Well it’s about time!

Minot High School caught up with the times this year and adopted a winter semi-formal. The times have managed to elude MHS since its very first winter, but no more! Many other state high schools have been sporting similar wintry dances for years now. Hopefully the Snow Flake Break will become an annual tradition.

What is commonly called a Snow Ball, we are calling Snow Flake Break. And first off, I’d better make it clear that a “Snow Ball” is not the same as a “snowball.” A snowball is a spherical object made of snow, while a Snow Ball refers to a fancy (or in our case semi-fancy) dance held in the wintertime.

Winter dances date all the way back to the Russian Revolution in 1917. A group of college students were putting together a dance and wanted a new “catchy” name. They had just been to the Ice Ball (during Russia’s ice season) and a clever young Russian came up with Snow Ball, or снежок (snye-ZHAWK).

It was a big hit and the Snow Ball has been with us, humans, ever since. The same can’t be said for the Ice Ball however. It’s dreadful temperatures and prevalent ice lead to its last appearance in the year 1922.

The Russian Snow Ball was always a week-long affair and featured different activities for each night of the week. There was ice-skating, ice-fishing, ice-scraping, an ice-sculpting competition, and finally the Ball on Friday night (weather permitting of course).

The Snow Ball has been held every year since 1917 in Russia and today is as rich with tradition as Christmas. Being so popular, the tradition started to branch out to other countries but really gained speed in the 20’s.

Not long after the first commercial radio broadcast in 1920, news of the Russian’s winter dance and festivities spread to all snow-covered corners of the world. It swept the world by storm and was “the Bee’s Knees” for roughly ten years but slowly lost popularity and came to be celebrated with about as much enthusiasm as Arbor Day.

The Snow Ball was revived triumphantly during the late fifties in England and came with the Beatles to America in 1964. The first Snow Ball in the U.S. was held in a vague town in Rhode Island the following year but was called a Winter Formal because it was “more American.”

The Winter Formal spread fiercely through the U.S. and became especially popular in high schools, where the majority of them are held today. The celebration still lasts one week but the traditional Russian ice-tivities are now replaced with more American activities that vary with each Formal. All, however, are more fun than ice-scraping.

Since the turn of the Millennium, Winter Formals have started to include a dinner party before their Friday dances with the hopes of relieving the stress on stressed students having to make reservations for dinner. The dinner has been widely enjoyed, and plus, you’re guaranteed a seat!

Though a Snow Ball has been discussed for years at MHS, this year we made the commitment and became a tri-dance school. We are very proud to be a part of the Earth’s tradition of wintry themed dances. You can all give yourselves a pat on the back; well done, team!

The Minot State University Arabic Club is holding an event on September 11th. The Minot Daily News, in pyramid format, started their article of the event like this:

Minot State University's new Arabic club hopes to promote better understanding of the Muslim community with a cultural event scheduled the anniverary of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.

Really?! No way, I thought. Not on the anniversary.

Yeah, I get that it wasn't all of Islam (or everyone that speaks Arabic), that attacked the US on that day and that the Minot Daily News is/has-for-years-been clearly biased (which is why the article starts so destructively) and I really truly believe that it's the right thing to do to foster better understanding between America—the Minot community included—and the Arabic world, but...

And then I couldn't finish my thought; I thought But what? But what?

But what?

After first admitting to myself that Americans have a generally bloated and prejudiced aversion to the Arab world (certainly to Islam), I could only finish my thought by adding but September 11th isn't the right day... And to take it one step further—to explain why it's not the right day—I had to add because September 11th is very sad for us and we want to be angry. 

An event that supports and hopes to spread understanding between Muslims and Americans shouldn't be on that day, I thought.

Then I thought about my thoughts (a talent which, when utilized, makes us human and separates us from the rest of the animal kingdom). Two things injured me when I introspected. First, Muslims and Americans are not mutually exclusive groups; in fact we have a Muslim community in Minot. Why did my thoughts naturally place them as separate groups? Second, I couldn't believe that I had rationalized my negative reaction to the event by admitting that we, as Americans, would rather spend the day being angry than being even a little open to the possibility that we shouldn't hate an entire religion.

Because if we step outside of our ridiculous media, and biases, and emotions, we can see the world for what it really is.

In the real world, terrorists bombed the Trade Center on 9/11. They used planes, and citizens, and so very many people died, and the terrorists were Muslim. In fact, the terrorist group they were a part of claimed to be supporting Islam with their acts. Another fact: most Muslims can't reconcile the attacks with their belief and faith in Islam. They can't believe that people could read their holy book in such a way to lead to such a tragedy. They hate the attacks just as much as non-Muslims do.

September the 11th is a very sad day for Americans. We were attacked. We lost our family members and friends. We didn't feel safe in our own homes. And we remember just where we were each year on its anniversary. However, we've grown to hate entire groups of people out of misguided—deliberately misguided—anger. September 11th is a day to be sad, to remember, to re-center ourselves...

But.

September 11th can no longer be a day we also set aside to be angry, to condemn an entire culture, to hate.

It's not the perfect day to promote better understanding, but it's just as good as any other, and maybe even a bit better because it brings our prejudices out into the open where, hopefully, we can see them for how ugly they really are.