Oh the horror!
For decades, Claremont kindergartners have celebrated Thanksgiving by dressing up as pilgrims and Native Americans and sharing a feast. But on Tuesday, when the youngsters meet for their turkey and songs, they won’t be wearing their hand-made bonnets, headdresses and fringed vests.
Parents in this quiet university town are sharply divided over what these construction-paper symbols represent: A simple child’s depiction of the traditional (if not wholly accurate) tale of two factions setting aside their differences to give thanks over a shared meal? Or a cartoonish stereotype that would never be allowed of other racial, ethnic or religious groups?
“It’s demeaning,” Michelle Raheja, the mother of a kindergartner at Condit Elementary School, wrote to her daughter’s teacher. “I’m sure you can appreciate the inappropriateness of asking children to dress up like slaves (and kind slave masters), or Jews (and friendly Nazis), or members of any other racial minority group who has struggled in our nation’s history.”
Political correctness is the culprit! Pretty soon there won’t be any american traditions left. If you don’t defend your traditions your culture is doomed.
welcome to four more years of political correctness. Soon, Christmas, Halloween, and Easter will be called Holiday XK504YI, Holiday B5389FD, & Holiday QE697HV.
So to everyone have a very happy KK504YT!
Liberal political correctness. This is the kind of shit we get from liberal democrats. The US version of the Taliban.
The p/c complaint is: “or members of any other racial minority group who has struggled in our nation’s history.” If that is the rule, then all the kiddies are restricted to portraying majority white culture figures==but aren’t they the masters/nazi’s complained of?
This doesn’t make any sense. Maybe the kiddies should dress as they please and the adults could leave their prejudice at home. But then, how many Hanna Montanna cum Hooker can you bear to see?
Firstly the kid on the right in the pilgrim outfit is clearly Asian and the kid on the left looks suspiciously Caucasian rather than like an American Indian.
So I’d be outraged if these phoneys improperly portrayed my puritan and American Indian ancestry and heritage.
I suppose these kids think they are actually learning something dressing up in these abhorrent costumes.
It smells more like pinheaded suburbia than liberal PC-itis to me. How do you know their political affiliation?
dressing up like pilgrims and indians is banned but im sure the same lliberals complaining would have no objections to these two boys wearing nothing but leather chaps to school…
#6
Im LMAO at your comment. Oh im sure the professor (mother of a student who is complaining in this article) is a fucking right wing nut!
The mom quoted is likely just a few years removed from her dog being her “baby” and a lapsed PETA membership. She’s still hung up in all that idealist crap from her youth. Give her a couple years to wake up, like the rest of us.
#19
Lets not stop there. If we REALLY want to teach them the truth lets throw in a bit of rape and scalping and throat-cutting and burning alive. Why don’t we just let the kids be kids and stop trying to put all this political bullshit on them in grade school under the banner of “historical accuracy” which is really nothing more than fucking political correctness under a new name. KIds were once allowed to be kids but now we must teach them about “cornhole-ing” and transgender rights before they learn the fucking alphabet.
I meant #10 not 19. I got the numbers mixed up because I was not allowed to study math in school I had to learn the art of tea-bagging back in grade school in SF.
?Demeaning? WTF?
Yeah, I kinda see their point when they fight against the “How! Me scalp lotsa big palefaces with my tommy-hawk” stereotype, but this doesn’t even come close. I find it really frustrating when instead of working to educate their kids about what REALLY happened, they just dump on the teacher and crap all over those traditions.
And yeah, it’s not a liberal thing per se. In fact it’s actually more of a conservative thing (government enforcing morals, that is.) It’s more a person constantly looking for things to be offended about because complaining is just so darn satisfying. Actually learning about the topic you’re whining about involves much too much work and then you might actually not get to complain at all and wouldn’t THAT be a shame.
I don’t know what specific depictions the teacher of this class has planned, but the real story is an important reminder that many of the settlers would not have survived their first year on this continent without the assistance of the native inhabitants who befriended them.
It would be a shame to obscure that lesson.
#11 Fedex – I wish you would use the correct term for “cornhole-ing”. The correct form would be “butt-fucking”. Now get back to class before I have to write you up.
#15
Sorry, yes sir!
GOOD.
I certainly support having these kids celebrate dressing like Pilgrims and Indians. It’s great to have kids celebrate historical times when people of different cultures and beliefs got along. I agree this is stupid and an opportunity to celebrate diversity.
BAD.
This is NOTHING like when the Christian Taliban first came to the new world. For instance, let’s NOT celebrate, say Pizarro’s encounter with Indians. Having kids dress up like Pizarro and Inca natives in a school play and seeing the slaughtering Inca people, destroying their culture and ruining their entire civilization would make for a sad celebration.
Again. I agree with most here that the Pilgrim & Native American celebration is good.
As long as those illegal aliens (pilgrims) aren’t distributing smallpox infected blankets, I don’t care.
#17
I agree. Ruining a culture and civilization of a group of people who cut each others fucking hearts out and chopped off heads to appease the Gods if it didn’t rain for a fucking week is a terrible travesty. Oh how much better the world would be if we still had these glorious people still around practicing their “culture”.
So, have the children dress up as culturally accurate depictions of the actual event. Surely celebrating a peaceful gathering is not a problem, especially when attempted to be done in an accurate manner.
I mean, I’m sure the pilgrims that are left in this country were horribly offended by the buckled hats. They were pretty horrible to those Native Americans at times. And yes, the NAs were on the short end of the stick when it came to how their culture was ruined. But the NAs were also pretty mean to some of the settlers too where there was no need for conflict. There are cases of peaceful coexistence of NAs and new settlers. Many of the latter caused horrible things to happen to the NAs but the reverse was also true, if less frequently.
Don’t let the good message get lost in the rush for cultural accuracy. Teach the kids the meaning and dress them up accurately. It will be fun for them and not offend anyone except the silly people.
I know conservatives are going to use this as a talking point now. Another fake “war on Christmas” type of thing. But liberals are offended by the conversation being shut down too so we’ll take it up also as an example of what the nasty conservatives are doing. And that way, we can keep the Culture War going for the good of us all. 🙂
Good thing nobody wants to dress up as a witch.
They BURNED those fuckers. And the last thing you want is a pissed-off Pagan casting Black Magick spells your way….
#19 Agreed. Lets forget all that barbarism and just celebrate the civilized cultural practice of sending armies overseas to turkey shoot some bad guys, steal all their shit and leave them with a civil war. We can call it ‘Spreading Democracy’.
#22 – Mr. Ripper
Heh. Heh heh. I think FedEx is going to get FedUp with you if you keep pointing out the obvious to him 😉
I believe the whining parents/teachers were never spanked in their lives and like many kids who were never disciplined think that the world centers around them and that only their opinions matter.
In other news, finally PeTA came up with a game I can enjoy.
http://www.peta.org/cooking-mama/index.asp?c=pcmgb08
[
– ed.]
Does the inaccuracy of our story of the event offend more or does the costume offend?
I’m not sure that I understand why anyone would be offended to see someone dressed in a simulation of their traditional garb. (Might seem somewhat odd, but not offensive) – E.g. If a group of aborigines decided that they wanted to dress like office workers one day of the year as a goof – what the hell?
On the other hand, continuing to portray that we came to lend a hand to these poor savages would be pretty hard to justify.
I like gmknobl’s point that there were plenty of NAs doing mean things unnecessarily – but not dressing up annually!
You guys are driving me nuts, your getting your history all mixed up and wrong. The pilgrims had nothing to do with infected blankets nor burning witches.
****WARNING HISTORY LESSON****
Although there was discussion about smallpox infected blankets during Pontiac’s Rebellion, there is no evidence it was actually done.
Also, the burning of witches took place in Europe not in North America.
I thought that the witch trials took place in Salem Mass
(afraid I missed the point of some clever joke)
#26 – HG
Yeah yeah. So they hanged them from the neck until dead. Different means to the same end.
As to the tainted blankets, that seems to be a bone of contention. I went to college in Amherst MA, and reliable sources seemed split about 50:50 as to whether or not Lord Jeffrey Amherst had done such a deed.
O Christian Martyr Who for Truth could die
When all about thee Owned the hideous lie!
The world, redeemed from superstition’s sway,
Is breathing freer for thy sake today.
#2. “welcome to four more years of political correctness. Soon, Christmas, Halloween, and Easter will be called Holiday XK504YI, Holiday B5389FD, & Holiday QE697HV.
So to everyone have a very happy KK504YT!”
did you happen to notice that George W Bush is our current president? This fucktardery in some local school district has nada to do with who is in the White House.
#29 – Doug
>>This fucktardery in some local school district
>>has nada to do with who is in the White House.
Goobers like Joe try and lay the blame for EVERYTHING on Obama and the commie pinko fag libs. Doesn’t matter who’s in the White House, doesn’t matter if the White House has anything to do with the fucktardery or not… it’s all that damned Aye-Rab’s fault.
Sheesh. Talk about a fucktard…
As an Italian-American, I propose that we worry about Thanksgiving costumes only after ‘The Sopranos’ has been banned from television. We have more insensitive fish to fry in this country.
I’m sorry if I’ve offended any fish.