No Investigation by School Board into Black Panthers Honoring Incident

Thomas Sowell says it well:

There are many people in South Washington County School District 833 who seem to agree. Just read the comments following the blog posts about East Ridge High School honoring the Black Panthers for the evidence.

One of the parents who complained to the school board finally received a call back from School Board Member Ron Kath.  He was the member who said that they were investigating the incidence at the last meeting.  Apparently control-freak Superintendent Dr. Jacobus got to Mr. Kath later because now he is agreeing with the Superintendent that the incident was "student-led and misunderstood." Thanks, Mr. Kath, for doing your job and remembering that YOU and the other Board members are Dr. Jacobus's BOSSES, NOT the other way around.  Pathetic.

Suburban High School Honors Black Panther Party

This story has been picked up by KSTP Channel 5 (Twin Cities); they will be broadcasting an interview with one of the concerned parents tonight on their 6pm program.

East Ridge High School in Woodbury, Minnesota decided to use Valentine's Day as a day to commemorate the Black Panther Party in a school-wide presentation.  Apparently, the day set aside for all things love is the perfect day on which to roll out information about one of the most violent and militant groups in the USA's recent history.

According to the transcript obtained by a concerned parent (after the principal refused to honor her request for a written copy of the announcement that her son had heard that morning. A few hours later a district representative contacted her and gave her the transcript) the presentation, led by Social Studies teacher, Tishanna Brown, began with a reading of A Black Child's Pledge, by Shirley Williams, which was originally published in The Black Panther Newsletter on October 28, 1968:

I PLEDGE ALLEGIANCE TO MY BLACK PEOPLE.

I PLEDGE TO DEVELOP MY MIND AND BODY TO THE GREATEST EXTENT POSSIBLE.

I WILL LEARN ALL THAT I CAN IN ORDER TO GIVE MY BEST TO MY PEOPLE IN THEIR STRUGGLE FOR LIBERATION.

I WILL KEEP MYSELF PHYSICALLY FIT, BUILDING A STRONG BODY FREE FROM DRUGS AND OTHER SUBSTANCES WHICH WEAKEN ME AND MAKE ME LESS CAPABLE OF PROTECTING MYSELF, MY FAMILY AND MY BLACK BROTHERS AND SISTERS.

I WILL UNSELFISHLY SHARE MY KNOWLEDGE AND UNDERSTANDING WITH THEM IN ORDER TO BRING ABOUT CHANGE MORE QUICKLY.

I WILL DISCIPLINE MYSELF TO DIRECT MY ENERGIES THOUGHTFULLY AND CONSTRUCTIVELY RATHER THAN WASTING THEM IN IDLE HATRED.

I WILL TRAIN MYSELF NEVER TO HURT OR ALLOW OTHERS TO HARM MY BLACK BROTHERS AND SISTERS FOR I RECOGNIZE THAT WE NEED EVERY BLACK MAN, WOMAN, AND CHILD TO BE PHYSICALLY, MENTALLY AND PSYCHOLOGICALLY STRONG.

THESE PRINCIPLES I PLEDGE TO PRACTICE DAILY AND TO TEACH THEM TO OTHERS IN ORDER TO UNITE MY PEOPLE.

The presentation went on:

"Good Morning, East Ridge! I'm _____________. 'Power to the People' and 'Black is Beautiful' are two of the slogans associated with todays "Black History Month" person, or should I say, "People" of the day.  Today we commemorate Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale, co-Founders of The Black Panther Party for Self Defense.

In October of 1966, Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale founded the Black Panther Party for Self Defense. In the most part to address the rampant police brutality faced by many black communities around the country.  The Panthers practiced militant self-defense of minority communities against the U.S. Government, and fought to establish revolutionary socialism through mass organizing and community based programs such as free lunch and medical programs. The party, consisting mostly of men and women under the age of 25, was one of the first organizations in U.S. history to militantly struggle for ethnic minority and working class emancipation" (SIC)

Page 1 of Original Transcript

Page 2 of Original Transcript; note the change in
font and lack of punctuation; evidence of the
teacher "cutting and pasting" info from
www.marxist.org

According to an East Ridge parent, the principal told her that this presentation was one of many the school was doing for Black History Month and meant to draw attention to the historical significance of the Panther's movement.  So, basically, folks, there is no reason to freak out because this was just an educational exercise.  There were no other groups that are historically significant in Black American History that should be given the same level of honor and significance.  There aren't any other positive historical Black Americans from which to choose, nope, we must choose the ones that somehow manage to mix "revolutionary socialism" and "militant self-defense" with "organizing and community based programs such as free lunch and medical programs..." (Which, by the way, how did the teacher say that sentence with a straight face?)

It is no wonder that with the glorification of such groups as the Black Panthers that there are people who are excusing and adoring another cop-killer this week, Christopher Dorner.  It is no wonder that our kids have no real concept of American history when they are fed sound-bytes like the one above.

It is offensive to me and should be to any American that out of the many people and groups who could be honored for Black History month that East Ridge would choose The Black Panther Party as one that they chose to honor. I wonder if I were to go to the school, enter American History classes and ask random students who Hiram Revels was, if they'd know he was the first Black American elected to the Senate in 1870? Or what about CORE (Congress of Racial Equality) a group of which MLK was part, which focused on non-violent actions to gain racial equality?  Google or Bing "Black Americans in History" and hundreds of links pop up - even a lazy teacher could do that and come up with better examples of Black Americans in History than the Black Panthers.  Either the East Ridge Principal, Aaron Harper and his cohort Tishanna Brown are ignorant of the great tapestry of Black American History and too lazy to research examples of people worthy of honoring or they have an agenda that they are following to further some perverse purpose of encouraging children to believe that "militant self defense" against the US Government and police is ok as long as one is combining that with "free lunch and medical programs."

Another point: say a student's interest in the Black Panther Party was piqued during this presentation, so s/he goes online to check out the group.  What will that student find? The following is an example of what a brief search would give that student:

In October of 1966, in Oakland California, Huey Newton and Bobby Seale founded the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense. The Panthers practiced militant self-defense of minority communities against the U.S. government, and fought to establish revolutionary socialism through mass organizing and community based programs. The party was one of the first organizations in U.S. history to militantly struggle for ethnic minority and working class emancipation — a party whose agenda was the revolutionary establishment of real economic, social, and political equality across gender and color lines.

Oh, but wait, isn't that the EXACT language used by the teacher in the presentation? Why, yes, it is.  Funny, but isn't that called PLAGIARISM? Which website did Ms. Brown steal this from? That's right, www.marxist.org.    It looks like Ms. Brown cleaned it up and made it a bit nicer by adding "like free lunch and medical programs," but otherwise, she seems to have been at a loss as how to write an original statement about the Black Panthers herself.

But, never mind that, parents, there is no agenda here. This was an educational opportunity used to enlighten and educate the students on Black American History.

Take America Back

It's been a while since I went political here, but Hillary Clinton finally testifying in front of the Senate combined with his majesty's coronation this week has prompted a need to say a few things.

First, we have only ourselves to blame for the re-election of PBHO.  The choice of Romney was a poor one, dictated by the GOP's little understood need to follow union rules of seniority when picking Presidential Candidates.  Only the fact that Romney picked Paul Ryan as his VP Candidate saved him from getting beaten worse than he did in November.  I know that I personally wasn't supportive of Romney until he picked Ryan.  (I was more excited about the idea that Ryan would be VP than anything else, actually.)  Also, whoever told both Ryan and Romney to back off Biden and Obama during the debates was foolish. They should have gone in there with their debate guns blazing and verbally taken them down.  What did they have to lose other than the election? Which is what happened anyway.  Perhaps if they had gone balls out and attacked the net, the American people would have seen the two people in power for what they are: liars and frauds and taken another look at the GOP pair? Instead, Romney went on the offense in only one debate, which lifted his polling numbers, but then backed down in the subsequent debates.  Why?  Did the powers that be go after him for his brilliant performance during the first debate?  Or did he get threats along the lines of the ones that Glenn Beck deals with on a daily basis?  No matter what happened, the fiery Romney of the first debate all but disappeared in the rest.

Part of the issue also was the fact that aside from Romney, there were no other truly viable candidates in the Republican Primaries.  We were offered Ron Paul: Libertarian, firebrand, crazy uncle who is entertaining during Thanksgiving dinner but a little scary too; Newt - been there done that cheated on my wife - Gingrich (although I would have paid good money to watch him debate Obama just for the sheer entertainment value it would have provided); Gary Johnson: "I'm a Libertarian but not like Ron Paul bring on the Occupy Wall Street dirtbags because I'm all in support of them"; Rick "I have 11 kids and counting don't I look good, ever see my wife? no because she's too tired out from raising all those kids and boy, I have soft feminine hands and like to attack Michele Bachmann whenever I'm allowed to speak"; Michele Bachmann: has more backbone than 90% of the Republicans in Congress but is known for shooting off her mouth a little too vehemently on the social issues and therefore giving the MSM extra ammo in getting the lazy libs who know more about the doings of Snooki than our government more reason to hate her; Tim Pawlenty, former MN Governor who decided that raising taxes on cigs were actually "fees" and believed in climate change until he decided to run for President and then changed his mind on climate change and who is now a lobbyist - there's integrity for you. Herman Cain was in there for about a minute until he faced a dual attack by Republicans and the Left for supposed sexual harassment (which once they got him out of the primaries mysteriously disappeared) of his employees.  (I would have voted for Herman Cain given the chance.)

Seriously, looking at the people we were offered as choices, it's no wonder that Romney stood out as the best of the bunch, even with his Romneycare background, his TV evangelist hair and ability to morph into a used-cars-salesman swarmy demeanor.  Where in the heck was Allen West or Rand Paul or Darrell Issa? Why couldn't anyone get Scott Walker or Jindal to run?  Why were the only people running has-beens or lacked so much integrity and/or charisma that there was no way they'd be able to beat Obama at thumb wrestling let alone a national election?  Does no one actually care where the country goes anymore?

Now we're stuck with four more years of serious attacks on our Constitution and liberties.  What are we going to do about it? Why hasn't anyone in Congress found the balls to stand up to Obama and write up Articles of Impeachment for his use of Executive Orders, Benghazi or Fast and Furious?  Why are all but Rand Paul and Ron Johnson letting Hillary Clinton off the hook for Benghazi? Why?

Here's the answer: Most of the people in America today don't even know what happened in Benghazi because the MSM has let it drift away like Hillary's concussion.  And if they do know, they have no idea what to do about it.  Those of us who do know what is happening also have families and jobs to do and we're busy and feeling defeated after two years of the psychological warfare of the national election.  Those of us who joined the Tea Party to help usher in a GOP controlled House of Representatives found out that we were held in contempt by those in power in our party.  We fought against Obamacare and it barely passed because we were standing there, holding our representatives and senators accountable.  But two years later, they were so full of their own power that they stopped listening to us and only cared about their re-elections. And for the most part, we as good little Republicans voted them back in for fear that if we didn't some crazy spending Democrat would take that spot and then we'd be really screwed.

We're already really screwed. Until we stand up and take back control of our American system, things will continue to slide toward Obama's vision of America, which is a little too close to the America envisioned by Ayn Rand in "Atlas Shrugged" for my taste.  We have no Galt's Gulch where we can steal away and begin anew, waiting for America to be brought to her knees before reappearing and taking her back.  We have to begin to take her back now.  We must get the Conservative message out to the people in a way that they can understand it - so that it makes sense to them.  Unfortunately, we may already be too late.