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I was watching CNN this AM and saw this pathetic piece about North Carolina Principal Chris Gibbs of Claremont Elementary School. He was forced by winger parents to censor the President’s school speech on Tuesday. For point of reference, the school is west of the Triangle, near Hickory. Needless to say, it’s Red territory.
In this interview, Gibbs, who is black, knows exactly what the score is — he’s dealing with a bunch of ignorant bigots, and his head was going to roll if he didn’t comply with the bullying extremists who thought the speech contained “communist” rhetoric that they didn’t want to expose their precious children to.
Gibbs does his diplomatic best in the heat of this situation, but he calls it like it is:
GARY TUCHMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This North Carolina school principal had to decide whether or not to air President Obama’s speech for students in his school. The pressure was on.CHRIS GIBBS, PRINCIPAL, CLAREMONT ELEMENTARY SCHOOL: This may sound a little strange, but after a flurry of phone calls, my first thing was to go in my office, shut my door and have a prayer because I knew I was going to have to make a decision.
TUCHMAN: What was he hearing from parents? Mostly comments like those we heard at the county fair just down the road.
(on camera): Do you think the school should play Barack Obama’s speech?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Absolutely not.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It’s more like communism saying we’re going to do this and we’re going to do that.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think it should be up to the parents’ decision if they want their children to hear that or not.
TUCHMAN (voice-over): And that is exactly what Principal Chris Gibbs decided. The speech will not be shown at Claremont Elementary School.
Teachers we met at the school told us they backed the decision.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It’s not something that we want to divide our school with.
TUCHMAN: In our research of the schools and school districts that will not be showing the president’s speech live, we found that most of them perhaps not surprisingly are in counties where Barack Obama did not do particularly well during the November elections.
(on camera): Catawba County, the home of the Claremont Elementary School is no exception. John McCain received 67 percent of the vote here.
This is what he’s going to say in his speech. If you quit in school, you’re not just quitting on yourself, you’re quitting on your country. Isn’t that a message you want your kids to hear? Isn’t that part of what education is all about?
GIBBS: Most definitely. And we’ve asked our parents, again, going back to responsibility. A responsible parent is going to sit down and talk to their kids about staying in school.
TUCHMAN (voice-over): But Barack Obama’s message about it won’t even be shown here in an edited form in the days to come. The principal has decided that the children are to see any of it, it should only be from their parents.
(on camera): Let’s say if President Obama said I want to come to you school? He calls you up, I want to make a live appearance at your school and we’ll have an assembly. You would be dealing with the same things with these parents, wouldn’t you?
GIBBS: I would, probably.
TUCHMAN: How does that make you feel?
GIBBS: Well, we have a long way to go (And these synapse-firing-free parents are a prime example of this — ed.). And the issues out there today are the issues, they’re sensitive issues (As in these bigots are thisclose to calling the POTUS an uppity n*gger. – ed..) But if the president wanted to come to Claremont Elementary School, he would certainly be welcome to come to Claremont Elementary School. And I guess I would have to go back in my office and shut the door and pray again.
TUCHMAN (voice-over): Gary Tuchman, CNN, Claremont, North Carolina.
8 Comments
Old code words, new code words
Except that they’re never going to do that. They don’t have to.
We’re seeing two things going on with the way bigot express their racism. They are reverting to using old racist code words (see peteyPornpig’s diary UN-FRIGGIN-Believable RACIST Hank Williams Jr.) like calling Obama the “zippidy-do dah” president. And, they are using words like “communist”, “socialist” and even “racist” as substitutes for the n-word.
So, they really are using the n-word. They’ve just developed an understanding of what the new code words mean.
When Glenn Beck says that Obama is a racist, he’s calling Obama an uppity n*gger. That’s obvious.
Instead of writing:
Change it to:
Since Obama’s speech was not political, the only objection that these people could have was that they didn’t want a black president to address the school.
I grew up listening to this racist crap. I witnessed firsthand how the word “urban” and “inner city” became a code word for black. My racist relatives quit using the n-word — even behind closed doors. They also began to use code words like “racial” when they refer to something that isn’t white.
There are dozens of other examples. I guess I should write a diary about it.
Anyway, I don’t know if you posted this previously:
Another “fine moment” for NCDoes the national press have a huge headquarters in NC or do our right-wing wackos just love the camera?(woman with the flag in her head) It doesn’t seem to matter what the President does, there will always be crazy racists people out there trying to do him in. I hate that the principal bowed to the pressure of some of the parents. It’s shameful in my opinion. Do they not teach civics anymore in school? It should not matter who is president. Students should at least be taught respect for the Office. To remove students from class,is unpatriotic in my opinion. Show a little respect. I am disgusted by the whole matter. And of course, race is at the heart of it all!
“Do they not teach civics anymore in school?”No. They don’t.
http://www.civiced.org/index.p…
what a bunch of toothless wonders ….and this is WHY I do NOT/nor ever go south on vacation…bascially I spend my tourism dollars in other countries,or in the few LGBT friendly states. I’d get myself in Fights easily in the south with these Toothless wonders/loser bigots…..America has Mental Problems!
Bullied? No…he lost the ability to claim he was bullied……when he said he went into his office and prayed. He should have left the whole praying thing out of it. He should have just hung it on the neck of the backward reds in the area.
This guy gets no sympathy from me whatsoever.
Most states have their bad spots
Hickory, the area is question I believe is slightly west of or on the western edge of the triad area.
With the map zoomed in on the triangle & triad region at the top of this thread, I thought it would be interesting to do a rough overlay of those areas & the 2008 presidential election results especially considering NC is a state the Obama won. (I say rough b/c its hard to define exactly what counts as a generic region, and when using terms like triangle area it can mean the smaller research triangle park, it can mean the 3 cities Raleigh, Durham & Chapel Hill, or it can mean the broader region including most of Wake County, Durham County, & Orange County wherein those cities reside & nearby areas which is the way I see it most often used)
If you want a beach vacation in NC, especially somewhere on the coast like Wilmington (One Tree Hill filmed here), or Cape Hatteras to see the lighthouse, I had no problem being openly gay with bumper stickers, & t-shirts, & holding my husbands hand & so forth. Likewise if you want to visit the mountains or the Biltmore Estate then you can stay in one of NC’s most liberal cities Asheville which is west of this map. Although I will admit once you go west of the Triad & Charlotte, towards the mountains of NC (Asheville area excluded) the area can be less welcoming.
Not that NC doesn’t have its bad spots, but I think relative to much of the rest of the south, its not so bad.
CNN interviews and FairsActually, I was working a booth at the fair, CNN interviewed a couple people who said that they should show the speech. Then again, the fair itself was rife with Hank Williams Jr. types.
The Republican even had a booth set up and was handing out “God Created Adam & Eve, Not Adam & Steve” buttons with their ads for candidates.
I’d also point out thatthe superintendent for my county, orange county which is on the left side of the triangle there, encouraged all of our schools to show the speech.