Tag Archives: Black Lives Matter

by - 0 comments

The Newberg School Board’s Messaging Ban: A Different Perspective

Gay Straight Alliance becomes a reality – The Prowler

OK. I’m going to be the odd man out.

Do the people insisting on the display of Black Lives Matter and LGBTQ Pride messages in Newberg, Oregon schools honestly believe those are non-political non-controversial messages? 

Does the teachers’ union, the Newberg Education Association, really believe that the display of such messages on school campuses is essential “to create safe learning environments for our students”?

Do Newberg students all agree that the Newberg School Board, in banning the display of images “relating to a political, quasi-political, or controversial topic,” is demonstrating that is has no empathy?

Or are the parents, students and union representatives simply embracing progressive messaging in Newberg schools and cloaking their advocacy in claims of free speech rights, while the Board is trying to keep their schools neutral in today’s toxic political environment?

I ask these questions because I doubt the critics of the ban would be so outspoken if the debate was over the display of conservative-leaning messages.

Would they support a poster in the Newberg High School lobby with National Right-to-Life’s message, “Promote respect for the worth and dignity of every individual human being, born or unborn”?

aohadmin, Author at AOH Tír na Nóg Division 1, Lehigh County

How about a “thin blue line” flag endorsed by the Blue Lives Matter movement hanging prominently in the school gym?

Commentary: Blue Lives Matter Bills Send Wrong Message | Fortune

Would they support a massive pro-death penalty banner such as “Keep capital punishment safe and legal” in every classroom?

What's next for the death penalty?

Citing a lawsuit filed by the Newberg Education Association calling for the Yamhill County circuit court to block the Newberg School District from enforcing its new policy, union president Jennifer Schneider said the lawsuit “… is just one more step to guarantee that the personal politics and prejudices of the new School Board majority aren’t able to enter our classrooms…” 

How about preventing the personal politics and prejudices of the ban’s critics from entering Newberg’s classrooms?

Making the whole controversy worse, Oregon Senate Majority Leader Rob Wagner (D- Lake Oswego) is using it as an excuse to stir the pot by introducing two bills for the 2022 legislative session:  One would require all school boards to receive a biannual audit and implement strategies around equity training. The other bill would prohibit school boards from terminating superintendents who implement state-mandated best practices that relate to diversity, inclusion and public health practices.

Just what we need, more political grandstanding and micromanagement of Oregon’s public schools. 

by - 0 comments

The truth be told: Bill Clinton and Black Lives Matter

The real truth-teller in Hillary’s political campaign isn’t the candidate. It’s her husband.

Yesterday, Bill Clinton got into quite a set-to with Black Lives Matter protesters in Philadelphia. What set it off was the chants of protesters repeatedly interrupting his remarks to protest his 1994 crime bill on the claim it was anti-black.

billclintonphilly

The protesters also held up signs saying things such “Clinton’s crime bill destroyed our communities” and “Black youth are not super-predators,” referring to a remark Hillary made in a 1996 address at New Hampshire’s Keene State College in support of the 1994 Violent Crime Control Act. “We can talk about why they ended up that way, but first we have to bring them to heel,” she said then.

Earlier this year, Hillary backtracked in an effort to pacify Black Lives Matter and other critics. “Looking back, I shouldn’t have used those words, and I wouldn’t use them today,” Hillary Clinton told the Washington Post.

Bill Clinton’s lengthy and spirited response to the Philadelphia protesters was more clearly a full-throated defense of his own administration’s record than an endorsement of his wife, but much of it was right on.

Sounding like a conservative at times, Clinton defended strict law enforcement as something that was necessary to protect black families from marauding black gangs and drug dealers committing black-on-black violence in inner cities.

“Let’s just tell the whole story,” Bill Clinton said, asserting that his crime bill was flawed because of Republican objections, but it was still a critical, necessary bill. “I talked to a lot of African American groups. They thought black lives mattered. They said ‘take this bill, because our kids are being shot in the street by gangs. We have 13-year-old kids planning their own funerals.”

“And because of that bill and the background check law, we had a 46 year low in the deaths of people by gun violence, and who do you think those lives were,” Clinton said. “Whose lives were saved that mattered?”

When the protesters continued interrupting him, Clinton got even more animated and defended Hillary’s use of the term “super predators” in 1996. “I don’t know how you would characterize the gang leaders who got 13-year-old kids hopped up on crack and sent them out into the street to murder other African American children,” he shouted. “You are defending the people who kill the lives you say matter. Tell the truth.”

“When somebody won’t hush and listen to you, that ain’t democracy,” Clinton said. “They’re afraid of the truth. Don’t you be afraid of the truth.”

You got it, Bill.