Teacher Resigns After Parent Complains Pride Flag Is "Personal Agenda"

[muichimotsu]

As a teacher myself, I have to side with the school on this one... Such sociopolitical symbols and slogans are fine for a teacher's office, but the classroom should be as neutral as possible.

Problem is neutrality doesn't always reflect compassion, it sends the message that the students don't matter in terms of struggles and that teachers aren't remotely meant to offer any sense of support and just indoctrinate children like some would characterize public education

 

[muichimotsu]

The discussion of data regarding Asians in America was in the other thread. And in that thread you said you didn't even know many non-white people.

But you told us we should look at the lived experience. Now we see how you react to RDKirks experience.

Except one experience is merely anecdotal, you assume that somehow that applies everywhere and I don't paint with a broad brush in terms of this, because the problem is systemic, not purely individual faults in character or such

So I just can't speak on this because I don't have direct conversations with black and Asian and Hispanic people? One word comes to mind here: gatekeeping!

 

[muichimotsu]

So we know ALL the students do not believe the same right? Now WHO is this really about? This teacher cares about the students? You don't as a teacher do this.. we know this! 5+ students that like it.. great.. ALL those others hello get a say and you don't say.. I'm keeping it up no matter what OTHER students say.

Yeah not the PARENT.. some kids said something to there parents..those parents spoke up for their kids! So you can see even here where some really stand. Its about the KIDS not some kids vs other kids. Not allow the teacher to put up things he personally likes believes in.. oh put that PICTURE OF JESUS see what happens.. oh then that should be taken down right?

The kids are not being used as a pawn in terms of acknowledging that support from a teacher is not partisan or divisive, it's being a decent human being to a group that continues to be marginalized and treated like they're lesser or "hysterical"

Pretty sure a picture of Jesus is more divisive in nature, especially if it's white Jesus. A rainbow flag is only divisive if you assume it's the monopoly of Christianity somehow (it's not) and not a celebration of diversity that is not excluding any group, but saying some groups have not been treated fairly, same as the expression Black Lives Matter.

 

[muichimotsu]

The group I chose fits your criteria.

You think I jus tlisted off criteria and you didn't just extrapolate to fit a preconception that this is just assumptions of victimhood based on identity? Already pointed out that isn't the case, you missing it is your own ineptitude

Mandatory minimum sentences apply to every race, as does the war on drugs. As for the prison system....I don't know what you're claiming? That the criminals in prison are the victims? What about their victims?

Also....what is with that criteria? "Societal disregard"? "Diminishing one's voice"?

This is a list made by someone who has never seen actual victimization. I can't believe you go around this forum calling people entitled. You aren't owed some sort of special attention from society....and as for your "voice" you have the same freedom of speech as everyone else...you aren't owed an audience. If no one listens, that's on you. It doesn't make you a victim

Mandatory minimum sentences are used more against black people, or do you have evidence otherwise that there isn't favored treatment in the system that gives white kids lighter sentences?

Not all crimes deserve prison, so you're already showing how detached from reality you are to assume that punitive measures like this will solve the problem (they don't, they feed into it with prison culture creating more criminal behavior)

Pretty sure I never said anything about special attention, the attention is in terms of a discussion where everyone is given a voice and recognized, not dismissed because you don't think their problem is real or matters

If no one listens, it means the system has done its work and made people care less about a problem that doesn't affect them. And that's not an individual problem except when you see the evidence and dismiss it offhand because you think you know better

 

[Ana the Ist]

You think he was accusing you of being a bully?

Yeah...that fits with the TLK I know.

Is that remotely justified by looking at the conversation or are you just scrapping for a forum fight out of insecurities?

No...it's not remotely justified.

And that's not a personal attack, that's observing you may have an issue you don't seem to recognize that is hurting the conversation at large

Lol.

 

[Ana the Ist]

Nope, because I don't assume one will necessarily fail based on certain traits, but also acknowledge that they have not been treated fairly historically

Historically? Doesn't this guy teach high school?

All the kids he teaches were born post 2000.

What's the historical unfairness you're talking about?

 

[Ana the Ist]

that is what the class was about.

It's a drama class lol. You didn't read the articles at all, did you?

 

[RDKirk]

RDKirk said: ↑
Pointing out the strength of one man does not make a disparaging remark about another man.

It downplays the struggles of one group by pointing to successes of another, which fails to even recognize that the successes you can find are still cherry picked and ignore the vast income inequality within the Asian community that falls through the cracks

Pish-posh. That is an absolutely silly idea. What an incredible level of conceit. That's the conceit of white liberals that Malcolm X spoke about.

Oppressed people have always promoted the heroes of their ranks. Do you think we have been downplaying our jointly experienced struggle by cheering our heroes through the years, such as Ralph Bunche, Thurgood Marshall, Mary McLeod Bethune, Richard Allen, Charles Drew?

Every group lauds its heroes, no group thinks that downplays their own struggles. Do you think the military downplays its own soldiers by giving some of them medals for valor?

The purpose is to prove the fact that their group is good enough to have such people among them, and what the heroes can do, others can also so. Heroes are the examples of resistance to oppression, the evidence that oppression can be resisted. If you suppress the recognition of a peoples' heroes, you're suppressing the idea they can resist oppression...only the oppressors themselves do that.

You seeing their struggles doesn't follow to understanding them, that's the difference of sympathy and empathy. You can feel bad in a detached way, empathy means you recognize them as like you and don't just assume your perspective is identical in how one responds

I was in the same group and experiencing the same thing. I experienced the same segregation they experienced. The only difference is that at the moment as a child, I was shielded from the effects they experienced as adults. But as I grew older, I understood better.

The very fortunate thing for me, in a Southern town, is that I had many examples of people who had some success in resisting oppression, who were experiencing some measure of success in life despite Jim Crow. We were near an HBCU and there were many in my neighborhood (a factor of Jim Crow...the well-to-do blacks lived in the same neighborhoods as poorer blacks). Kids growing up in urban areas weren't surrounded by the same examples that surrounded me.

You're calling them self-hating...because they had some success against Jim Crow?

Would you call a woman self-hating if she successfully beat off a would-be rapist?

Internalized racism is a thing, even black people can work against their own self interests, same as the prototypical self hating Jew in terms of the need to conform and thus being self deprecating.

So you think Jews are self-hating by recognizing their own heroes, from the biblical patriarchs to
Rabbi Meir of Rothhenburg, Ehud Barak, or Yohanan Ben Zakkai?

 

[Ana the Ist]

Either way the accusation is absurd, because that's not how sexual orientation works

How does it work?

 

[TLK Valentine]

Problem is neutrality doesn't always reflect compassion, it sends the message that the students don't matter in terms of struggles and that teachers aren't remotely meant to offer any sense of support and just indoctrinate children like some would characterize public education

Which is why the flags and shows of support belong in the teacher's office, as I said. Like it or not, the pride flag is a political symbol, and the classroom itself must be politically neutral (except for the obligatory US flag) if at all possible.

After all, even the most passionately anti-lgbt students deserve an education... goodness knows they could use one.

 

[Ana the Ist]

You think I jus tlisted off criteria

You did list off criteria.

It's not a matter of what I think...I know you listed off criteria.

Mandatory minimum sentences are used more against black people, or do you have evidence otherwise

Explain what you mean by "used more"?

They are mandatory after all.

Not all crimes deserve prison

Not all crimes have mandatory minimum sentences either.

Real quick....do you actually know what a mandatory minimum sentence is?

the attention is in terms of a discussion where everyone is given a voice and recognized

Ok....thanks for clearing that up. You aren't entitled to a discussion with everyone and everyone certainly isn't required to listen to whatever horrendous nonsense you happen to be blathering about.

If no one listens, it means the system has done its work

Nope. You aren't entitled to an audience. No one is obligated to listen to you, and no one is obligated to care.

I can't even imagine being that entitled.

 

[DamianWarS]

what exactly in the rainbow flag is sexual?

the colours are not sexual, they are just colours but the flag itself is a symbol of a interpreted spectrum of sexuality and it represents a controversial cause that is being carried. Even without the sexuality it is controversial and the teacher should have sought permission first or started a dialog on ways to introduce the flag in the classroom if this indeed is a cause he cares about.

 

[DamianWarS]

The teacher literally asked them, did you even read the story? They didn't prohibit it, they waffled because they didn't want to seem preferential somehow

You don't know it's a personal agenda, first off and an "agenda" of offering support to minorities without excluding the majority is not some sinister conspiracy

LGBTQ is more than sex, you're myopically focused on one thing, to a point that it's more than a bit suspicious, like reaction formation psychologically.

And no, they didn't take it personally by necessity, they chose to leave because it was less of an effort than trying to fix a broken system that clearly has failed LGBTQ students and citizens in treating them like they don't matter

The flag is indeed a symbol of an interpretation of a spectrum of sexuality even if it's also a symbol of inclusion. The thing with symbols is we don't get to force people how they recieve them. Someone may put a flag of a hammer and sickle up but they shouldn't be surprised when it's interpreted as a communist message even if that's not the intent. If the teacher did not intent to carry a sexual message and by that I include sexual orientation and identity, then he should have chosen a different symbol.

To me this feels like a personal cause otherwise why would he take such a extreme response? It's an unusual thing to put up that flag outside of a personal cause as the symbol itself is not widely accepted as a message of acceptance void of a message of sexuality. The response of the parents would seem to show that pretty clearly.

I also didn't read the article and made assumptions from the headline/op which I felt summerised it adequately but thanks for correcting me however the point is still the same. The intended message he possibly was trying to support was interpreted differently and so the message was corrupted. He choose to fight for the symbol as it is rather than work with the parents on a different symbol that represents the same values he wanted to demonstrate. And ironicly this was a message of inclusion... apparently with exceptions.

 

[bekkilyn]

I haven't read all 19 pages, but what I would want to know why ANY political or religious flag or any other flag (besides the U.S. and state flag) are on display in a public school classroom?

 

[RDKirk]

I haven't read all 19 pages, but what I would want to know why ANY political or religious flag or any other flag (besides the U.S. and state flag) are on display in a public school classroom?

A couple of us have pointed that out.

 

[RDKirk]

If I may say a couple of things to help your agreement with me feel a little more comfortable...

I'm certainly not say that black or homosexual people don't face discrimination.

I am saying that there's no certainty that a black (or any race) or homosexual (or any gender/orientation) person have faced or will face discrimination. There's no need to assume such things.

Of those people who do face discrimination, it does not mean they are victims. There are many people who have faced discrimination for characteristics like race or orientation and they have managed to overcome that discrimination on their own.

I can't see those people as victims. I tend to see them as people to emulate in their strength.

There is, however, a tendency to equate certain identity groups as "victims" within this larger left wing political narrative....and it's based (as far as I can tell) on nothing more than identity.

I think that's why those two posters responded the way they did. You told a story of strength and perseverance in teaching....they saw victims who were too afraid, too beaten down, too oppressed to act the way they thought they should act.

I have no problem with the idea of helping someone who has actually been victimized (a victim) by injustice. I do have a problem with assuming that the shade of someone's skin or sexuality means they must be a victim.

It appears racist to me.

You seem to be saying that oppression resisted is oppression that doesn't exist.

Fighting back does not make a person not a victim. If a woman successfully fights off a would-be rapist, she is still a victim. It certainly does not mean no crime was committed.

She's going to be identified as the "victim" in the police report. The rape attempt still gets listed in the crime statistics.

In that town of my early youth, there were two black schools: An elementary school and a high school. Those were the only schools that could employ black teachers or principals. There may have been many more black teachers who were capable of being principals...but the town only had two black schools, so could have only two black principals. So, yeah, those were still victims of racism.

A successful black barbershop owner who couldn't get a business loan to open multiple locations because he was black was still a victim of racism. The successful black mortician who had been shut out of his early dream of being a doctor because he was black was still a victim of racism.

 

[SilverBear]

I don't know of any kids actually whining about flags.

If you want to assume they exist, I'm fine with that.

Pretty sure I was talking about students upset over the lack of a flag. I stand by that assessment.

You are the one who spent a half dozen posts talking about them and you assessed them as being whiny fragile and in need of psychiatric counseling.

Were you assessing figments of your own imagination? or do you no longer stand by what you posted?

 

[SilverBear]

I don't think whiny is automatically "belittling". Children aren't entitled to a flag....if they think they are, whiny is a fair descriptor.

so these kids suddenly exist again?

Oh no....you're mistaken. It's not because they are LGBT whatever.

riiiigggghhhhtttt

If you're emotionally distressed over a flag, yeah, you should seriously consider professional help.

you mean your imaginary kids?

 

[SilverBear]

Whose experience?

And how do you know what their experience is?

Are you just assuming they're victims because of their identity?

I posted the stats about the numbers of LGBT youth that experience hostility, bullying, and violence in high school and you ignored it.

 

[rjs330]

the kids you call whiny don't exist?

what about the kids traumatized by a flag being taken down? Do they exist or did you just lie and just make them up?

Calling someone whiny is now bullying? This is a problem. Sometimes people are just being whiny. It's okay to mention it. I mean you guys do it all the time to us righties.