Sunday, December 02, 2007

From the Mouths of Babes

This is an unpleasant news story. If it were only another “political correctness run amok” article, I could simply post it with a snide comment or two as an introduction, and that would be it.

But this is more than that. It’s not just the fact that a nine-year-old boy was charged with a hate crime.

It’s what his teachers, his parents, and the newspaper writer consider normal and acceptable.

Here’s the story from The Arizona Republic:

9-year old suspended for ‘hate crime’

A Glendale elementary school principal has admitted to telling a 9-year old boy that it is OK to have racist feelings as long as you keep them to yourself.

“As we said to (the boy) when he was in here, in your heart you may have that feeling, and that is OK if that is your personal belief,” Abraham Lincoln Traditional School Principal Virginia Voinovich said in a tape-recorded parent-teacher conference.

OK, we’re only two paragraphs in, and already we’ve hit a couple of bizarre things. A little boy suspended for a hate crime. A principal having a parent-teacher conference about it, with the whole thing on tape.

But at least the principal showed some sense right? Telling the boy it’s OK to have thoughts in your heart that you don’t act on — that’s a good thing, isn’t it?

Maybe; maybe not. Read on:

The boy was suspended for three days this month for allegedly committing a “hate crime” by using the expression “brown people.”

“Brown people” is an acceptable term to the PC crowd, at least some of the time. I can’t count the number of times I’ve seen signs or ads saying “George Bush went to war with the Brown People because etc blah yak”.

However, it apparently depends on who’s saying it. If Barbra Streisand says “brown people”, no problem. If a racist schoolchild says it — time for the re-education camp!

But let’s continue:
- - - - - - - - -
In an interview Monday, Voinovich would not address her comments, first saying she didn’t remember the incident, then demanding a copy of the recording and finally insisting that she could not talk about a student’s discipline.

So the principal obviously has a guilty conscience.

Why? What does she feel she did wrong?

The circumstances of the boy’s suspension itself raise troubling questions about student discipline, interrogation and oversight at Abraham Lincoln.

According to school officials, the boy made a statement about “brown people” to another elementary student with whom he was having a conflict. They maintain it was his second offense using the phrase.

But the tape recording indicates this only came out after another parent was allowed to question the boy and elicited from him the statement that he “doesn’t cooperate with brown people.”

OK, we see part of the problem here: the adults badgered the kid until he said the proscribed phrase, and then they were able to nail him.

“Comrade, how long have you been aiding the counterrevolution? Admit to your crime, and it will go easier for you…”

Do you think I’m engaging in excessive rhetoric about this? Well, look what happened to the poor kid next:

After that was reported to the boy’s teacher, he was made to stand in front of his class and publicly confess what he’d said.

That’s straight out of The Little Red Teacher’s Handbook: public confession of wrong thinking, followed by group correction.

Now the plot thickens: apparently, as is usual in such cases, a personal conflict caused the boy to be denounced to the commissars by one of his comrades:

The boy maintains that he never said it; that the words were put in his mouth by the parent who questioned him. That parent happens to be the mother of the student with whom he is having a conflict—and she happens to work for Abraham Lincoln as a detention-room officer.

And there were leading questions (used on a nine-year-old!):

The tape indicates that rather than just spouting off with racial invective, the boy was asked first why he didn’t want to cooperate with brown people by the parent/school official.

In court, this might be called entrapment. Not to mention a conflict of interest.

No kidding.

The school system has circled the wagons, and the boy’s mother is loaded for bear:

Officials at the Washington Elementary School District, who are supposed to oversee Voinovich, wouldn’t comment about the boy’s suspension. They said only the principal is qualified to talk about it.

Well, the boy’s mother is talking, and she is angry. She has also removed her son from the school.

“I want parents to know … that principals can abuse their powers,” Sherry Neve, 35, said. “Principals need to have pro-active supervisors. I want the parents to know that the principal was influencing my son in a way I wouldn’t want him to be raised.”

Neve said school officials didn’t advise her of the incident until several days after they questioned her son. When Neve objected to the suspension during the conference, Voinovich told her that she didn’t have any rights; that parents give up their rights to discipline when they send a child to school, the tape shows.

“If you don’t want that, you can take him out of here,” Voinovich said tersely.

The mother denies that her son is guilty of the Sin of Racism:

Neve insists that her son is not a racist and that he never differentiated a person’s color until the school made it in an issue.

“We were raised to be color blind,” she said. “My children were raised the same way.”

And now The Arizona Republic editorializes a little bit:

But let’s assume for a minute that the boy actually made the comment. Does this make him a racist and guilty of a hate crime? Or does it make him a confused 9-year-old in need of counseling?

And finally, here comes the punch line of this sordid little Multicultural joke:

Instead of taking an opportunity to educate the boy and get to the root of the problem, the principal taught him another lesson altogether: It’s OK to feel like a racist as long as you keep your feelings to yourself.

Kids often say the darndest things. Apparently, so do principals.

Except for the school principal, nobody in this set piece thinks there’s anything wrong with condemning this little boy for what he thinks to himself.

Nobody has a problem with controlling what feelings a little kid holds in the privacy of his heart.

Not even his parents.

I can think we can chalk this one up as a big success for the Forty-Year School Indoctrination Project.

Thanks, Big Ed.


Hat tip: Fjordman.

23 comments:

Zarxos said...

And I thought nothing of note happened in Arizona.

I live one mile from that school. I went to elementary school on that campus before it was Abraham Lincoln Traditional School, I have several friends who attended Abraham Lincoln, and the mother of one of my friends is a teacher there.

I still can't believe the coincidence, but anyway, there are a few things to note here.

First of all, look at the name of the school. It is Abraham Lincoln Traditional School. They are infamous in Phoenix for being nothing more than a drone factory. They allow zero creativity in their students, and expect everyone to learn the exact same material in the exact same way. The point is, the mentality there is very different from most schools in Arizona, so I don't think the same situation would (yet) occur elsewhere.

Secondly, the Arizona Republic has a well-known liberal bias. That being said, it is still astonishing to me that the reporter, after admitting that the boy was entrapped, still says he should be re-educated, and sees nothing wrong with the whole situation. I think the paper has hit a new low.

Robohobo said...

Remember that Political Correctness was invented by the Communists. They have either taken over our institutions willingly or their useful idiots serve the same role. Neither is a good choice.

The gulags will not be erected by the right in the US but the extreme Left with the complicity of most of the majority of the population.

Remember that only white people can be rascists. That factoid is hammered home every time I read one of these articles. And most accept that without blinking. Ot thinking.

Papa Whiskey said...

From a University of Delaware Office of Residence Life Diversity Facilitation Training document:

“A RACIST: A racist is one who is both privileged and socialized on the basis of race by a white supremacist (racist) system. The term applies to all white people (i.e., people of European descent) living in the United States, regardless of class, gender, religion, culture or sexuality. By this definition, people of color cannot be racists, because as peoples within the U.S. system, they do not have the power to back up their prejudices, hostilities, or acts of discrimination."

This is but part of a noxious indoctrination program imposed upon some 7,000 students living in the dormitory system of that institution. It was dropped in early November after the publicized it and an uproar ensued. Details here and here.

Papa Whiskey said...

Oops. The outfit that publicized the University of Delaware indoctrination program is the .

Papa Whiskey said...

Hmmm. Something isn't working. Withal, the URL is http://thefire.org/. They've been fighting this kind of thing for years.

Anonymous said...

If I understand this story, the mother of the child the accused had a problem with, was allowed to interrogate him, as she worked at the school. So, both the mother and the other child are "brown" people. It seems to me some anti-white bullying is going on here, and the mother and the other child may be actual racists. Not just disliking white people in their heart, but acting out their prejudice in public. I'm glad the white kid's mom had the common sense to remove him from that school. I wonder what the "brown" kid did, to make the white kid not want to "cooperate" with him. This is an obvious civil rights case. If white mom sues the school, she'll win, because the "brown" mom shouldn't have been allowed to do the interrogation, since she couldn't possibly have been impartial and protected the rights of the two kids equally.

Unknown said...

ARRGH! Maybe I shouldn't read this stuff first thing in the morning. This PC nonsense just goes on an on! A hate crime for a nine year old boy? Good Lord! I think they've taught the boy, and his mom, a lesson, but not the one the PC crowd wants.

spackle said...

Man am I glad I went to school when I did. They would have had to "re-educate" at least 3/4 of the school back then. Both black and white.

Kafir_Kelbeh said...

I thought that since we were no longer "allowed" to use the derivations of anthopological breakouts (except caucasoid, that's still acceptable), we were now hearing "I don't care if you're black, brown, white, yellow, or blue."

Huh. I guess crayons will be banned next.

Profitsbeard said...

I thought mention of color was acceptible.

Blacks want to be called black.
(Not Negroes, etc.)

People of color want to be considered "colorful".

What's wrong with calling people who are brown brown?

Harassing a 9 year old over this nonsense is vile.

Ed Mahmoud said...

Unable to convince the vast majority of American people that communism is the preferred ideology, the Marxist left no are trying different tacts. Marxism disguised as environmentalism seeking to destroy the economy in the name of Mother Gaia, and taking control of the education system to counter the training and values children are receiving (or at least should be receiving) at home.

History Snark said...

What a stupid, vile, despicable story. No clue what's wrong with this bunch of people.

However, to me there a bit of vagueness built in: I don't see anything stating explicitly that the other child was "brown". Even less mention that the mother (i.e. the interrogator) was brown either. So it could just be an enlightened white (or mixed-race) family behind it all.

But allowing the mother of a child to interrogate a student over a conflict with her child is so incredibly wrong that it makes me ill.

Hal K said...

We have all heard Hispanics and others referred to as "browns" on TV, etc. I am pretty sure I have heard Geraldo Rivera use this term on TV in a neutral sense. These stories are getting depressing. In this case, one side makes up the rules (i.e. what terms you can and cannot use) and then seizes upon transgressions as evidence of "racism." It is also terrible that the other kid's parent was allowed to interrogate the white kid in such a manner.

This is one little skirmish in a broad campaign of psychological warfare against the white race. Until more whites wake up and realize that this is what is happening they will continue to get pushed around this way and eventually become a persecuted minority everywhere.

Anonymous said...

"Brown people", first time I hear this. I've called them "Black" and will contiue to do so. It's not PC? And I have to give a damn why? And calling me "white" is okay?

I demand being called German-Czech-Slovenian-Croatian-Polish-European.

PRCalDude said...

Funny, I've seen plenty of "Brown Pride" shirts in my day. They sell them over at the "chicano style" store in the Del Amo mall in Torrance.

X said...

prcaldude, you forget rule 1: It's only wrong when white people do it.

Unknown said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Baron Bodissey said...

Roland --

Gates of Vienna's rules about comments require that they be civil, temperate, on-topic, and show decorum. Your comment violated the last of these rules. We keep a PG-13 blog, and exclude foul language, explicit descriptions, and epithets. This is why I deleted your comment.

Unknown said...

Perhaps you can propose yet another politically correct term Baron? I've been called a lot of names (cracker, honky, kaaskop, infidel, kafir) but I never started a brawl over it. Usually people start recognizing that those names are more a compliment than an insult.

On the other hand we have a group of people that can be given any name, even brown will qualify nowadays, and still make that name to shame.

Am I wrong to stick to the first word used= Does it matter if I keep changing the word used=

In the end we will all be associated with who we are,what we are, not by the name used to describe us-them.

Unknown said...

My last rant was meant at those who allow epithets thrown at me but don´t allow the same the other way around. The main groups guilty of this beheviour are obvious. I´m just responding in the same manner.

A_Nonny_Mouse said...

I wonder if, now, the white kid will have made up his mind that he really, really, doesn't like anybody who bears a superficial resemblance to the kid we can assume was "brown". Instead of "I don't like Tommy", this school managed to elevate it to "I don't like anybody brown, so there!"

Dang, this was handled badly...

Baron Bodissey said...

Roland --

I sympathize with your position. Unfortunately, the word you used is nowadays considered impolite, and politeness is one of the standards I try to maintain here.

Many of our commenters have trained themselves to type f**k and s**t. I think you could manage to use n****r, don't you? :)

DaToad said...

After this enlightening episode this kid may never "cooperate" with brown people. He might even want to join Sheriff Joe's Posse so he can round up a few.