A Louisiana Rep. Doesn’t Want Your Child to Learn About This FOUNDING Document
It’s finally happened. Louisiana State Representative Barbara Norton (D-Shreveport; email: nortonb@legis.la.gov office phone: 318-632-5887) opposed requiring public school students, grades fourth through sixth, to recite the Declaration of Independence because in her view, the document is “racist”.
That Norton used “racism” to silence something she doesn’t like shouldn’t be surprising. “Racism” has been a liberal dog whistle for generations. For so long the word has lost its sting. Yours truly has sat in the presence of liberals who joked about “racism” – typically one liberal will say something outrageous to the group and they’ll all laugh about how “racist” whatever was said. Crying “racism” is designed to do two things:
— It’s a lot like a car alarm. Remember when car alarms first came out? If one went off, everyone immediately responded just in case someone’s car was being stolen. Most times, one wasn’t being stolen. A cat had walked across someone’s hood. Or a dump truck had rumbled by and set off the annoying bleating of tones. Over time, people learned to tune out car alarms.
— Mobilize the activist crowd. Hearing the word “racism” for liberal activists is like living in Gotham and seeing the bat symbol reflected off the clouds. It’s important for liberal elites to always have (a civilian national security force that’s just as powerful, just as strong, just as well funded) activist minions on call. Like Big Oil, Big Racism Incorporated’s got to rake in the big bucks. What? You though Rev Al Sharpton’s went delinquent on a seven figure tax bill via Church bake sales?
Now the left will mobilize to reinforce Barbara Norton. They’ll be helping her defend the indefensible. Since they often defend indefensible things by playing the “well, that’s not really what she was saying…what she was saying was ______” card, for the records Norton said:
“For the Declaration of Independence only Caucasians were free…and for you to bring a bill to require that our children will recite the Declaration of Independence I think It’s a little bit unfair”.
And:
“Back in 1776 our forefathers who wrote the Declaration of Independence, I don’t believe they had any idea of that they thought for a moment that America would be as diverse as it is today”.
No doubt our founding fathers never in a million years thought that for all the risks they took and challenges they endured, the nation they founded would one day look to the President himself for guidance on which bathroom to use. (Benjamin Franklin wasn’t joking when he described nascent America as “a republic, if you can keep it”).
And no doubt Rep Barbara Norton is like so many products of liberal-infested higher education. Well-schooled in meaningless things like safe zones, triggers, micro-aggressions, privilege, intersectionality, allyship, and the rest. Utterly clueless when it comes to things like say, the Declaration of Independence. If she had a clue, she’d know that the entire abolitionist movement from manumission to reconstruction was firmly rooted in the Declaration of Independence and in particular the part that reads:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness”.
The next time a liberal uses “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” as the reason healthcare, housing, free college, or whatever else is a “right”, he or she should be reminded that those words are racist. So racist.
So very racist most Americans can’t even find the racism. That’s because, according to liberals, most Americans suffer from “white privilege”. The only way someone can find the racism is: a) to be a person of color, b) intersectionality, or c) allyship. Here’s how it works:
Intersectionality, a concept born in black feminism, basically says that anyone who doesn’t have white privilege can be aggrieved by racism (or any other ism). In other words, an Asian-American lesbian can feel aggrieved the same way Barbara Norton is over the Declaration of Independence because an Asian-American lesbian doesn’t have white privilege. Or, Barbara Norton could feel aggrieved the same way an Asian-American lesbian is over Donald Trump because Barbara Norton doesn’t have white privilege. Crazy stuff, isn’t it. It gets better.
Someone that does have white privilege can get on board the grievance bus. That’s where allyship comes in. Allyship is the idea that someone with white privilege can defer to an intersectionalist when it comes to things like racism. Take the Declaration of Independence for example. Barbara Norton says it’s racist. If you want to join her, simply check any thought you have on the subject at the door and do whatever Norton says you must. She’s qualified and can set terms. You defer to her. Your seat on her grievance bus is dependent upon strict adherence to Norton’s point of view.
Sound familiar? Anyone who has ever spent time around second graders has seen something just like this transpire. Picture a group of kids. One invariably is the bossy type. (For purposes of this example, let’s say her name is Barbara). It’s understood by all the neighborhood kids that they have to do what Bossy Barbara says or else she’ll storm off with her dolls and there will be no sleepover Friday night! Bossy Barbara will also tell her mom who will call all the other mom’s. Do what Bossy Barbara says or else! Fast-forward to eleventh grade and Bossy Barbara is heading up the local clique of mean girls.
Fail to defer? That’s when that dog whistle gets blown and before you know it social media is awash in invective designed to bully you until you once again exercise deference towards purveyors of the approved point of view, or you are destroyed.
In a sense, that’s the soft tyranny we’re beginning to realize we are living under. Today’s America is actually a place where Barbara Norton can find racism in the Declaration of Independence, succeed in having it yanked from children’s hands, and then be defended for such fascism by liberals who want to maintain their ticket on Big Race Incorporated’s grievance bus.
Now that they’ve eliminated the threat posed to their agenda by the Declaration of Independence, what will they next find “racist”.
Image: https://www.flickr.com/photos/labor2008/3834987385