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IT'S TIME TO LOWER
THE VOLUME A BIT |
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I've got plenty of people on the right mad at me with my anti-Trump
columns, so it's only fair I get some people on the left mad at me as
well. So here I go.
I've had enough of political correctness. It is out of control, and needs
to be reigned in. The extremists on the left are doing as much damage to
the Democratic party as the extremists on the right are doing to the
Republican party.
The perfect example, of course, is the San Francisco School Board. We all
know the details---in their infinite progressive wisdom, the Board voted
to change the names of 44 San Francisco schools, including Abraham
Lincoln, George Washington, Dianne Feinstein, and my grandfather's,
father's, mother's (where they met) and my alma mater, Lowell High School.
Why? Because they did their research, much of it on Wikipedia, and
determined that all of these honorees had a blemished past when it came to
racism in our country. That disqualified them for naming rights. Never
mind they were the father of our country, the Great Emancipator, or the
woman who strengthened a broken San Francisco after the Moscone/Milk
assassinations.
As for Lowell, no one is even sure if it was named after James Russell
Lowell, an abolitionist poet who apparently was not quite as virtuous in
his youth. But it made the list anyway, just in case.
Without question, in my humble opinion, the renaming of these schools is
nothing short of ridiculous. San Francisco has become the butt of jokes
around the nation. And the credibility of "Progressives" has
taken a huge hit.
While the Board has recently delayed the renaming of these schools in
favor of concentrating on actually getting students back into class, the
damage is done. The backlash has been monumental, and people like me are
fed up.
The bigger problem is that it snowballs. Suddenly, I'm frustrated by
someone like the host of The Bachelor television show losing his job
because he defended a bachelorette who attended an "antebellum"
(Southern plantation) sorority party in 2018.
I sympathize with everyone in the public spotlight. They are paralyzed by
the distinct possibility they will say something or do something that will
quickly ruin their career and perhaps their lives.
Monday morning's front page headline in The San Francisco Chronicle was
about a student suing St. Francis High School for expelling him for a
picture that purportedly showed him in blackface. It was a picture taken
three years ago, when he was 14. He claimed he had acne problems and the
mask was treatment. Whether true or not, it became front page news.
Something is seriously wrong here.
I understand systemic racism. I understand this country has a serious
problem. I will never condone or coddle anyone with racist tendencies.
They don't deserve respect. But let's be reasonable.
It is damaging to the cause to be so intransigent. People make mistakes.
Let them apologize, learn from their mistakes, and move on, so we can move
on.
We have made great strides in the last 60 years. We have elected a Black
president and a Black/Indian female vice president. We are nowhere close
to erasing racism in this country, but I firmly believe we're continuing
to head in the right direction.
We just need to pick our battles wisely, or else risk alienating a large
portion of our population. Save our outrage for what happened to George
Floyd, and not for Dianne Feinstein failing to take down a Confederate
flag in a display outside City Hall 50 years ago.
Sure , it's unfair for me, a privileged white male who has never
experienced discrimination, to criticize perceived overreactions from
others who have dealt with a lifetime of racism.
I get that. But my point is that this increasingly rigid atmosphere is
perhaps doing more harm than good. We can't ignore racism, but we can be
more flexible in how we handle certain situations, depending on the
magnitude.
A difficult and incredibly touchy subject, to say the least. I'll say it
again to be clear. Anyone who makes a racist comment or action absolutely
deserves to be called on it. But not necessarily on the front page. And
not for generally honorable people who have been dead for 150 years.
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