Teens With a Cause
2010-07-21 - by
Forty years ago, I took part in an antiwar protest at the State Capitol after Kent State
So I’ve been amused by Carter’s blogs about teenagers being “used” by adults angry at the new school board’s assignment policy.
My experience raising teenagers is that you can’t “use” them to do anything. Or make them do much of anything they don’t want to do.
The real message here is that the new board’s steamroller has run into a wall of anger and protest – which may show up on Election Day in November.
I don’t believe the board’s new leaders – Carter calls them “the Italians” – are evil people. And I don’t buy bashing them as outsiders “not from here” who “don’t understand our values.”
But there’s an underlying truth to that criticism. Margiotta & Co. clearly haven’t made the effort to know their audience – black and white Southerners who remember the civil rights and school desegregation battles of 50 years ago.
And teenaged students who have learned what those battles meant.
Republicans take note: The 16- and 17-year-olds who were being “used” at yesterday’s protest will be voting to reelect Barack Obama in two years.
Teens With a Cause
2010-07-21/
Forty years ago, I took part in an antiwar protest at the State Capitol after Kent State
So I’ve been amused by Carter’s blogs about teenagers being “used” by adults angry at the new school board’s assignment policy.
My experience raising teenagers is that you can’t “use” them to do anything. Or make them do much of anything they don’t want to do.
The real message here is that the new board’s steamroller has run into a wall of anger and protest – which may show up on Election Day in November.
I don’t believe the board’s new leaders – Carter calls them “the Italians” – are evil people. And I don’t buy bashing them as outsiders “not from here” who “don’t understand our values.”
But there’s an underlying truth to that criticism. Margiotta & Co. clearly haven’t made the effort to know their audience – black and white Southerners who remember the civil rights and school desegregation battles of 50 years ago.
And teenaged students who have learned what those battles meant.
Republicans take note: The 16- and 17-year-olds who were being “used” at yesterday’s protest will be voting to reelect Barack Obama in two years.