MOLI VIEW™

If I walk five blocks toward downtown Brooklyn, take a soft left, and cross twice at the light for two blocks, I find myself at the Khalil Gibran International Academy (KGIA). Yesterday was the very, very first day of school at KGIA, a New York City public school focusing on Arabic language and culture. Although the school is not so different from other NYC schools that build curriculum around a particular region or language, it is the target of intense criticism. Why? Because right-wing news networks have been pestering the public with spin. Fort Greene Courier columnist Shavana Abruzzo even dubbed it "a Brooklyn madrassa," referring to Islamic fundamentalist schools in the Middle East.

At 7:30 a.m. yesterday, a class of 56 sixth graders marched past a horde of cameras and reporters to start classes. "It was weird for the kids. The supporters had decided in advance to line the sidewalk with greetings banners and stand by to shield the kids from negative protesters," said my activist neighbor, Lisa Guido, who was there to see the kids arrive. "But I don't know how much of that actually registered with kids, who were mostly pretty wide-eyed."

When I heard her description, a few things flashed through my mind:

1. A story about running: A friend and her twin from Tanzania were adopted by an American in the '60s and learned to run fast to beat bullies who chased them home after school. In Boston where they grew up, one day the Irish-American kids chased them because they were black, and the next day the African-American kids chased them because they were from Africa.

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