My oldest child is 13, entering the time period where you are never quite sure what to say or not to say. If I get excited about something she mentions will it encourage or discourage her from continuing it?? So last night when she casually mentioned that her English class would be starting to read Frederick Douglass next month, I turned from her and silently did a fist pump.
There is still hope for memory and magnificence in America if Frederick Douglass is still required reading in schools. I am especially excited because being in Maryland now puts us so close to sites related to Douglass.
I used to show my middle school students a great Biography Channel video about Douglass that was basic enough for them to grasp, but thoughtful enough that I did not mind seeing it a bunch of times. I even had times where I would make them memorize portions of his famous "4th of July to a slave" speech. If you have never read the text of that speech, check it out.
I wish Michelle Bachmann had a teacher that had made her do that. Did you hear how the other day she gave a speech praising the founders of our country and the writers of the Constitution because they “worked tirelessly until slavery was no more in the United States"? The Republican Party has come a long way from Lincoln and Douglass to now having a leading spokesperson unaware that her party was founded well after all the founders were dead and buried in order to stop the spread of slavery. I mean really, some of this stuff you just can’t make up.
I was iming (a word?)with a fellow former conservative/Republican about the state of things in the movement and party. William Buckley established the modern day conservative movement as a counter to the John Birch society wackos who had hijacked it. He must be rolling in his grave.
No comments:
Post a Comment