Rants and Raves, February 2019
Amy offers a wrap-up of some of the most infuriating and awesome news of the month in her Rants and Raves for February. This week, she takes on arresting an 11-year-old, a bill that would lead to trans-related censorship in South Dakota schools, and the number of women in the race for the 2020 nomination.
Rant: Are we actually arresting 11 year olds now?
A Florida boy was arrested on February 4th for refusing to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance because he said that he thinks the flag is “racist”. I’m not even sure where to begin on this one. But it seems pretty straightforward. A substitute teacher tried to make the student stand, he refused. The substitute teacher then suggested that he should go back to his own country, which she claimed was Africa. Horrifying.
At the end of the event, there was a child, an actual 11-year-old child, in handcuffs. Was he a safety risk to the school? Doesn’t appear to have been, though the school claims that he was asked to leave the classroom and didn’t. Was he armed? Again, nope. As teachers, we are trained to de-escalate conflict situations in the classroom, so that students don’t end up in disciplinary referrals. Should the kid have left when asked? Yes. Should it have ever gotten to that point? Nope.
This seems like a massive overreach, a moral shame, and an embarrassment to this district and police department. Surely there must have been a way to handle this that didn’t end up being national news. Hopefully it will be all cleared up by the time this blog publishes.
Rave: Look at all of the women!
However you plan to vote, let’s all get excited about the fact that so many women are running in the Democratic primaries. Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, Amy Klobuchar, and Kirsten Gillibrand have all thrown their hats into the ring and I, for one, am psyched about it. And though I am saddened that conversations have already begun about their likeability, their hobbies, and their authenticity, I know that their voices will bring powerful change to the field and I am looking forward to seeing what they have to say in the primaries. And how cool would it be to have a female president?
What can you do to help with this? One big thing is that you can call out the anti-woman tropes when you see them and ask others to do the same. I know that this is uncomfortable. And I know that, especially as a white woman, I have been able to opt out of these conversations in the past because the work is hard or it makes me uncomfortable or I’m afraid that I will do it wrong. But the time for that, my friends, is over. So let’s do it.
Rant: South Dakota has misplaced priorities, wants to forbid talk of gender dysphoria in schools.
House Bill 1108 in South Dakota is a regressive piece of legislation. Among other provisions, it states that, “No instruction in gender dysphoria may be provided to any student in kindergarten through grade seven in any public school in the state.” This bill would make it illegal to talk about gender dysphoria in schools and would prohibit conversations in a particularly formative time in life for trans youth, since often they identify their feelings of dysphoria at a young age. The Governor of South Dakota has indicated that she would be in favor of signing a bill of this nature and that she views this bill as keeping children safe at school. The sponsor of the bill, Tom Pischke, a State Representative from Dell Rapids, stated that the bill was designed to stop children from becoming dysphoric and to stop schools from encouraging them to do so at a young age.
The ACLU has come out against the bill, as have a number of LGBTQ groups in South Dakota. There are many reasons to object to bills like this, but I’m going to pick one that first came to my mind when I read this. Why in the world are we trying to make it more difficult for kids to feel safe in schools? Our kids have real problems, like food insecurity, early experiences of trauma, and the physiological and cognitive effects of widespread poverty. These are the issues that our legislatures should address. And yet they are spending their time taking on a “threat” that has been shown time and again not to exist. School is a hard enough time for many kids without adding in an extra layer of discrimination and exclusion. Talking to kids about gender doesn’t lead them to question their gender, just as talking to kids about lions and giraffes does not lead them to believe that they should be romping around on the Savannah. Perhaps these lawmakers should spend some more time in schools and a less time trying to figure out how to make life unnecessarily harder for kids who are already struggling.
-Amy