Some of you may not even notice as you go about your day preparing for the busy holiday weekend. But the public resentment toward Barack Obama that has been bubbling under the surface has finally boiled over.
The purely racist actions by local and national school systems is a sign of tumultuous times ahead for Obama and his administration. According to online reports, local school principals have ordered teachers not to show a planned Obama address to schoolchildren on Tuesday, Sept. 8.
Ruth Keenan, in her 33rd year teaching, says she was stunned to learn from her school’s principal that parents would have to be notified of plans to watch the speech. Parents who don’t want their children to hear the speech can sign a form and return it to the school.
“I was just so shocked,” said Keenan, who teaches at Booth Middle School in Fayette County. “I have never, ever even heard of getting parental approval to watch a presidential speech. It’s just outrageous to me.”
This action by the school system is of course unprecedented in history — and uncalled for. The literature that many parents objected to have been revised.
Obama planned to deliver a positive, upbeat message to the kids encouraging them to stay in school. But the speech was politicized by Obama himself when his aides insisted upon sending curriculum lessons to all schools rather than allow Obama’s message to stand on its own.
Conservatives and Republicans seized upon the literature as a bold attempt by Obama to indoctrinate the nation’s schoolchildren.
I don’t mind pointing out when Obama is wrong (as he so often is). But it’s obvious that this decision by local school administrators is purely racist and sends a signal that the seething anger of many people at the audacity of a half-black man being elected president is finally rearing its ugly head.
