WEDNESDAY, MARCH 16, 2022
It seems to have happened in Byram: The Washington Post's Alyssa Rosenberg is a good, decent person. She's fighting the latest round of the culture war in her latest column—or at least, so she seems to believe.
Headline included, her column starts like this:
‘I Need A New Butt!’ belongs in schools. Kids need the gross, rude and absurd.
The latest round of the renewed culture war over books in schools might well be the silliest yet.
Toby Price, an assistant principal in Byrum, Miss., was fired this month for reading “I Need a New Butt!” to a group of second-graders. His superintendent, Delesicia Martin, said he’d caused “unnecessary embarrassment.” With all due respect, she ought to butt out—and rediscover the purpose of children’s books.
According to Rosenberg, Price shouldn't have been fired. Also, she wants Superintendent Martin to butt out.
That said, is this really "the latest round of the renewed culture war over books in schools?" In fact, it doesn't have to be that—unless you're committed to acts of war.
For starters, let's start with this. As best we can tell, this incident didn't happen in Byrum, Mississippi at all!
According to the Census Bureau (and Wikipedia), and according to the Hinds County Schools, the town in question is actually Byram, Mississippi—and this might be a place whose cultural values differ slightly from Rosenberg's, and even perhaps from yours.
Granted, that shouldn't be allowed. Rosenberg graduated cum laude from Yale. The superintendent graduated from Southern Mississippi, then got her doctorate from Nova Southeastern. Also, her professional photos seem to suggest that the superintendent is black, although we'd be inclined to let her settle such issues herself.
This latest round in the culture war took place at Gary Road Elementary School, right there in Byram-not-Byrum. With respect to Byram, there's this:
According to the Census Bureau, Byram's 12,666 people (2020 census) were 28.8% white, 69.6% black.
According to Niche, the students at Gary Road Elementary are 89.9% black, 7% white. Also according to Niche, 86% of the kids receive free or reduced price lunch.
In short, we offer you this:
Gary Road Elementary is a lower-income, majority-black school full of good, decent kids. And uh-oh! In some regions of the South, many people—even including the people you may think of as black—may have cultural values which differ from those which prevail in places like Lexington, Mass.
Granted, that shouldn't be allowed. But until we can gain full control of the culture, that's the way it will have to be.
For ourselves, we don't know why Toby Price got fired for reading that book. We're rarely happy to hear that someone got fired or lost a job.
On the other hand, we don't know what parents in the community would think about this matter. It's possible that the superintendent simply made a strange decision. It's also possible that her decision would more or less align with community values.
We don't know any of that. We may know several things:
We know that this isn't "the latest round in the culture war" unless you're absolutely determined that it has to be—or unless you're addicted to such acts of war.
Now we'll take a guess:
We'll guess that many people who have been pimping this incident thought they were having the usual fun at the expense of the Southern white crackers our vastly more intelligent tribe simply loves to deride.
So it was with all the fuss about McMinn County, Tennessee and the graphic novel Maus. So it may have been here. Our dimwitted tribe simply loves to play this familiar, dimwitted old game.
We also know that the community in question seems to be Byram, not Byrum. It looks to us like the AP may have made an initial mistake, with everyone else following suit.
(For what it's worth, the town of Byram seems to think that its name is Byram, not Byrum. Then too, they're just a bunch of hayseeds and hicks. They may be wrong about the name of their town, along with everything else.)
At any rate, it looks to us like the AP may have made a mistake, and everyone else followed suit. Why did everyone follow suit? Easy!
Everyone followed suit due to a general disinclination to seek additional information about the school, the school district or the town within which this event took place. In other words, due to the widespread journalistic disinclination to know what you're talking about.
Earth to tribe:
Everyone doesn't share our infallible cultural judgments about every possible matter. We agree that this shouldn't be allowed, but that's the way it is.
As best we can tell, it's Byram, not Byrum—and no, this isn't a war.
It "may be the silliest yet," she said. Our guess? We can get even dumber!
"Then too, they're just a bunch of hayseeds and hicks. They may be wrong about the name of their town, along with everything else."
ReplyDeleteHeh-heh. Funny, dear Bob. Thanks for the laughs.
...and, as usual, thanks for documenting another small portion of the recent liberal atrocities...
“people—even including the people you may think of as black—may have cultural values which differ from those which prevail in places like Lexington, Mass.”
ReplyDeleteSure. Some parts of the country may not believe in free speech. Some may believe in limiting the votes of minorities. Others may believe in slavery as a God-given institution to be defended to the death.
It seems to me that there are certain universal values, such as freedom of expression, that ought not be subject to the whims of geography. That is, if you believe in the concept of inalienable rights.
“ this really "the latest round of the renewed culture war over books in schools?" In fact, it doesn't have to be that—unless you're committed to acts of war.”
ReplyDeleteOr, conversely, it could be part of a culture war, which is clearly going on, obvious to anyone who’s paying attention or isn’t willfully blind or playing games. You could of course choose to ignore THAT. At your peril, I would say.
“Also, her professional photos seem to suggest that the superintendent is black,”
ReplyDeleteSomerby, who doesn’t “see” race, has no trouble assigning a race to a woman based on her photograph. Way to be post-racial..
She’s just a human, who may have made a poor decision. A teacher is now out of a job. But that’s just Mississippi values, I guess.
But Somerby will use her supposed “blackness” to mock the “liberals” at the Post, as if they would not have written this story had they “known” she was “black.” That is a pure ugly insinuation from Somerby. Must be a day ending in ‘y.’
Unsurprisingly, Somerby has a bad take on this issue.
ReplyDeleteFirst, the opinion piece correctly identifies the location as "Byram".
Somerby tries to push the notion that perhaps cultural values are just different in Byram, this is his treasured noble savage view of non whites.
As it turns out the people of Byram share similar cultural values as the rest of the country, if anything it is Superintendent Martin whose values are out of whack. Somerby says "we don't know what parents in the community would think about this matter", but in fact we do. Parents in the community have viewed Superintendent Martin as problematic for years, indeed at least twice in the past few years parents have started petitions to remove Superintendent Martin. No parents complained about the "butt" book.
HUH!
Yes, it turns out parents in Byram are not impressed with Superintendent Martin, as she has brought a culture of teaching for tests, allowing bullying, and an incredibly high turnover rate for teachers every year in the district. Superintendent Martin just can not keep teachers employed in the district for very long, they are leaving in droves every year. To make matters worse the district ranks veery low in the state. So parents have decided on multiple occasions to become active and remove Superintendent Martin. Wake me when Somerby ever gets anything right.
"At any rate, it looks to us like the AP may have made a mistake, and everyone else followed suit. Why did everyone follow suit? Easy!
ReplyDeleteEveryone followed suit due to a general disinclination to seek additional information about the school, the school district or the town within which this event took place."
This is a fundamental mistake on Somerby's part. The AP (Associated Press) is a news service, formerly known as a wire service. They exist to provide news to other publications. Those publications take the copy from the AP and reprint it, often verbatim, because many smaller papers do not have the resources to have reporters, especially in other countries, doing original reporting.
So, others repeated the story because that is what the AP does -- it provides stories for others to repeat.
When the AP makes an occasional error, and this is an extremely small one, a spelling error than may even have been a typo, it will be repeated because if those other papers had the staff to check every story from another source, they wouldn't need to subscribe to the AP service. Duh! The only way they would catch this kind of error is if someone laying out the paper came from that town.
But Somerby acts as if this were the crime of the century! Somerby used to use the word fatuous a lot. This is a situation where his take on things is truly fatuous. I would ask why Somerby's editors didn't catch his mistake, but that would just be mean.
That's such a stupid way to look at it.
DeleteIt's so stupid, Republican voters would nominate it for President, if it had a lot more bigotry.
DeleteI have been researching this kind of article and good thing I came across this one.
ReplyDeleteInternet specials at Aqualine Steel Water Tanks