What the f#!? are we so damned scared of? - A rant filled with gas vapors and lit matches

[The Straight Story]

When I was younger I grew up in what some may consider a rw conservative household - but such is not true. Sure my folks went to a baptist church, but they accepted everyone - from the first black family in the hood to my friend Mike in elementary (the only Jewish kid in our school). When my best friend came out of the closet they could care less his sexual orientation, he was still just James - my chess playing and programming buddy.

My mom was on the PTA, and she fought busing. Not because of racial reasons (the place I was bused to was mostly white anyway) but because it was taking us kids from a local school district and making us go all the way to the south side for an education we could get about 4 miles from home. If we got sick - mom had to drive a helluva lot further to pick us up. Local PTA? Forget about it, we weren't in a local school anymore.

Funny story though - I would never have met my best friend had it not been for busing :) I was only bused one year (which is another reason she thought it was dumb) and then back to my local school, and then kids from that school were bused in (which is when I met my friend).

In elementary school we celebrated it all - Halloween, we made all sorts of neat things for it, dressed up, walked around the hood to show off to people our outfits and then went to McD's for lunch (where we got free cheeseburgers if we had A's on our report card). Christmas and Hanukkah we had things hanging around the room, had gift exchanges, treats, and could not wait to call each other and see what we got on those days (My Jewish friend used to brag that he got presents 7 days in a row versus our 1) - we sang songs, from the dreidel song to rudolph.

We celebrated the diversity of students, and we knew well too that some did not celebrate such holidays - but many did (Victor's parents did not seem to care for any holidays but he had fun anyway and celebrated along with us, I remember him well for his wild as hell hair. But then it was the 70's).

People were not afraid of things back then, like lawsuits, offending others, and so on. At our school - we got along. If you were different, that was ok and we took your reasons to celebrate as yet another reason to have cupcakes/etc at school.

Progress DID need to be made, charles was the only kid of color I knew in school (Until Arthur moved into our hood, We also had Mr. Greer and Mrs. Ford who were teachers of color.) and his dad used to beat him pretty bad, the schools never reported it or did much about it - it was just accepted I guess, which even then I knew was wrong (he and I once did a sketch together in Mrs. Small's class).

Today, my daughter is in 1st grade. She got student of the month today in fact. They also sent home a letter to all students.

No makeup/etc for Halloween. Only two times a year can a class celebrate, Winter break and Valentines day - and then only snacks bought at a store can be brought in, and they have to meet strict health guidelines (also listed in the letter). No birthday celebrations and any treats brought in on those days will be sent back home.

I live in a diverse community - and my daughter won't ever be able to see that at school. No Christian holidays, Pagan ones, Jewish ones, Sikh, Muslim, Latino, etc. Where once I learned about culture by celebrating the faiths of those not like me, now that is stripped of kids - out of fear.

Holidays were an education, and even if they weren't mine we got the goodies and learned about them (hell, I did not know wtf a dreidel was till we were spinning them in class). Halloween is/was seen as bad by many of my faith, but damn we still had a lot of fun with it at school (my sister won't even decorate for it and her kids participate in hell houses for the church - she homeschools as well, did not like her kids getting all that diversity she grew up with I guess).

What one person sees as shoving religion down your throat I see as celebrating the diversity of those that make up your school. Less diverse, less stuff to celebrate I suppose, but the more diverse the more you have fun and learn that yours is not the only belief out there.

Learning about others is not something I see as a bad thing, celebrating with others their holidays is not something I see as a negative either (they won't get it at home or church....). if the state/school mandated only one such thing was worth celebrating I can see an issue with that.

And for those that don't believe in anything - well, they have all the other days of school as their celebration.

Local schools mean you look at things locally and what fits, the more we get away from local and make it all more global, the less we have a reflection of our community in the schools. And while some may see that as good, look at how the feds are screwing up things with NCLB and trying to tell YOU how you should run what your taxes are paying for.

And I sit here asking - why the hell are we so afraid of diversity? Why are we so afraid of each other that we cannot cook cup cakes for kids in class? Are we so jaded that we think of each other as killers, etc?

The right may peddle fear of terrorists - but I think many more in this country peddle fear of each other, our beliefs (or non-beliefs), fear of faith, and so on.

Overall - we have come to a point where we fear one another so much and what we 'may' do or say that we have crawled into a shell and look to someone else (the feds) to protect us (which gives them more power). At home I and my family celebrate the holidays we recognize, at school I would hope my daughter could get exposure to many more (hell, I cannot afford to decorate for em all and buy gifts for each one!).

I think we have finally jumped the shark - to where we are so scared of one another that we want government to step in and make sure we are safe from everything and everyone, which to me is giving them more and more power to dictate how we live and what we do.

Rant off lest I go on all night. And I just may in another thread :)

[Caretha]

1. Right on!

As we said in the '70's :)

[PDJane]

2. My son was born in 1972.

We baked cupcakes, and my cinnamon rolls were always the treat of choice everywhere he went. He went to a Catholic day care, and then switched to a city day care....the priest was always hiding from "that Jewish woman" because I kept asking questions about safety and funding. He had treats and multicultural days when everyone brought pot luck dishes...everything from hummus to pita to latkes to cabbage rolls. He took comparative religions. He took civics. He took social studies. His friends looked like a gathering of the United Nations...and I don't remember anyone ever commenting on it.

In this neighbourhood, it's still like that, and I'd like to keep it that way.

This is, truthfully, why I think religious schools are a bad thing. They promote intolerance and faulty socialization.

[The Straight Story]

3. You make some good points, now....

Where are my cinnamon rolls?? :) You made me all hungry!

[PDJane]

5. You"re inevitably too far away for me to send them!

[Oak2004]

4. Have you considered running for school board?

I'm serious. The only way things will change is if ordinary people step up and run for office and make it change. Even if you lose, your campaign will have spread your ideas, and ideas, once sown, tend to sprout and grow.

I've been struggling with the question of running for office. Assuming I was flexible as to which local office I ran for (let the party decide) I know I would have party support. My only reservation is that my health may be too poor to allow me to do it without doing myself harm.

As anyone who has run for office or has been heavily involved in a campaign knows, campaigning, even for local office, means little sleep, crappy food, and a heaping helping of extra stress. But campaigns end, eventually (sort of... planning for the next election begins about 1 nanosecond after the conclusion of the current one it seems, but the intensity of that is not the same). Given the state of the country, I think anyone in passable health who doesn't have a closet full of skeletons and a double helping of other commitments should consider it.

There are a lot of local offices, and its not unusual for a party to have trouble finding candidates to run for all of them. While many such offices are minor and utterly unglamorous, they serve the community, give their officeholders a start in politics, and give their officeholders influence within the local party. Lord knows the Democrats need to be cleaned up nearly as much as the Republicans need to fold up shop and fade into history as a bad mistake, and running for office is a good way to help to do both.