right-wingers fire high school teacher for assigning an article from The Atlantic and a poem

[tblue37]

Link to tweet

Text

Tom Nichols
@RadioFreeTom
Cancel culture is real, at least the version in which which panicky right-wingers fire high school teachers for assigning an article from The Atlantic and a poem.

Don Moynihan
@donmoyn
This really seems extreme and a harbinger of what is to come: veteran (and tenured) high school teacher and baseball coach dismissed from school after he assigned a Ta-Nehisi Coates essay and poem about white privilege. https://wjhl.com/news/local/sullivan-county-teacher-facing-termination-at-school-board-meeting-tuesday-supporters-to-gather/

[peppertree]

1. NE Tennessee. The cards are stacked against Coach Hawn, sad to say.

All the Best to him.

[madaboutharry]

2. Some people just can't shake off the old Confederacy!

There is something very wrong with these people.

[erronis]

14. It's not the Confederacy (of Dunces). As you say, "There is something very wrong with these people."

I won't say it's southern inbreeding because I'll get a lot of rightful flak.

But there is a certain mentality that can harbor concepts such as slavery and misogyny and hatred of others and vilification of learning/knowledge and glorification of stupidity. Not sure if it's in the the water, the air, the bourbon, whatever.

New COVID variants may take care of a bunch of them, to the detriment of the healthcare system and the benefit to the mortuaries.

[Solly Mack]

3. Ignorant and they want to remain ignorant.

[Harker]

13. ...and make certain it spreads. n/t

[erronis]

20. I think if the spark of discovery and learning isn't lit by age 8, it probably won't.

And much of those cultures do what they can to suffocate any sparks.

[QED]

4. The article doesn't mention a teachers' union.

So I don't know if that's a factor here. One thing the union does is provide due process and an attorney for the proceedings. It's a big unknown in this case.

[BadgerMom]

16. That was my first thought.

The union needs to get involved STAT.

[QED]

28. If he's not a member, I don't think they'll represent him.

They may do something at the state level. Who knows?

[LakeArenal]

5. Sounds about Right(wing nut jobs)

[Diamond_Dog]

6. When I was in high school

We were assigned to read “Black Like Me” and nobody’s parents made a stink about it. This was in the early ‘70s. I wonder how that would go over in this school...

[FakeNoose]

31. Everything changed pretty soon after that

I'm going to hazard a guess that Ronald Reagan brought in a whole new regime in the early 80's.

I was already long out of high school by then, but I do know that teachers were being fired or penalized for teaching anything to their students that smacked of liberal values. Parents were doing this by complaining to the school principals, and in some cases, school boards whenever enough parents teamed up at their open board hearings.

Long story short, it has now been 2 generations of kids who haven't been taught properly in our public schools. Today's teachers grew up during the time that the liberal stifling had already begun. Pretty soon there won't be anyone left who ever heard a liberal opinion spoken in school.

[Wuddles440]

7. "Cancel Culture"...

is pervasive in the US and gaining tremendous momentum, but it's actually being promoted by the reich wingers (aka the American Tailban) and not the "marxist libs". The GOPpers are masters of projection and messaging.

[plimsoll]

17. Yep.

Whenever one complains about cancel culture I ask if they think the Dixie Chicks were mistreated. It's either crickets or some convoluted explanation of how that was different.

[erronis]

22. I really object to repeating terminology that the RW invented to frame issues. No complaint with you

and you properly framed it in quotes. It's just how easy it is for their spin-meisters to inject phrases into our culture that have hijacked meanings.

[Crunchy Frog]

30. It's not "cancel culture". That term trivializes it, which I think is a mistake.

It's part of the authoritarian takeover of learning institutions.

Soon teachers will be too afraid to teach, which is what *they* want.

[peggysue2]

8. And then, people want to know why I want to move

Out of this state (TN) forever. I'm surrounded by crazy people for whom delusion is the drink du jour, always.

[rsdsharp]

9. I find this outrageous, but "tenured" high school teachers?

That’s new to me.

[tblue37]

12. Yes, high schools do offer tenure.

[BadgerMom]

18. As do elementary schools.

Teachers in K-12 are tenured (in CA at least) after two years of teaching. In those first two years, new teachers are developing curriculum, fine tuning their classroom control styles and working every after school game, dance and spelling bee that gets scheduled.

[ProfessorGAC]

23. Around Here, Yes

I sub in several districts and I know tenured teachers G6-12, in multiple schools.
I don't know for sure about K thru 5, but I doubt they're not treated the same.
I'm not a real teacher, so I don't know what the requirements are.
My wife wasn't considered tenured, I know that.
But, that may be due to her actual job title being social worker. She was a SW & coteacher for special ed.
She retired 15 years ago, so the rules might be different now.

[ladym55]

19. K-12 teachers do get tenure

After meeting certain qualifications and getting a certain amount of experience. The whole concept of tenure is to protect teachers from just what is happening here. Tenure is all about making sure teachers at all levels have academic freedom.

I suspect that there is no teachers' union in this location because a union would be able to demand due process, especially for a tenured teacher.

[obamanut2012]

21. Not new at all

I wish all states and all public schools had tenure, for teachers and librarians.

[catrose]

10. My high school English & Civics teachers would have been fired then.

We were always reading from literary and current events magazines.

I’ll never forget reading Deliverance as s 16 yr old.

[Blue_Adept]

11. I wonder what the students think about it.

One student who graduated in 2018 and attended Hawn’s contemporary issues class for two years, said that he felt Hawn was a fair and balanced teacher.

“We talked about a lot of hot button issues in our class, we talked about white privilege, and he was very open and fair and balanced on both sides of the argument, and presented a like I said an open discussion we never saw any, anything that I believe would warrant a dismissal,” Kyle Simcox said.

[wnylib]

15. RW snowflakes practicing cancel culture.

[AnrothElf]

24. Wow. My AP Humanities teachers would be toast

Back in 1990-91 when I learned about Nikki Giovanni and "The Great Pax Whitie"...

Here spoken with the Staple Singers providing musical accompaniment: https://m.

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/48221/the-great-pax-whitie

The Great Pax Whitie

By Nikki Giovanni

In the beginning was the word
And the word was
Death
And the word was nigger
And the word was death to all niggers
And the word was death to all life
And the word was death to all
peace be still

The genesis was life
The genesis was death
In the genesis of death
Was the genesis of war
be still peace be still

In the name of peace
They waged the wars
ain’t they got no shame

In the name of peace
Lot’s wife is now a product of the Morton company
nah, they ain’t got no shame

Noah packing his wife and kiddies up for a holiday
row row row your boat
But why’d you leave the unicorns, noah
Huh? why’d you leave them
While our Black Madonna stood there
Eighteen feet high holding Him in her arms
Listening to the rumblings of peace
be still be still

CAN I GET A WITNESS? WITNESS? WITNESS?
He wanted to know
And peter only asked who is that dude?
Who is that Black dude?
Looks like a troublemaker to me
And the foundations of the mighty mighty
Ro Man Cat holic church were laid

hallelujah Jesus
nah, they ain’t got no shame

Cause they killed the Carthaginians
in the great appian way
And they killed the Moors
“to civilize a nation”
And they just killed the earth
And blew out the sun
In the name of a god
Whose genesis was white
And war wooed god
And america was born
Where war became peace
And genocide patriotism
And honor is a happy slave
cause all god’s chillun need rhythm
And glory hallelujah why can’t peace
be still

The great emancipator was a bigot
ain’t they got no shame
And making the world safe for democracy
Were twenty millon slaves
nah, they ain’t got no shame

And they barbecued six million
To raise the price of beef
And crossed the 38th parallel
To control the price of rice
ain’t we never gonna see the light

And champagne was shipped out of the East
While kosher pork was introduced
To Africa
Only the torch can show the way

In the beginning was the deed
And the deed was death

And the honkies are getting confused
peace be still

So the great white prince
Was shot like a nigger in texas
And our Black shining prince was murdered
like that thug in his cathedral
While our nigger in memphis
was shot like their prince in dallas
And my lord
ain’t we never gonna see the light
The rumblings of this peace must be stilled
be stilled be still

ahh Black people
ain’t we got no pride?

Nikki Giovanni, “The Great Pax Whitie” from Black Feeling, Black Talk, Black Judgment. Copyright © 1968, 1970 by Nikki Giovanni. Used with the permission of HarperCollins Publishers.
Source: The Collected Poetry of Nikki Giovanni (2003)

Edit: I'm crying right now. I cry every time.

[SWBTATTReg]

25. Perhaps the courts can offer solutions to what seems to be a case of a wrongful firing (w/o cause,

something similar)...most existing class plans were established in years past, so the topics being covered have been covered in years past, w/ the appropriate updates as needed, like any class subject, accounting (new accounting standards), etc.

So how can a teacher be fired for simply following long established class curriculum? It can't be that simple to pick an arbitrary 'gotcha' topic and fire a teacher who's simply following his/her established course curriculum? Or, at least, it shouldn't be that simple.

[treestar]

26. Appears it is a public school, so

lawsuit.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

27. Joy Reid -If anyone has a contact for Mr. Hawn I'd love to be in touch

Link to tweet

[Crunchy Frog]

29. This is the beginning of the authoritarian crackdown on academic freedom.

I expect this will rapidly accelerate and will become a massive, countrywide, phenomenon after the next R "president" gets installed.

People should not get complacent about this sort of action, or make the mistake of thinking that these are isolated incidents.