fourhorses wrote: |
One for the Gipper ? |
Quote: |
Fasting For Freedom |
by Baron Bodissey
by Baron Bodissey
9-year old suspended for hate crime
A Glendale elementary school principal has admitted to telling a 9-year old boy that it is OK to have racist feelings as long as you keep them to yourself.
As we said to (the boy) when he was in here, in your heart you may have that feeling, and that is OK if that is your personal belief, Abraham Lincoln Traditional School Principal Virginia Voinovich said in a tape-recorded parent-teacher conference.
The boy was suspended for three days this month for allegedly committing a hate crime by using the expression brown people.
In an interview Monday, Voinovich would not address her comments, first saying she didnt remember the incident, then demanding a copy of the recording and finally insisting that she could not talk about a students discipline.
The circumstances of the boys suspension itself raise troubling questions about student discipline, interrogation and oversight at Abraham Lincoln.
According to school officials, the boy made a statement about brown people to another elementary student with whom he was having a conflict. They maintain it was his second offense using the phrase.
But the tape recording indicates this only came out after another parent was allowed to question the boy and elicited from him the statement that he doesnt cooperate with brown people.
After that was reported to the boys teacher, he was made to stand in front of his class and publicly confess what hed said.
The boy maintains that he never said it; that the words were put in his mouth by the parent who questioned him. That parent happens to be the mother of the student with whom he is having a conflictand she happens to work for Abraham Lincoln as a detention-room officer.
The tape indicates that rather than just spouting off with racial invective, the boy was asked first why he didnt want to cooperate with brown people by the parent/school official.
In court, this might be called entrapment. Not to mention a conflict of interest.
Officials at the Washington Elementary School District, who are supposed to oversee Voinovich, wouldnt comment about the boys suspension. They said only the principal is qualified to talk about it.
Well, the boys mother is talking, and she is angry. She has also removed her son from the school.
I want parents to know that principals can abuse their powers, Sherry Neve, 35, said. Principals need to have pro-active supervisors. I want the parents to know that the principal was influencing my son in a way I wouldnt want him to be raised.
Neve said school officials didnt advise her of the incident until several days after they questioned her son. When Neve objected to the suspension during the conference, Voinovich told her that she didnt have any rights; that parents give up their rights to discipline when they send a child to school, the tape shows.
If you dont want that, you can take him out of here, Voinovich said tersely.
Neve insists that her son is not a racist and that he never differentiated a persons color until the school made it in an issue.
We were raised to be color blind, she said. My children were raised the same way.
But lets assume for a minute that the boy actually made the comment. Does this make him a racist and guilty of a hate crime? Or does it make him a confused 9-year-old in need of counseling?
Instead of taking an opportunity to educate the boy and get to the root of the problem, the principal taught him another lesson altogether: Its OK to feel like a racist as long as you keep your feelings to yourself.
Kids often say the darndest things. Apparently, so do principals.
<