religious building for Muslims in the state of Maine."
i mean come on
still entertaining, though
it is a satire
those other news sources are just very stupid
I cant read or take anymore for fear of my head imploding.
I don't like ham. It makes me implode. Turkey, on the other hand...
Yeah. After reading the real story, it makes a lot more sense. And, even while people are really blowing it out of proportion, the parody was in bad taste. Also also, ligitimate news sources should be ashamed of themselves for reporting the parody as actual news and should issue a formal apology (it'll never happen, I know).
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Also also, ligitimate news sources should be ashamed of themselves for reporting the parody as actual news and should issue a formal apology (it'll never happen, I know).
Darn right. Like I keep saying the media is evil. They'll make sure that the publick knows how dangerous pork is. 
Hahaha oh wow, Fox reported the parody as news.
Never again will anyone be able to say Fox is a credible news source =)
It's really really sad when the article clearly has a note from the editor saying that it is a parody in big, black, bold print at the top of it. And it's in the "humor" section of the website.
Thinking about it, it really was in bad taste. What astounds me is that people reported the parody as real news - which also shows how much copying each other that news sites do.
lol
That's all I have to say about this incident: lol.
I don't see whats changed other than yet more proof FOX news is a pack a drooling idiots. It's still kids picking on other kids, why are we so crazy over ONLY stopping bullying if the kids are of different ethnicity?
~Tobe
Plus it was covered on "Fox & Friends", possibly the most vapid show on the network.
O_O
I never new that was a parody.
I'm not trusting that guy ever again.
Wow. I thought that was real.
*Waits for everybody to laugh*
...did you read the article, Aeva?
Anyway, I find it funny that the same people who believed it at first, but now know it's a joke, are the ones saying people aren't credible for believing this. o_o Just a thought.
Yes, but there's a difference in one person believing it's real and one of the largest news providers in the United States presenting it as fact on national television.
You can't even begin to compare the two.
Okay, let's clear up a few things.
The original article posted is fake. It says so right on the link. If your read that and thought it was real, you are a moron, considering it says in big letters that it is satire.
The second link to the Boston Globe's site though got me curious. For one, the Boston Globe is a respectable newspaper owned by the New York Times company, and for two, the story had the logo of the Associated Press on it, meaning it had been syndicated to every newspaper, radio and tv station in the country.
This is the way the AP works. If there's a byline at the top of the story, that means it was written by an AP staff writer, who work out of centralized bureaus in each state, meaning they tend to only cover big issues and state-wide matters. If there isn't a byline, and at the end of the story there's a tag that says something like ----- Informatino from Name of Newspaper, that means that the AP picked it up from one of its members. Most likely the article has been editted down to its bare bones.
When I saw that tag at the end of the Boston Globe story, I followwed it back to the original newspaper's website and did some poking around. Which is of course, where I found this:
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Author of fake article puzzled
By Mark LaFlamme , Staff Writer
Thursday, April 26, 2007
LEWISTON - On Monday, Nicholas Plagman was a freelance writer making five bucks for an embellished story about a ham. By Wednesday night, he was nationally known, in hot water with at least two news agencies and more than a little bewildered by the whole thing.Plagman, who lives in Atlanta, says he has no idea how Fox News picked up his story on Tuesday. In fact, he had no idea the parody about an incident in Lewiston had become national news at all, until Wednesday afternoon when he heard about it on the radio.
"I was just trying to do like they do on 'The Daily Show,'" said Plagman, 24. "I just write about stories in the news... stuff that's interesting. I didn't think it would have such a big audience."
Plagman, who is educated in biology rather than journalism, writes an occasional story for a Web site called Associated Content. Earlier this month, he found a story about a middle school student in Lewiston accused of harassing a Somali classmate by placing a ham on the table in the school cafeteria.
The incident has been labeled by some as a hate crime. To Plagman, that was just absurd enough to write about with his own blend of exaggeration. So he embellished quotes and attributed them to a school superintendent, a man who runs the Center for the Prevention of Hate Violence, and a Somali student.
Plagman defended his decision to quote real people as saying things they never uttered. It is part of the parody process, he said.
"Has anyone noticed that the first half of every quote is real?" Plagman said.
In fact, many people noticed. They noticed particularly after Fox presented Plagman's story as real news in a national broadcast on Tuesday. Other nationally broadcast radio and television news agencies ran with the story as well, and it was only after NBC called the Sun Journal to verify the story that the hoax was uncovered.
The result: A flood of nasty calls and e-mails to Lewiston High School, shame on the part of Fox, and disgust expressed by The Associated Press, the Lewiston Sun Journal and those who had been misquoted.
"I think it's unfortunate because if you look at it as a parody, it's fine," Plagman said. "From most of the feedback I've seen, people can see that it's a parody."
Lawyers for the AP are reviewing Plagman's story and will take legal action if they feel it is warranted, according to Larry Laughlin, bureau chief in Northern New England.
Plagman on Wednesday was not sure if he was in trouble or not.
"I don't know if they're looking for someone to blame, or what," he said.
He received a message from someone at Associated Content Wednesday afternoon. It was clear by the voice of the caller that the ham story was becoming a thornier issue than Plagman is used to.
"He seemed flabbergasted," Plagman said. "He seemed kind of desperate to get in touch with me."
By Wednesday night, Associated Content had put a disclaimer above Plagman's story. It stated: "This is not an actual news story. It is a parody."
Plagman was told not to discuss the situation with the press. He decided to speak with the Sun Journal after the people from Associated Content failed to call him back. It is important, he said, that people understand that humor was his only ambition when he took liberties with the nationally publicized story.
"I just write to make people laugh," he said. "I like to point out the silliness of the situation."
Plagman had no idea, even Wednesday night when he was interviewed, that Lewiston has a sizable Somali population. He had not heard that there was occasional conflict between some residents and Somali members of the community. He meant no offense to anybody when he wrote his parody, he said. As a rule, he tries to avoid insulting anyone and he eschews hot button issues.
"I'm very apolitical," Plagman said. "I don't watch the news because it's boring and depressing."
He did have his own opinions on the so-called ham incident, but he said it was not those opinions that compelled him to spoof the story. To Plagman, the idea that the student who unleashed the ham was suspended for two weeks and labeled as a racist was too preposterous to resist.
"I think he was being a jerk and he should be punished," Plagman said. "But the whole thing about the hate crime is ... pushing it."
For the most part, the feedback Plagman received after writing his less-than-factual story has been positive. Some readers of Associated Content enjoyed it and said they will read more of his work, Plagman said.
But on Wednesday, he remained baffled by the uproar the spoof had caused. The erroneous quotes were his own creation, he said, and they were meant to be amusing. But it was his belief that the story of ham inspiring such bitterness and debate was bizarre enough on its own. Such a story, he said, doesn't need much embellishing.
"I wrote my article a week or two after the story came out," he said. "I wasn't the first one to make a big deal out of it."
So, to sum things up: this is real, this is not. This explains why.
Any questions?
Obviously, being controlled exclusively by robots, the world's media is perfect...
...anyway, such has happened before. o_o
Double post, ignore or delete
Okay, I'm an idiot, happy?
I'm sure it's just satire (ooooh, smart word!), the whole issue making a mockery of itself by a group of smart jokers... and all that.
That fake news article had some great quotes. xD
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anti-ham "response plan."
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ham is not a toy
