Is The Fondling On The Test?
Via Nikw211 in the comments, some classroom incongruity:
Parents of kids at Edison High School in Huntington Beach, California say this video was played to their kids in math class. The kids clearly didn’t want to watch this pride video so the teacher threatened them with Saturday school to get them to watch it. pic.twitter.com/FUnB9DKYrN
— Robby Starbuck (@robbystarbuck) June 11, 2023
To paraphrase, but only very slightly:
Not a good look, really. Presumably, the conceit is that any gay pupils will somehow feel affirmed – rather than, say, mortified, or made complicit in something that’s naff and contrived, a vaguely weird imposition. And note that the teacher is the one scolding the kids for being “inappropriate.”
But imagine being a gay kid in the class, possibly a gay kid not entranced by ‘progressive’ politics. Suddenly, the classroom is a world of rainbows and cringe, something the rest of the class groans at and resents having to sit through, again – and it’s all supposedly being done for your benefit. It does rather suggest an unhappy dynamic.
The video, made by other students, and apparently shown in all classes, is presented as both a sentimental review of time spent at the school and an appeal for tolerance and “acceptance” – of cuddling lesbians, glitter-adorned transsexuals, and people with imaginary genders and pronouns. “Don’t forget to love each other,” intones the narrator. It’s very much framed in ‘Pride’ terms – i.e., in terms of social and political “change.” Of “fighting,” alongside “allies,” against unspecified dark forces. As if the purpose of being at school were to become some kind of activist.
Presumably, the forces being fought against include people who think that time in a maths class could perhaps be better spent.
Several people have commented on Twitter and YouTube that the video is unobjectionable and in no way “propaganda.” Well, seen as a child, without wider context, perhaps. But it seems to me that the readiness with which the children have internalised ‘Pride’ and its rainbows and non-binary woo as something unassailably benign illustrates rather well just how effective the propaganda has been.
That the ‘Pride’ movement is intensely political, increasingly extreme – one might say unhinged – and entails rather more than “tolerance” and “acceptance,” is not acknowledged, of course. Apparently, it’s all hugs and sparkles, and being nice.
That the same banners, the same rainbows, the same compelled groupthink, are invoked and deployed to sterilise and mutilate children, and to actively deceive parents, and to make a farce of women’s sports and women’s intimate spaces – for instance – remains unmentioned. And once you’ve demonstrated your acceptance of the flag and all that it entails, what could possibly go wrong? Because it’s all just so nice.
[ Expanded via the comments. Which you’re reading, of course. ]Consider this an open thread. Share ye links and bicker.
Suddenly, the classroom is a world of rainbows and cringe, something the rest of the class groans at and resents having to sit through, again
These are streetwise media-savvy short-attention-span Californian teenagers, of a generation who learned to edit videos at the same time they learned to read and write. Tough crowd, but not because very many of them would have any objection to homosexuality. That one minute rainbow item, which they were groaning at within seconds of it starting, was not only sermonizing and patronizing, it was also (this probably being its most unforgivable aspect for the high school crowd) incredibly dorky.
Why the past tense?
Meanwhile, at the Tate Museum…
Confident, in my last visit to the old Tate, that all the rubbish had been removed to the other side of the river, I sallied forth. There to be confronted by about eight sturdy oak tree trunks arranged in a large open space. Copious notes were on hand to help decipher this ouevre
with emphasis on the oak as the patriarch of the forest, sundry phallocentric references and now brought low for the punters to ponder.
Even Millais’ Drowning Ophelia was seen to snigger.
NJH
Tree trunks. Meh.
Until recently I would have expected some female artist to channel her inner Damien Hirst by creating “White dicks in formaldehyde” or maybe “White dicks nailed to the wall”. Because they deserve it.
However in todays climate the mere suggestion that trans-women, including numerous art critics, might be obliged to address the issue of cutting off their own appendages would clearly be verboten.
I’m assuming the campy paper fan is a fundamental aspect of his “full authentic self.”
For once I’m glad that male teachers in UK primary schools are nowadays rarer than hens teeth.
See also this:
Because authenticity requires fancy dress and elaborate accessorising.
When they hire teachers now is there affirmative action for people who never grew up?
As the academia tag has illustrated for the last 16 years or so, the number of psychological marginal educators, and outright bedlamites, does seem greater than chance would allow. One might indeed wonder whether schools and universities are actively favouring those to whom children should not be entrusted.
I think we’ll give that one a post of its own. Comments that-a-way.
Yes, I noticed that. Lapsed Jews trying hard to offend real Jews?
No need to wonder. There is no longer any reasonable doubt.