Sunday, May 07, 2006

Setting a Tone


I thought I had gone to my final assembly, but alas on Friday, there was the obligatory Cinco de Mayo program. Here are two notes from this DISD-sanctioned event:

It seems we can't celebrate somebody's heritage in our district without letting members of that ethnicity dance in a vulgar manner on stage. We had 12 dancers, six of each gender. There were several moments the males turned their backs to the audience and faced a female...and then began imitating pelvic thrusting. Naturally, the street-savvy kids in the audience went wild.

Then, our Hispanic assistant principal took the microphone and shouted the following: "We were here before the white man, we were here before the black man was brought here against his will, and we plan on staying here!"

There are two problems with this. First, there is questionable historical accuracy here. It all hinges on his definitions of "we" and "here". I won't go into this further. You can probably see what I mean.

But more importantly, why make such an inflammatory remark to middle schoolers in this time of huge racial tension in our country? We, I thought, were striving for racial harmony and this is like throwing gas on the fire.

I'm so glad I have only 13 days left as an employee of such an embarrassing employer.

3 comments:

Tim Perkins said...

I'm tempted to, but it wouldn't solve anything and would just add to the mental chaos of the final few days.

I will admit that it does make me wonder what the perfect Christian response would be. To try to correct a wrong or to just let it slide?

Blake Perkins said...

Also, please use a darker font. I have to highlight it to read it.

I am Heather...creator of all things crafty! said...

Did you take this picture. Awesome. Check out my blog for tonight to see my little shot at professional photography during a storm. I saw that with sarcasm too.