A Poor Memorial for Memorial Day

05/27/2004

Monday is Memorial Day, a day thoughtfully set aside to pause and remember our family members and friends who have given their lives to defend our country and our freedoms.

Now I’m not much of a political guy, and certainly not an activist of any sort, but it was with great disgust that I happened across the following. According to this story, a girl in a New Mexico high-school poetry club read a poem she had composed at a Barnes and Noble bookstore, and then again on closed-circuit TV at her school. First off, congratulations are in order for the teachers and a program that foster public speaking and these sort of creative endeavors.

However, the poem she authored was apparently critical of both the war in Iraq and Bush’s empty “No Child Left Behind” educational policy. As a result of this heinous crime of expressing her opinion in a free society, the following things happened:

The girl’s mother, also a teacher, was ordered to destroy her work.

The mother refused and is facing possible termination.

The teacher who ran the poetry club was fired, and paperwork is being withheld to prevent him from being hired elsewhere.

Posters created by the art classes that were similarly critical were ordered torn down.

The art teachers who refused to remove their student’s work were effectively fired.

Um, guys, who’s the enemy here? If we’re so afraid of a teenager’s bad poetry (and let’s face it, we’ve all written poetry in high school and most of it ain’t Pulitzer material) that we have to destroy it, and all those who support it, then why do we bother fighting for our freedom at all? Instead of attacking literate teenagers, perhaps we might channel this energy into fighting the real threats—the terrorist networks that have vowed to destroy our nation at all costs?

I’d like to hope that this is an isolated or exaggerated incident, that there is maybe more to the story, or that saner heads will prevail at the courts and set right this ridiculousness. Otherwise, if this is the emerging new reality in our country, then my relatives ~~- and yours -~~ who died fighting for us did so in vain.

And that’s a pretty poor memorial.