About Obama’s speech on education…
My mom is a principal at an elementary school in a small town in Texas. Since the announcement about the speech, she’s had some…interesting things happen. For one, she received a forward from someone out at the army depot (a major employer where I grew up), which basically called Obama a socialist, a communist, a fascist, Hitler, Mussolini, and pretty much everything in between. My mom called it “vile,” and then made the obversation—and this is completely unlike my mother to say something like this—“What this is really about is race. That’s all there is to it.”
This forward apparently went out to all the schools in the area, as well as many of the people who work out at the army depot. Some parents are refusing to let their children watch it, and out of fear of backlash, one nearby school sent out letters to all the parents letting them know that the administrators will be reviewing the speech before they show it to the students to ensure there is nothing “radical” or “subversive” (my mother’s words to a concerned parent) in the speech, and they will only be showing the speech when and if it is appropriate in a social studies class.
A woman I’ve known most of my life is raising her grandchildren and sending them to my mom’s school and asked my mom about the e-mail she had received, saying all this crazy stuff about Obama’s speech. My mom pointed her to the website on education to show her there’s nothing radical.
My mom told me she’s having to record the whole thing and review it before she can show it to any students. She told me, “I feel ridiculous, having to watch this and judge the president’s speech.” And it is pretty flipping crazy when school administrators have to review a speech made by a man who not even a year ago was democratically elected by his own country to lead them to make sure he’s not trying to turn them into the Hitler Youth.
I hope you guys are paying attention to how absurd this all is. Never in the history of America has there been such an uproar over the President addressing the nation. Never. (I’m well aware of some of the criticism Bush drew in ‘91 when he addressed the country and while I think it was just as silly then to be upset about it, I think there’s a world of difference between worrying about the president wasting education dollars to make a “stump speech” and between accusing the president of indoctrinating students into socialism.) I think it’s worth questioning why now, why with this president are we suddenly so hysterical. If you don’t already know why, I suggest you go back and read the first paragraph. My mother nailed it.
I just simply cannot understand all this shit. I guess the racists are alive and well, and as paranoid as ever.
