Last Wednesday The Daily Caller posted an article about an event at Central Park School for Children in Durham, North Carolina. The teachers were allowed to opt out of the event, but parents did not have the option.
The article reports:
Stef Bernal-Martinez, a teacher of 6-year-old children, signed up all the children in her class for a “Black Lives March and Rally” to take place during the school day, at the city’s downtown Central Park and Farmer’s Market. Ms. Bernal-Martinez describes herself as a “Radical Queer Progressive Educator” and “white-passing Xicana.”
The event, like the Black Lives Matter movement itself, is less a spontaneous protest movement than a divide-and-conquer campaign by elite leftists. Two out of three African-Americans prefer the phrase “All Lives Matter” to “Black Lives Matter” according to a national August, 2015 Rasmussen poll. The grade school is predominantly Caucasian, but run by radical leftists. Naturally the school didn’t send the parents consent forms.
I believe all lives matter (including the lives of policemen), but I don’t like the idea that somehow black lives are any more or less important. The article states that some families that include policemen objected to having their children participate as marchers in this rally as some “Black Lives Matter” movement members have called for violence against police officers in the past.
The article concludes:
Black Lives Matter promotes antagonism against people of a different race based on their belief of the innate characteristics of the other race. This is the traditional, standard-dictionary definition of racism. Alveda King, the niece of civil rights icon Martin Luther King, says that the tactics employed by the Black Lives Matter movement do not represent the principles for which her uncle stood. Mrs. King recently said, “Of course black lives matter, all lives matter.”
The methods employed by Black Lives Matter have been racially polarizing. Parents at the school have asked for the Durham Police Department to be on hand for the children’s protection. Self-proclaimed radical educators dragging children into this ugly and sometimes deadly melee is wrong by any standard.
I have a few questions for the people who run this school. How well do the children do in the basic subjects of reading, writing, and arithmetic? Are the children academically strong enough to spend a day away from their studies and not pay a price? Is this a good use of instruction time?