I hate using the term "It's A Black Thang, You Wouldn't Understand", but sometimes it's so apropos. Peep this latest nuttiness from the The Show Me State. Black Snob, rep yo' home state and stick up for your peoples!!!
A middle school teacher in Missouri was suspended Monday for putting a video on YouTube of his students chanting lines from Barack Obama speeches and wearing military fatigues.Okay, and here's the oh-so-controversial video. Clutch your purses, Middle America. It's sooo scary.
The video, called "Obama Youth -- Junior Fraternity Regiment," was posted by a YouTube user named "keepitwildtv" on Oct. 2. The school learned the video was on the Internet and took action against the teacher Monday morning.
Joyce McGautha, superintendent of the Urban Community Leadership Academy, a charter school for students in fifth through ninth grades in Kansas City, Mo., said that the video was probably taken last May during the Junior Fraternity's morning meeting at the school.
Students at the school have 30-minute group sessions four times a week during which they are supposed to work on reading and writing. Once a week they are allowed to have "activities," McGautha said. There are 12 groups at the public charter school.
The Junior Fraternity students studied Obama's economic plan with the teacher, and the superintendent did not know whether the teacher or the students scripted the routine. The group should have also studied John McCain's economic plan, the superintendent said.
In the video, eighth- and ninth-graders wearing military camouflage pants and navy t-shirts chant and perform a routine in the style of a step show, a dance popular among African-American fraternities at universities.
The students enter the room chanting "Alpha. Omega. Alpha. Omega." Then, one at a time, they state things they were "inspired" to do by Barack Obama, including becoming an architect and a sheriff. At the end of the video, the students make statements about Obama's healthcare plan. "Obama's healthcare plan will be able to provide participants the ability to move from job to job without taking their healthcare coverage," one says.
"People are upset that possibly taxpayer money is being used to support one particular candidate," McGautha said, "and now I can understand that. And I didn't condone them. I try very, very hard to remain within the limits of the law. I think this is unfortunate."
I've heard this video dissected on Fox News contributor Laura Ingraham's radio show as "terrorist training". Some on the web are calling the poor young men Nazis. One prominent, perpetually politically out of touch black blogger actually referred to the young men as Black Panthers in the making. Many Conservatives are decrying the fact that the kids are chanting for Obama, but not McCain. The internet is goin' nuts, and most of the comments about this are wildly critical of the kids and blatantly racist.
Wigga Please! Are ya'll serious?
What the pundits miss here is that this is little more than trying to impose discipline and forward thinking in these young boys by way of rote[1] memorization and military style marching routines. Actually, the military thing is off base, it's more like the typical stuff you see in step shows. None of what the kids are chanting is even remotely offensive. They're just repeating Obama Talking Points for chrisakes. They can't even vote yet.
The "routine" doesn't look too different from what you'd see in a typical step show, and isn't too far removed from some of the stuff I did back when I pledged[2]. It's also not too different from the "step teams" you see at most churches, or community centers, or after school programs in most "urban" areas. The mentor program I participated in last year did some of this. Hell, I even use some of this stuff to keep the basketball team of 5th graders I coach in line.
None of this is offensive. Just because it's somewhat foreign to those unfamiliar with black folks doesn't make it dangerous. These kids are inspired by Obama. They clearly aren't inspired by Cotton Hill. That doesn't make this a waste of taxpayer funds, or some sort of illegal public partisan display anymore than that time Sarah Palin shouted out some middle school in Alaska during a debate. Let it go.
Of course, the image of young black boys, dressed in black, and fatigues, and talking very loudly and forcefully is going to offend, if not scare some segment of the population, thus the outcry. But the kids are talking about "taking full (personal) responsibility for their own lives", not breakin' into someone's house in Kirkwood. How anyone finds this offensive is beyond me.
All the teacher intended to do was to make the whole Barry-4-Prez thing realer to these kids by using it to tap into their future dreams and aspirations. What's so wrong about that?
Question: Is Obama Psi Phi an egregious waste of taxpayer money or was the teacher simply trying to show these kids some discipline?
Middle School Teacher Suspended for 'Obama Frat' Spat [FoxNews]
[1] $10 word. Look it up. I'm so proud of my HBCU education. Woo hoo!!!
[2] Yo! Yoooooo!!!!!
