A school superintendent in Tidewater country says that Black lives matter, as do all others, and it’s considered anathema.
Why a plea for restraint was construed as an act of aggression boggles the mind, but it was, spurring a social media posse to replace school board members with three of their own, who, in turn, saw to it that the superintendent was fired.
That the school was allegedly pushing “critical race theory” was apparently one of the complaints. God forbid that Johnny ever should learn that slavery thrived as the American revolutionists, less mindful of chattel slavery at the time than of the political kind, were separating themselves from tyrannous King George, or, for that matter, that the people native to this country were dispossessed.
These facts of American life, no less than those having to do with this country’s remarkable inventiveness, can-do spirit, and generosity ought to be taught in its schools, the informing idea being that, indeed, we can always form a more perfect union.
We should see our history whole, not just cherry-pick the good parts.
Though I’ll admit it’s getting hard, what with all the reigning hysteria, to cherry-pick good parts at present.
Adam Schiff, who has written a book about how we almost lost our democracy and still could, said on TV last night that most Republicans had become cultists — idol worshipers rather than adherents to a political philosophy — and that we still risk giving ourselves over to autocracy, the very thing our forebears fought against. Now wouldn’t that be ironic.
A broad-based education for all offers the way out. The only way out actually.