Seema Mehta, Los Angeles Times, November 25, 2008
{snip}
Parents in this quiet university town [Claremont, California] are sharply divided over what these construction-paper symbols represent: A simple child’s depiction of the traditional (if not wholly accurate) tale of two factions setting aside their differences to give thanks over a shared meal? Or a cartoonish stereotype that would never be allowed of other racial, ethnic or religious groups?
{snip}
Raheja [Michelle Raheja, mother of a kindergartner at Condit Elementary School], whose mother is a Seneca, wrote the letter upon hearing of a four-decade district tradition, where kindergartners at Condit and Mountain View elementary schools take annual turns dressing up and visiting the other school for a Thanksgiving feast. {snip}
Raheja, an English professor at UC Riverside who specializes in Native American literature, said she met with teachers and administrators in hopes that the district could hold a public forum to discuss alternatives that celebrate thankfulness without “dehumanizing” her daughter’s ancestry.
“There is nothing to be served by dressing up as a racist stereotype,” she said.
Last week, rumors began to circulate on both campuses that the district was planning to cancel the event, and infuriated parents argued over the matter at a heated school board meeting Thursday. District Supt. David Cash announced at the end of the meeting that the two schools had tentatively decided to hold the event without the costumes, and sent a memo to parents Friday confirming the decision.
{snip}
Raheja is “using those children as a political platform for herself and her ideas,” Constance Garabedian said as her 5-year-old Mountain View kindergartner happily practiced a song about Native Americans in the background. “I’m not a professor and I’m not a historian, but I can put the dots together.”
The debate is far from over. Some parents plan to send their children to school in costume Tuesday—doubting that administrators will force them to take them off. The following day, some plan to keep their children home, costing the district attendance funds to punish them for modifying the event.
“She’s not going to tell us what we can and cannot wear,” said Dena Murphy, whose 5-year-old son attends Mountain View. “We’re tired of [district officials] cowing down to people. It’s not right.”
{snip}
Original article
Email
Seema Mehta
at seema.mehta@latimes.com .
(Posted on November 25, 2008)
School Profiles
Public School Review, no date
Condit Elementary School
Students by Ethnicity
This School
California School Average
% American Indian
1%
n/a
% Asian
15%
11%
% Hispanic
22%
50%
% Black
5%
7%
% White
47%
28%
% Unknown
10%
4%
Mountain View Elementary School
Students by Ethnicity
This School
California School Average
% American Indian
n/a
n/a
% Asian
13%
11%
% Hispanic
36%
50%
% Black
13%
7%
% White
29%
28%
% Unknown
9%
4%
Comments
“the two schools decided to hold the event without the costumes”
I am beginning to hate this “new” Amerika. It is not my America anylonger. Hope these parents win, but I doubt it. They will be called racists and everything else in the book.
Michelle Raheja is another booby professor of Diversity and Inclusion at a public university. The point of her career is to periodically emit a loud chirp, like a smoke detector in need of a new battery, which indicates “Look at me. I’m a minority woman pretending to be someone of importance.” I doubt she cracked 1100 on the SATs.
What do they want kids to learn? The lessons of the Indian Wars?
What they want to teach is hate, not friendship, mutual respect, or reconciliation. The motto of the left is ‘keep the hate alive’.
I’m white with some Cherokee (about 5 generations back) and I’m wondering…why all the fuss?
Everyone has to jump on the victimization bandwagon, I suppose.
(I just think Chief Wahoo is stupid. LOL)
rather than the racist stereotype, why don’t we show red indians as they were - treating women as dogs, enslaving other tribes, wiping out other tribes, hunting animals to extinction, slash and burn hunting and agriculture, running herds of buffalo off the side of a cliff for a couple of caracasses, choping up virgin girls to fertalize the soil with their blood…
I am sure the good professor will appreciate a realistic depiction of ‘her people’..
What do they want kids to learn? The lessons of the Indian Wars?
NO, schools only want the entire life story, in all it’s fakery, of MLK taught. I helped my daughter in school (as do most of us) and the history book was a joke. A couple of chapters of WWII, nothing of Viet-Nam or Korea and at least 15 pages of MLKs contribution to history!! I don’t think any sort of Geography is taught at all! Some high school students get by their last 2 years of high school without any math or English classes (and that shows) I read employment resumes sometimes in the performance of my job and I am appalled at the entire thing, especially the blacks, and some are so funny that they get passed around for a big hoot.
Raheja, an English professor at UC Riverside who specializes in Native American literature….
Raheja and all her ilk need to be taught a lesson. They add nothing positive to this country and their incessant use of the word “racism” will backfire on them. This is a white nation and if these minorities don’t like it they can leave and if they continue down the path they are on they won’t be given a choice in the matter. Self-loathing minorities will always use the word “racism” as a weapon against whites, because they are too ignorant to comprehend the fact that they are firing blanks…
‘keep the hate alive’
I am sick to death of politically-correct morons trying to destroy our traditions on our own soil! It used to be where immigrants or minorities would try to fit in. Now they demand that we “fit in” to all that they want and all in the tired old fake name of “racism.”
EVERYTHING is “racist” to these fools so that the word no longer carries any meaning. I’m a “racist” for being proud of my race… So what? I’m a “racist” for wanting our heritage and traditions to be honored? Who cares? I’m a “racist” for demanding an end to wide open borders and the never-ending onslaught of Third World legal and illegal immigration? Tough beans!
I’m also a “racist” for believing in democracy and the rule of law and for displaying any kind of common sense or loyalty toward the Constitution and our country.
I’m just a plain old “racist” and a dreadful “protectionist/isolationist” to boot because I believe in America and what she stands for, I believe in the rule of law, I believe in the Constitution, I believe in our independence; not being part of a “global society/one world order,” I believe in liberty and justice for all, and I absolutely refuse to ever give up our country without a fight!
It is time for all Americans to stand up and fight for our rights, or we’ll lose everything that we cherish.
Since costumes innately reinforce exaggerated stereotypes, this person’s central argument is really a rejection of all attempts to depict any culture, nationality, or ethnicity. I mean, if one decided to go to a party as an Englishman, one might sport a monocle, a bowler hat, and a tweed sport coat. Now that’s a one-dimensional and largely inaccurate depiction of Englishmen, isn’t it?
Tecumseh, now THAT is an Indian that our children could learn a thing or two from.
If this Rehaja woman has nothing better to do than fret over a holiday event for kindergardeners, the proper thing for the state to do would be to eliminate her position and save whatever property tax money they’re spending on her salary and benefits.
I’m partly Amerind; Cherokee and Tuskarora. So what?
Just let the kids have fun. Lord knows kids have to grow up quicker and quicker as time wears on.
I have no kids. But, I thoroughly enjoyed the Charlie Brown Thanksgiving cartoon last night. Charles Shultz was not afraid to mention the blessings of God in coming to a new land. If you don’t believe that, fine. Maybe it was not historically correct. Just enjoy the work of an American classic cartoonist. Let the kids enjoy it. They would if you’d let them.
Thankgiving has ALWAYS been about celebrating EUROPEANS’ first successful year in the ‘New World.’ PERIOD! There was NEVER any inclusion of “Indian” ANYTHING until the cultural Marxists implanted it (read FORCED IT)into public education.
The goal of the left is to ensure that there is no dominant culture, no shared cultural mythos, etc. so that everyone is as free to be as weird as they want.
On the surface, it sounds great: no one can criticize me, I can do whatever I want, etc.
When you look more deeply into it, you discover that what you “want” to do correlates to what you “need” to do to achieve certain things in life.
This means that the left and all its bluster is basically a cognitive dissonance excuse for disaffected underachievers to justify their own neurotic, fractured lives.
Professor,
Being that you’re on the subject of another laughable diatribe over PC gone wild and in due respect towards the Multi Cult crowd, you should be overwhelmingly critical of -
The Cleveland Indians
You get the picture.
I can’t continue, I’m laughing too hard.
Bugs Bunny said it best “What a maroon”!
I’m done….
From the article:
“…Parents in this quiet university town [Claremont, California] are sharply divided over what these construction-paper symbols represent…”
Make no mistake: This is one more battle in the war to not only completely eliminate European-American History, holidays and traditions—but to portray White Americans as genocidal, bloodthirsty, evil slave masters who deserve to be crushed like bugs and wiped off the face of the earth.
Here’s the update:
“…On Tuesday morning, some parents dressed their children in the hand-made headdresses, bonnets and fringed vests, and school officials did not force the students to remove them.
Nearly two dozen protesters stationed themselves in front of the school, evenly split between costume supporters and opponents. The supporters set up a table with refreshments in front of the school sign, and several wore construction-paper headdresses. Foes stood about 40 feet away, carrying signs that said, ‘Don’t Celebrate Genocide.’
The discussion between the two groups grew so heated that school officials called police, and officials separated the protesters onto separate sidewalks, said Claremont Police Lt. Dennis Smith…”
Good for those parents who decided to fight back against forced PC indoctrination that is specifically designed to teach little White children that they should feel shame and eternal guilt for the deeds of their ancestors—including the fact those ancestors created the freest, most prosperous nation the world has ever seen.
I hope those parents target each school board member that was in favor of this War on White Culture for defeat in the next election—or better yet, form a home schooling coalition and pull their White children out of the government-controlled brain-washing centers.
If the parents don’t put a stop to the madness, who will?
Bon
You left this out and you should not have, here whites are being compared to slavemasters and nazis. Never mind the fact that Amerindians are far more numerous today than 500 years ago—or that they live much longer lives. Just like anyone else, they want something from whitey for nothing.
“”It’s demeaning,” Michelle Raheja, the mother of a kindergartner at Condit Elementary School, wrote to her daughter’s teacher. “I’m sure you can appreciate the inappropriateness of asking children to dress up like slaves (and kind slave masters), or Jews (and friendly Nazis), or members of any other racial minority group who has struggled in our nation’s history.”“
Some of the Founders dressed up as Indinas-for the Boston
If I ever had kids, I would home school them. I could never send them to a school that indoctrinates them to self-hatred and perpetual guilt.
The more whites being home schooled, the better!
To Wikitopian:
I hope you were kidding about Tecumseh as an example for children to look up to. This North American aborigine allied himself with the British in the War of 1812, which made him an enemy of the USA.
He got what he deserved at the Battle of Tippiecanoe in 1811. A small missile, launched from the handgun of Col. Richard M. Johnson, penetrated his body and caused immediate cessation of respiratory functions.
I just love describing Tecumseh’s demise in “politically correct” terminology!
I completely agree with these self-styled Native American activists. By all means, let us not characterize them in any way. Let’s rename all the team mascots to remove any reference to warriors, chieftans, braves, and the like. Then let’s discard every single indian place name - every stream, every river, every county, and every state. Let’s completely write them out of the history of their own ancestral land. Let’s act as if they never existed, and soon enough, it will be as if they never did.
Happy now? Is that what you wanted?
