Rules They Don't Teach Kids In School

I saw this on Facebook today and I thought it was worth sharing.  It's not actually from Bill Gates, it's from Charles J. Sykes of the Hoover Institution.  The Bill Gates part is urban myth.  However, that does not detract from the actual truths contained in the rules.  For an expanded version go here.

Duck Dynasty, Rednecks, Race Baiting and Etymology

"It seems a fine line between being a matador and being a rodeo clown"

A&E's Duck Dynasty

Duck Dynasty chronicles the activities of a family in Louisiana who own a duck call business that has made them wealthy.  The show is a humorous 'reality' show,and the family is very likable.  But not to everyone.  A school in Phoenix is embroiled in racially tinged controversy that has roped Duck Dynasty into the story.

Via USA Today:

PHOENIX -- When members of the student council at an Arizona high school organized a schoolwide "Redneck Day" and encouraged classmates to dress — and spoof — accordingly, they hoped to build school spirit leading up to prom week.

Instead, "Redneck Day" at Queen Creek High School has angered African-Americans and civil-rights leaders and touched off a debate about free speech, social stereotypes and good taste.

Tom Lindsey, superintendent of the Queen Creek Unified School District, said the only intent of Wednesday's event was to satirize the A&E reality TV show "Duck Dynasty," which follows a family of duck hunters and entrepreneurs from West Monroe, La.

But some students and their family members weren't amused. Among them: the Rev. Ozetta Kirby, pastor of Holy Trinity Community AME Church in Mesa and vice president of the East Valley chapter of the NAACP.

"I'm sitting here crying and praying," said Kirby, whose grandson Marcus Still is a 16-year-old junior at the school.

"This thing really got to Marcus," Kirby said. "When you're in 11th grade, that can break you down and make you feel at the bottom rung of the whole society, where everybody is being jubilant. No kid should have to go through that. We all know the connotation of 'redneck.' "

This is an interesting issue.  I am not a proponent of political correctness, but perhaps some people may have been offended and it should be reviewed.  But not in a knee-jerk fashion.  And the issue is more complex than political correctness.  Before I get into the etymology, of the word redneck there are a few other considerations to this news story.

• Was this originally a planned spoof of Duck Dynasty, or is that just an after-the-fact cover story for the "Redneck Day"? It's not clear in the story which is really the case.
• Should the people who are rednecks not be angered by the idea that their culture is being spoofed?  How is it not okay to upset African Americans with a Redneck day but okay to spoof Redneck culture with  stereotyped persona for an entire day? Hint: It's not okay. That's political correctness at work - don't hurt the feelings of this group of people, but it's okay to spoof this group. That, is wrong.
• If this was indeed upsetting for some of the students and faculty (which it clearly is) then why was the idea not vetted before being allowed to go forward?  It seems like a failure of the public school system. 

Redneck does have some negative connotations Rev. Kirby states, however the interpretation of those connotations is far from universal.  Wikipedia has an entry for the term that begins with the following (emphasis added):

Redneck is a derogatory slang term used in reference to poor, uneducated white farmers, especially from the southern United States. It is similar in meaning to cracker (especially regarding Georgia and Florida), hillbilly (especially regarding Appalachia and the Ozarks), and white trash (but without the last term's suggestions of immorality). 

In recent decades, the term has expanded its meaning to refer to bigoted, loutish reactionaries who are opposed to modern ways, and has often been used to attack white Southern conservatives. The term is used broadly to degrade working class and rural whites that are perceived by urban progressives to be insufficiently liberal. At the same time, some Southern whites have reclaimed the word, using it with pride and defiance as a self-identifier...

The term characterized farmers having a red neck caused by sunburn from hours working in the fields. A citation from 1893 provides a definition as "poorer inhabitants of the rural districts...men who work in the field, as a matter of course, generally have their skin stained red and burnt by the sun, and especially is this true of the back of their necks"

Aside from the specious connection to the term cracker, which does hold more racially tinged connotations, there isn't any racial connotations about African Americans in there.  In fact, Wikipedia has a separate entry for poor whites - in and of itself an interesting distinction.  Yet it does add one element of clarity if rednecks do indeed equate to poor white as Wiki states (emphasis again added):

The Poor White (or Poor Whites of the South for clarity) are an American sociocultural group, of European descent, having origins in the Southern United States and Appalachia. They first emerged as a social caste in the Antebellum South, consisting of white, agrarian, economically disadvantage laborers or squatters often possessing neither land nor slaves. In contemporary context the term is still used to pertain to their descendants; regardless of present economic status. While similar to other White Americans in ancestry, the Poor White differ notably in regards to their history and culture.

Rednecks were disadvantaged - poor white - and almost certainly did not possess slaves.  Seems pretty straightforward to me - rednecks .  The term has taken on different connotations in the minds of some, including Rev. Kirby.  The action and reaction then become a matter entirely of perspective.  It was very not likely intended in an insulting or offensive way.  It was taken in an offensive and insulting way.  That should be resolved.  Dialogue might be enough to put this story to rest.  It is a tempest in a teapot and not deserving of such drama.

Do those reacting by "crying and praying" really believe that the students responsible were motivated by racial hatred or a desire for segregation? Honestly?  What group of kids heading into prom season are thinking like that, en masse? Certainly that is not the case here, regardless of what anyone thinks of the advisability of  such an event.

The most specific issue it turns out was a Confederate flag that was worn by one student, who did not do it to offend anyone and was unaware that the connotations of the flag meant to some:

Most offensive to Kirby and others was that one student chose to wear a Confederate flag — for many a grim reminder of slavery and segregation.

"The Confederacy represents the horrible institution of slavery, and that is a direct attack on African-Americans," said Steve Montoya, a prominent civil-rights attorney in Phoenix.

The Rev. Oscar Tillman, president of the Maricopa County NAACP, who grew up in the 1940s in the South, said: "Our community knows what that flag represents. ... A school is supposed to be for education and showing people where we come from, our history, and to try not to go back to some things."

Lindsey said the student wearing the Confederate flag was pulled aside by an assistant principal and asked to change his clothes.

"It was no ill intent," Lindsey said.

The student, who is from a state where the flag is more prevalent, did not see a negative connotation, the superintendent said.

Again, uninformed actions lead to uninformed reactions.  A Redneck Day is not about going back to 1940s segregation as Rev. Tillman seems to suggest.  No ill intent says it all.

Battling liberal mind control

Everyone knows what the problem is. Hot Air did a story on educational institutions and how liberals are controlling the message right out of the gate. Read the comments section for some personal insights from people frustrated with teachers indoctrinating our children with liberal dogma. From Kindergarten through university, it's one long liberal chain.


Beyond the schools there's the mainstream media. Beyond that there's trade unions. They control the message. It's no wonder conservatives have to play so much defense; liberals have all the offensive weapons. Really offensive ones too. That's the problem. What's the solution.

Whether it's schools, media or unions, there's really only a couple of options available.

1) Take back the institutions that give these unfair advantages to liberals. At least to the point where we have an equal say, an equal footing. The advantage to this approach is that it would foster a true educational environment where opposing viewpoints were discussed and debated. The obvious negative is that it is a massive undertaking, requiring co-ordination, perseverance and time. Decades of time. Further, the liberals who own these channels will fight tooth and nail to prevent this from happening. So add an extra five years to the strategic plan for victory.

2) The other option is to find alternatives. I've harped on this in the past. Use community outreach efforts. Use community events. Develop our own educational alternatives. Devise alternatives to education and the mainstream media. The down side is that it is polarizing to have dueling institutions. The upside is that while it will still take co-ordination and a lot of effort, the undertaking would be quicker and easier than re-taking the schools and TV.

What's a conservative party in the wilderness to do? Honestly, choose both options. This is a long war of ideas. We tend to focus on winning the battles, while liberals seem to have a better focus on winning the war. Or at least, they've put themselves in a better position to do so than conservatives. But while we cannot stop focusing on 2010 and 2012, we also need to take the steps towards making the battle easier for ourselves and the next generation of conservatives to come. We must earn people's trust and take our ideas to them. They may not react well initially, but overall they will be less hostile and more receptive than you might think.

Hispanics for School Choice

Without an elections strategy that leverages demographic trends, conservative Republicans are doomed to repeat the failures of the past. Conservatives tend to be students of history - the past can offer terrific insight into the future dangers and opportunities. One of the confluences of two emerging trends offers the GOP a great opportunity for improved electoral performance. Failure to recognize the opportunity, failure to capitalize on it will turn the opportunity into an electoral threat. There are two trends to consider (1) educational standards and reforms and (2) the rapidly growing Hispanic demographic.

School choice is a fundamentally conservative concept. The free market, everywhere it is applied, provides for the highest instance of innovation, the greatest success stories and is the most effective tool for weeding out the unsuccessful or transforming the unsuccessful into successful out of the necessity of survival. School choice is a logical application of this concept. Allow parents to select which school their child or children will attend and they will pick schools that are successful or best suited to their individual circumstances. In A Nation At Risk in April 1983, the National Commission on Excellence in Education stated the following;

Our Nation is at risk. Our once unchallenged preeminence in
commerce, industry, science, and technological innovation is being overtaken by
competitors throughout the world. This report is concerned with only one of the
many causes and dimensions of the problem, but it is the one that undergirds
American prosperity, security, and civility. We report to the American people
that while we can take justifiable pride in what our schools and colleges have
historically accomplished and contributed to the United States and the
well-being of its people, the educational foundations of our society are
presently being eroded by a rising tide of mediocrity that threatens our very
future as a Nation and a people. What was unimaginable a generation ago has
begun to occur--others are matching and surpassing our educational attainments.

If an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on America the
mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it
as an act of war. As it stands, we have allowed this to happen to ourselves. We
have even squandered the gains in student achievement made in the wake of the
Sputnik challenge. Moreover, we have dismantled essential support systems which
helped make those gains possible. We have, in effect, been committing an act of
unthinking, unilateral educational disarmament.

Our society and its educational institutions seem to have lost sight of the basic purposes of
schooling, and of the high expectations and disciplined effort needed to attain
them. This report, the result of 18 months of study, seeks to generate reform of
our educational system in fundamental ways and to renew the Nation's commitment
to schools and colleges of high quality throughout the length and breadth of our
land.

[Emphasis added]

The authors of the study made key recommendations around class content (i.e. emphasis on math, science, English) , standards and expections (e.g. grades should be indicators of academic achievement), time (i.e. more homework, longer school days, a longer school year), teaching (e.g. standards, salary guidelines) and leadership and fiscal support (e.g. State and local officials, including school board members, governors, and legislators, have the primary responsibility for financing and governing the schools, and should incorporate the reforms we propose in their educational policies and fiscal planning).

Predictably these ideas, recommended some 25 years ago, have been met with resistence from various quarters. Everything from teachers unions, ebonics, No Child Left Behind, to Obama's call for more art and music instead of tougher educational standards, and more hard work to a myriad of other reasons NOT to do it, has stood in the way of educational reform and the reemergence of educational excellence. American scholastics are still succeeding, but not in the ways they did in the past.

The other trend that is occuring is the rapid growth of the Hispanic population in the U.S.A. The chart below is the 2006 Census Bureau data;

Census Hispanic Hispanic
Year Pop (Millons) % Total Pop
1970 9.6 4.7
1980 14.6 6.4
1990 22.4 9.0
2000 35.3 12.5

Projections

2010* 47.8 15.5
2020* 59.7 17.8
2030* 73.0 20.1
2040* 87.7 22.3
2050* 102.6 24.4

How do these two trends, education and Hispanic population growth, intersect? It really isn't all that much of a stretch for conservative thinking to uncover it. Hispanics must be a part of any future Republican thinking and electoral strategy. In order to win, we need to have dialogue with this group and understand where we have common ground to build on. And one thing in common in every demographic is wanting the best education for American children. It's easy.

I've argued in the past about grassroots and outreach being key for GOP future strategy. Luckily, some of this ground up work has already been done within the Hispanic community.

The group Hispanic CREO is an organization arguing for school choice. From their website, they appear to be non-partisan, but even if they are Democrat-leaning, it's a potential wealth of opportunity for the GOP given our belief in what the are fighting for. In fact, there's an article on their site about Bobby Jindal's efforts in Louisiana. We don't need to rally Hispanics around the idea of better education - they are self-moticated on the issue and wanting improvement already. We just have to show them we mean business about it.