Armed with half the story and an acute sense of victimhood,
social justice warriors chase liberals off the stage

My long-suffering wife, the beautiful Lisa, was watching on the telly as Blaska spoke from the podium at Doyle Administration Building Monday (02-25-19). She said saw my hand trembled. No doubt some age-related palsy of some sort.

Her husband had entered hostile territory — that is to say, a Madison school board meeting. Furthermore, he was surrounded by agitated adversaries who have found the defendant guilty and were preparing the rope without bothering to hear his side of what happened at Whitehorse middle school.

Worse, Blaska was speaking heresy to the apostles of the Cult of Victimhood who have indicted an entire school district, its elected school board and its teaching staff of racism most foul here in liberal-progressive-socialist Madison.

At the podium, Blaska related how he had approached Michael Johnson moments earlier there in McDaniels Auditorium. (Johnson is back in Madison again at the Boys and Girls Clubs.) That Blaska had spoken with school board candidate Amanda Mirilli, who did race and gender for Tony Evers at DPI. That he had entreated Anna Marie Moffitt, former school board member and avid Cops Out of School activist. 

Lead — or demagogue?

Blaska had asked the three putative Madison political leaders if they could not urge calm and civility — to spend a little of their Leftist political capital to urge the more rabidly inclined to at least hold their fire until all the facts were in from the Whitehorse episode.

If the facts are as the advocates insist — that a white man viciously assaulted an 11-year-old black girl for nothing more than wearing too much perfume — then the veteran educator should be fired, arrested, and prohibited from ever entering another schoolhouse anywhere in America.

But the police have not released the results of their investigation. Nor have the faculty been allowed to comment publicly to the news media. That leaves only the angry mother’s account and the partial and (apparently) difficult to discern video.

Blaska was rebuffed. Ananda Mirilli said drily that the angry crowd was “going to do what they were going to do.” Which turned out to be to disrupt yet another school board meeting.

Rush to judgment

The Capital Times reports:

As activists chanted, the Madison School Board left its usual meeting place in the auditorium of the Doyle Administration Building Monday night and finished the rest of its session in a conference room down the hall and away from the public and reporters.

The rest of the meeting was broadcast via live-stream video in the auditorium of the Doyle Administration Building. Security guards blocked entry into the conference room until the meeting ended and School Board members left the building. Officials said the disruptions made clear the meeting could not continue in the auditorium.

Protests were led by Freedom Inc., the local social justice advocacy group that has been calling on the Madison Metropolitan School District to not renew its contract to have police officers in the city’s four main high schools.

… Tensions rose during Monday’s public comment period as School Board candidate David Blaska took to the lectern urging the audience to not rush to judgment before the police report was released.

“I think we should see what the situation is,” Blaska said as several members of the audience attempted to shout him down by yelling “this is white supremacy,” as he spoke.

Brandi Grayson of Young, Gifted and Black rallies the troops before Monday’s Madison school board meeting

Back to my account. Mirilli suggested that Blaska should join her in holding accountable the school board for failing to educate children of color. (The racial achievement gap.)

Blaska agreed with the idea of accountability and ran with it when it was his three minutes to address the school board. He further suggested that parents and students should also be held accountable. This drew loud opprobrium from the masses behind me, to the effect that such a sentiment evinced white supremacism.

Blaska should have stated that teachers can teach all they want but children will not learn unless they are so disposed. The fact (insofar as we know the facts) is that the 11-year-old ignored and/or resisted the classroom teacher’s instruction. Now, is it so very antediluvian to suggest that a student ought to obey a teacher’s command? Or should the teacher respond, “Well, if you really don’t want to, never mind”?

Are we certain the student did not lash out violently?

In any event, one of the other few facts we can ascertain is that the teacher felt she needed help to restore order in her classroom and summoned the principal’s office. The vice principal responded, the hated white man who also fulfilled the role of “positive behavior coach.”

(Momma, don’t raise your boys to be a positive behavior coach in a Madison public school. That way lies heartbreak.)

What happened next is as unknown until a security camera at the far end of the hallway captures man and girl spilling out of the classroom. Another adult “lies on top” of the little girl, allegedly to protect her from the racist assault.

I finished my remarks by quoting several Madison citizens who have reached out to Blaska, including Jennifer Drake Figy:

My husband’s 20+ year career started and ended at [Sherman middle school] due to a student’s physical violence against him. My husband was left out of this article due to ongoing litigation which by the way is still going on year three. Amazing what a TBI [Traumatic brain injury] can do to a person! Student slammed the classroom door on my husband’s head.)

More booing. 

I pointed out that the disorder going on behind me was both symptom and cause of the disorder in the classroom.

Still more booing.