Mr. Anderson at bottom
The firing of Marlon Anderson, the West high school security guard for schooling a miscreant kid on the hatefulness of the N-word, is what our … acquaintances like to call “a teachable moment.”
Here’s betting the Madison school district flunks this real-life snap quiz.
Mr. Anderson has been re-instated by orders of school board president Gloria Reyes. That is leadership of a sort, although one would need be comatose not to feel the blowback from marching students, angry teachers, and an incredulous national media. (Cher, anyone?)
⇒ But will MMSD correct course? Will the district address the blind adherence to “racial equity” in lieu of academic achievement and what report cards back in the day called “deportment”? Hold not thy breath.
Madison schools truly are a national punch line. Talk about a knee jerk reaction to the prevailing P.C. culture. Now what about the other teachers who used ‘that word’ instructionally? Can they get their jobs back? And their reputations?
I hate to say it but I told you so, don’t mind my preachin’ to you
I said “don’t trust ’em, baby” now you know
You don’t know ev’rything there is to know in school ….
Laugh, laugh, I thought I’d die
It seemed so funny to me
Laugh, laugh you met a guy who taught you how it feels to be
Lonely, oh so lonely
— the Beau Brummels, 1965
How does a school system fix stupid?
“Whenever a man does a thoroughly stupid thing, it is always from the noblest motives,” wrote Oscar Wilde in The Picture of Dorian Gray.
This is a truism that should be emblazoned in granite over the front doors of Wisconsin’s Madison West High School, which has recently become a national laughingstock for its unbending application of a rule governing the language that can be used by employees.
So writes struggling young writer Christian Schneider in The College Fix. (Bookmark this website!)
To use a William F. Buckley analogy, firing Anderson for merely saying the N-word “is the equivalent of saying that the man who pushes an old lady into the path of a hurtling bus is not to be distinguished from the man who pushes an old lady out of the path of a hurtling bus: on the grounds that, after all, in both cases someone is pushing old ladies around.”
Madison schools look ridick-a-lus
The College Fix continues: “Pulitzer Prize-winning author David Maraniss, himself a Madison West alumnus, said via Twitter if Anderson’s story was accurate, it was “ridiculous and irrational and utterly wrong.”
Madison, of course, is one of the most progressive cities in America, and the school board is equally steeped in the liberalism of its citizens. … In 2014, when faced with the fact that black students were being suspended more often than white students, the district instituted a new behavior plan that eliminated suspensions altogether.
Well, not quite. But we get the larger point. We’ve been making it for a couple years now. (Here, among many others!)
The firing of Marlon Anderson is, of course, the legacy of the last superintendent, that privileged white woman, Jennifer Cheatham. Upon her departure for Harvard University to turn out more guilty white superintendents, CT publisher Paul Fanlund asked, is “Did Madison do right by Jennifer Cheatham?”
The question at Blaska Policy Werkes is this: Will Madison do right by all the Marlon Andersons, the teaching faculty, and our children?
Kaleem Caire
Blaska’s Bottom Line: Who else thinks Kaleem Caire must submit his name to be the next superintendent of Madison schools? And campaign vigorously for that job? TV and radio, public rallies, yard signs. Can Madison’s Chamber of Commerce money bags bestir themselves to think about losing the next generation? Zach Brandon, call your office.
For Extra Credit:
“If a contextualized judgment is what was required for Anderson, then it’s required for all of them. You don’t have a zero tolerance policy if you make exceptions.” So pronounceth Ann of Althouse.
Greg Humphrey at Caffeinated Politics:
I wonder if others in this city now think perhaps a vote for David Blaska for the board this past April would have been a good idea. I supported his bid and know my vote was the correct one. Now more than ever. “Madison School Board Needs Diversity – Just Anyone With Common Sense.”
Education
Blaska Policy Werkes 
Perhaps I owe ABob an apology. A white woman summarily fires a black man for saying “Don’t call me a nigger.” That is clearly as racist an act as anything I’ve heard since Jim Crow days in the Deep South.
Right there in Madison Wisconsin.
RAY-cism indeed ABob. Right?
If so our positions are closer than I’d heretofore thought.
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@AnonyBob has flitted effortlessly WAY past THAT to the Next Big Thing, which would be The Donald’s Lynching comment.
One problem: ”The past isn’t dead, it’s not even past!”
To wit:
HoR Danny K. Davis (D-Ill.) tweeted 10/22/2019: “The highest officeholder should think about these words. The rural south where I was born has a tarnished and painful history,”
HoR Gregory W. Meeks (D-N.Y.) tweeted 10/22/2019: “I don’t expect Trump to be sensitive to the weight of that word, or see how insulting and hurtful it is to invoke it here,”
Tarnished and painful? Insulting and hurtful? How soon they forget.
(bolds/caps mine throughout)
On the day before he was impeached (12/18/1998), BOTH referred to the Former Serial Sexual Predator In Chief impeachment proceedings as a “LYNCHING.” Not to be outdone, then-HoR Charles B. Rangel (D-N.Y.) “(It’s a) lynch mob mentality, that says this man has to go.”
It gets worse.
HoR Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) 09/13/1998:“We shouldn’t participate in a LYNCH MOB against the president.” Five days later: “no evidence that the Republicans want to do anything other than ORGANIZE A LYNCH MOB;” three weeks after that: “(Republicans were) running a lynch mob” against Clinton.
And worse yet.
Then-HoR Jim McDermott (D-Wash.) 09/12/1998: “This feels today like we’re taking a step down the road to becoming a political lynch mob […] FIND THE ROPE, FIND THE TREE AND ASK QUESTIONS LATER.”
Lefty Hypocrisy (forgive the redundancy) is absolutely breathtaking!
The Gotch
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One might point out that the president’s use of the term was a) metaphorical, and b) hyperbolic. The left and their handmaidens in the media, of course, interpret it only one way: literally. These are the same people who claim to be so attuned to nuance and context–except when it doesn’t serve their purpose.
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Excellent!
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You guys all need to get over yourselves. (Eyeroll)
But, it’s little wonder Dave would want to write about about ANYTHING besides the well-deserved collapse of Trump.
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Collapse?
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Poor @AnonyBob, sad @AnonyBob, terminally ButtHurt @AnonyBob!
His irredeemably calamitous, borderline nonexistent, judgement teeters feebly yet again.
In all fairness, who could blame him; that upon which he so fervently hangs his hat, the Lefty 2020 Clown Car Caravan Cavalcade, has $#!T-canned modest irrelevance in favor of full-bore Self-Immolation.
Hillarity looms….!
The Gotch
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Hillarity just identified Tulsi Gabbard as a Russian agent.
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@madisonexpat;
”Hillarity just identified Tulsi Gabbard as a Russian agent.”
With all due respect, you NEED to get your FACTS straight.
Turns Out Hillarity Clinton Said REPUBLICANS — Not RUSSIANS — Were Grooming Tulsi Gabbard
Soooooo, who ya going to believe; Hillarity, or your lyin’ eyes…?
The Gotch
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A-Bo – Eye rolls are dangerous…. Go too far and you’ll see your brain (it would be that kernel-sized object in the distance).
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Damn! You guys RULE the middle school playground! Trump acolytes all.
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@AnonyBob;
”You guys RULE the middle school playground!”
Not such an exemplary accomplishment when you factor in that the REAL Middle School talent is nowhere near the playground.
Why? No shopping malls to WILD in or cars to boost…
The Gotch
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Is acolyte better than cultist?
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For our purposes, pretty much the same.
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