Historical Image of the Day

John Hyman, the first black member of Congress from North Carolina, served 1875-77.

Historical Image of the Day

Children at free dental clinic, Lexington, North Carolina, 1918

Give Me That Old-Time Intolerance

The case of Melissa Hussain is making the rounds. An 8th grade science teacher in North Carolina, she posted on Facebook about her Christian students harassing her openly about religion, which she is calling a hate crime.

I'll get to Hussain's teaching in a minute, but there's no question that her students and their parents and the atmosphere in the school that tolerates this behavior is indicative of the utter hypocrisy of evangelical Christians. They push their ideas on everyone, both in the U.S. and around the world. They don't tolerate other viewpoints. And then they have the temerity to complain of discrimination against them because they can't have a copy of the Ten Commandments in a courtroom.

Amanda says it well:

The reports I could find on this don’t explain why they think Hussain isn’t a Christian.  It could be her last name---I’d be shocked if that wasn’t a factor---or the fact that she’s a science teacher.  Or maybe she isn’t a Christian and didn’t take pains to hide that fact.  So what?  This country supposedly respects religious freedom, and that counts even for school teachers and even for women and even in North Carolina.  The levels of harassment this woman was subject to are shocking, even for a bunch of ignorant rednecks.  The harassers are admitting that they were provoked by the fact that Hussain taught real world biology that included the theory of evolution.

On her Facebook page, Hussain wrote about students spreading rumors that she was a Jesus hater. She complained about her students wearing Jesus T-shirts and singing “Jesus Loves Me.” She objected to students reading the Bible instead of doing class work.

But Annette Balint, whose daughter is in Hussain’s class, said the students have the right to wear those shirts and sing “Jesus Loves Me,” a long-time Sunday School staple. She said the students were reading the Bible during free time in class.

So, what appears to be happening is that the parents are encouraging their children to disrupt class to harass a woman they believe deserves no respect by refusing to do their schoolwork, and loudly singing hymns.  And when called out on it, they play innocent, acting like open disruption of the classroom is just a legitimate, harmless expression of belief.  This is not all that Hussain was subject to.  Students got into the habit of leaving religious materials on her desk to taunt her.  Postcards with pictures of Jesus were left on her desk so that students could act all butt hurt when she did what you always do when junk mail is left for you, which is throw it away.  Bibles were left on her desk, presumably to create the same kind of faux outrage if she treated them like anything short of magical objects.  After the evolution dust-up, when kids tried to stop the lesson by squawking about Jesus and no doubt freaking out on the teacher, a student left a Christmas card on Hussain’s desk with the word “Christ” underlined.

This behavior, of course, is bullying, and it appears to be encouraged by parents.  Bullying is the absolute favorite tactic of the religious right, from women’s clinic blockades to calling the cops on women who dare admit while pregnant to being anything but as blissed out as a dog suckling her pups.  Men are subject to this kind of bullying, but generally, wingnuts prefer to set their sights on female targets, because they believe women are weak, and like all bullies, they prefer to pick on someone they perceive as weak.

Indeed.

Now, the other issue here is whether Hussain should have complained about this on Facebook. And the answer is of course not. Rule #1 in modern teaching should be to never talk about the specifics of teaching problems in a public or semi-public forum. There should be clear avenues for dealing with these problems. On one level, you discipline students--you control the classroom, you report them to the principal, you suspend them, you make their lives hell in your classroom. Of course, this is a lot easier for a man to do than a young woman. And who knows if she has the right temperament to handle a classroom of right-wing 8th graders. Lots of us don't.

If parents and your administration don't support you, take it higher up. Take it to the superintendent. Make someone listen. And if no one will listen, then you can consider taking it public, but in very specific ways that would probably include you quitting your job first.

Now, obviously this was a frustrated and hurt teacher who faced a very difficult situation that she didn't expect. I really feel for her. I can't say I know what I'd do in her situation. But I think the lesson for me if I am ever teaching on the pre-college level is to control the classroom and to tolerate none of that kind of behavior. I really couldn't care less if the students like me or not. That's actually  harder to do on the college level because administrators actually believe that teaching evaluations are legitimate critiques on your effectiveness as a teacher. In the public schools,  I can't see how your students not being a little afraid of you is a good thing.

Historical Image of the Day

Dorothea Lange photo of North Carolina tobacco sharecroppers, 1939.

Link of the Day: KKK Picks Wrong People to Pick On

Progressive Historians has a great post about a Ku Klux Klan chapter in North Carolina who, in 1958, decided to pick on a group of Lumbee Indians. This turned out to be a really bad idea:

Instead of cowering, the Lumbees had assembled about a mile away. Small groups of armed Lumbee indians, about 500 in total, fanned out across the highway and began to encircle the Klansmen.

As the song finished and the rally was to begin, Sanford Locklear walked up to Cole and began arguing with him. Words became shoves and tempers rose. Neill Lowery had seen enough. He leveled his shotgun at his hip and blasted out the floodlight. The field went dark.

The Lumbees began firing into the air and yelling their warhoops as they charged the field. The nerve of the Klansmen broke and they fell into complete panic.

The Klansmen dropped their guns and scrambled for their cars. Some had brought their wives and children with them, who wailed in fear as dark-faced Lumbee milled around their cars and pointed flashlights at them.

James Cole, the Grand Dragon himself, was in such a panic that he ran into a nearby swamp, abandoning his wife and "white womanhood" in the process. Cole's wife, Carolyn, also in a panic, drove her car into a ditch. After a few minutes several Lumbee helped push her car back onto the road.

Awesome.

It's Hard Out There For A Cracker

It's real hard to be a racist white these days. We have a black man as president of the United States. Black people are president of our universities. We have to listen to hip hop blaring on campus.

And now a good clean cut white fraternity can't even wave the Confederate flag.

It's hard out there for a cracker.

Mike Adams has already shifted to pushing white resentment in the face of the Obama election (although he probably was before the election too.) Not only does Adams tell the sad story of a University of North Carolina-Wilmington fraternity that got in trouble for flying the Confederate flag, but he says that it is less offensive than hip hop. Hip hop uses the "n" word after all. And of course, Adams says the real reason they got in trouble is because the United States elected Barack Obama as president.

Adams uses this sad, sad story as a metaphor for the decline of white privilege throughout America. And I know, it's tough. Pretty soon, white men won't make up over 90% of CEOs of top corporations, most of the U.S. Senate and the Supreme Court, and control an enormous amount of the nation's wealth. And what kind of a nation would that be?

Probably a pretty good one.

Via Anti Neo-Confederate

Burn in Hell Jesse Helms

Jesse Helms is rolling over in his grave. Not only is Barack Obama going to be president of the United States, but Kay Hagan just won his old Senate seat.

Ha!

Historical Image of the Day

Sam Ervin, Democratic senator from North Carolina, 1954-74. Ervin was a pretty weird guy. He opposed civil rights legislation, but he claimed it was not in a racist way, but because he didn't believe the government had any role in such matters and because he feared federal power. I would say this was just a lame racist cover for a southern senator, but he also used the same principle to oppose Nixon during Vietnam, in particular over the Army's spying on American civilians. He also headed the Senate Watergate Committee.

Jesse Helms Is Dead

Burn in hell motherfucker.

And on the 4th of July too. The nation's present to its citizens.

Historical Image of the Day

Nicholas Ludwig von Zizendorf. Arranged for settlement of Moravians in North Carolina, 18th century

Historical Image of the Day

North Carolina Civil War reenactors, 1964