President Obama set off a firestorm of outrage and dissension when he said that he would speak directly to schoolchildren on Tuesday, Sept. 8 about the importance of staying in school, studying and setting educational goals.
The stated reasons dissenters gave ran the gamut from not wanting anyone dictating what messages their children should receive to fear that the impressionable minds of their children would be indoctrinated with a self-serving political message.
Some protesters went as far as to threaten to keep their children home for the day. No doubt, many of these are the same people who still insist that Obama is a Muslim and/or a Socialist.
The unspoken truth is, many whites just see President Obama as a Black Man and therefore, not worthy of respect. It doesn’t matter to them that Barack Obama, through self-discipline and hard work, achieved levels of success most of them could never dream of. It doesn’t matter that as hard as his opponents tried during the campaign, they could not find a bit of dirt on him that he had not already spoken about in his books. Nor does it matter to his detractors that Barack Obama was elected to captain an already sinking ship….a ship disabled by the very people they still support. The real problem, in their minds, was and is that a Black Man is The United States of America’s Chief Executive Officer and Commander in Chief of our Armed Forces.
The actual reason for the dissenters’ uproar certainly isn’t an aversion to anyone dictating what messages their children should receive. American children receive erroneous, negative and destructive messages every day in school and via the national and local media. History and Social Studies textbooks are fraught with lies and half-truths designed to skew impressionable minds toward a false understanding of world events. Advertisers, using sophisticated strategies, constantly attempt to create an insatiable appetite in our children for their unnecessary products. Video games depicting murder and mayhem fly off the shelves on a regular basis. There is rarely any outcry regarding any of these messages that the minds of their impressionable children are exposed to. So let’s be real and tell the truth. The root cause of the hullabaloo is racism, that age-old, irrational reaction of white people to people of color.
When some said that the reaction was not to the proposed speech, but to the accompanying lesson plans that suggested children write a letter (that the children themselves will review later) outlining “what they can do to help the president,” the white House conceded that it was poorly worded and revised it to, “how they can achieve their short-term and long-term educational goals.”
The reaction was so intense and so unreasonable that the White House decided to release a transcript of the speech on Monday, Sept. 7. After this writer read the transcript, I could not only see nothing wrong with the speech, I thought it was a great message for our children. It touched on many of the difficulties that young people face and often use as excuses not to do well. It challenged them to find out what their special gifts/interests might be and to develop them. It reminded them that failure is not an ending but a learning experience and does not define them. It let them know that when they quit, they don’t only quit on themselves, they quit on their country. It was a speech that epitomized the quintessence of patriotism, something many of those flag waving phonies know nothing about.
By the time this paper hits the streets, the speech will have already been delivered. I pray that the naysayers will have had the moral integrity to admit they overreacted. Nothing could be more important than encouraging our youth to take responsibility for themselves, to hold fast to their visions and dreams, to work hard and to never give up. Even a racist should be able to understand that.
Alim Gaynor is the Founder and CEO of the Seedpod Empowerment Institute. For questions and comments call 769-798-5247 or E-Mail alimgaynor@yahoo.com
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