Black Panther poem reading touches off concerns at East Ridge
February 15, 2013 at 12:51 am in Woodbury Bulletin
East Ridge High School Principal Aaron Harper found himself fielding some complaints Thursday after a controversial poem meant to honor Black History Month was read aloud over the school’s public address system. Continue Reading
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Both of the previous comments are complete missing the point on why people would be upset about this poem reading. Both of you need to set your politics aside and you’re criticism of Kelly Fenton. You completely abuse the whole “freedom of speech” cop-out and yes while you are correct that we are not paying taxpayer money to have a principal censor every single PA message but we are also not paying tax dollars to have a poem read over the PA system that was published by a notoriously racist hate group who is known to have involvement with drug dealing and intimidation extortion schemes of small-businesses. The Black Panthers “spit” on our criminal justice system, openly spew hatred and violence towards authority and oh yeah they even murdered a few folks in there day. So before you go off supporting this absolutely bogus claim that this was about education and awareness, take a look at where the poem is coming from and educate yourself on the history of hate groups in this country. As Dr. King so graciously put it, “Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.”
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The students weren’t able to choose whether or not to listen to it.
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realist poses a very challenging question. Yes, to what extent should we “censor” literature that was written by disreputable or hateful people? We seem to want to censor what we have come to call hate speech. Then what about literature that is considered hateful? What about Mein Kampf (which, no doubt had some “good” points in it)? What about the writings of a Lenin or a Stalin (again both said some “good” things). And what is appropriate for a high school audience: does hateful literature, even with a few good embedded quotes, qualify as good high school fare? Does situation/common sense matter? After all, the First Amendment we are often told is not absolute. Perhaps some degree of censorship is legit in some circumstances. I raise these questions not to take sides in this matter. I only hope that a few simple questions might get folks to think a little more deeply/critically about issues of the sort raised by the Panter quotes.
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