Stuff like this amazes you. Sure, social engineering stuff like this is a distraction (because I'm more of an economic populist). But it's the type of loopy-right distraction that ultimately doesn't accomplish shit - except to make its advocates look like fools.
In Terrebonne Parish, Louisiana, public school officials are furious. What happened to make them so mad? Did drug-sniffing dogs find scissors in the trunk of a student's car? Did somebody have a "violent" Strawberry Shortcake lunchbox? Did someone fail to get bullied?
Nope! None of those things!
School officials' fury was prompted by the graduation speech given by a high school co-valedictorian. One sentence of the speech was in Vietnamese, and the student dedicated it to her parents, who are from Vietnam and are not fluent in English. She then spoke the same sentence in English, and said it was a call to be your own person.
To most folks, there's nothing offensive about it. But everything offends educrats. And I mean everything. Surely, they didn't like the fact that the sentence was a call to individuality. What really rankled them though was that it was in Vietnamese.
So school officials are now introducing a whole bevy of new policies to soothe their own inner turmoil. One of these new rules will forbid foreign languages in graduation speeches. Look, if they're so worried about foreign languages, what the hell do they think English is? English is called English for a reason. It's not called American. It's called English because it began in jolly old England.
School officials are also considering mandatory prayer at graduation ceremonies - in a public school. Why??? What does this have to do with the speech that offended them so much?
If the prayer rule takes effect, it's almost a certainty the school board is going to be sued. And they'll almost certainly lose. It's already clear the school board is out of step with the community, because of the complaints this proposal has already prompted.
This is the best the Terrebonne Parish public school system can do to distract us from more important issues?
(Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/30/us/30english.html)
Monday, June 30, 2008
School officials threaten language crackdown and forced prayer
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Okay, I firmly believe that we should make English our official language. And I'm also the one who refused to pay attention in Spanish class when I was in high school, simply because they where forcing it on me and I wanted to take German instead.. But this is just blatant racism.
ReplyDeleteThey have no right at all to tell students they can not use other languages in their speeches. Especially for small phrases like that. They wouldn't of gotten angry if the student said "Viva La [Insertschoolnamehere]", they have no right to get angry just because she said something in Vietnamese.
This is America. And I do believe our 'freedom of speech' also means 'freedom to speak in other languages'. ESPECIALLY when you are showing pride in your heritage.
What are they going to do next? Ban modern music because it frequently features Spanish sub lyrics? Or perhaps they're gonna ban Nena and Aha for being German pop vocalists. If this place was near by, I'd totally go blasting the original version of 99 Red Balloons or Barbie Girl.