My daughter attends a high school here locally and today they did a rally for Martin Luther King day.

To her surprise it was not what she expected it to be.  Here is her account:

It’s a sad day when any given student feels suppressed during an assembly about expression your rights. It’s a sad day when any given student looks around to her peers and wonders what exactly is wrong with her for not feeling the same. It’s a sad day when any given student gets angry about the suppression of her own opinion.

Today at my school was the Martin Luther King Jr. Day assembly. I sat down with my friends, prepared for an assembly discussing civil rights, the past, and what we can keep doing to avoid going back. I was prepared to shake my head at the lack of knowledge that racism wasn’t just black, but anyone else.

What I got was something completely uncalled for and left me flabbergasted.

I have always been someone who felt that the United States, while powerful, was full of naïve people who forget about the world outside the borders through their materialistic views. I have always accepted that I am lucky enough to live in a country where help is given where it’s needed, and where lies and manipulation are an outstanding foundation for government. One of my beliefs that I’ve held fast has been that the United States needs to finish what we started, and then focus on stabilizing ourselves. We’ve given much, now we need to stabilize our home. Pay off debts, cool down liberal versus conservative arguments, focus on maintaining social security and get our military the credit it deserves for keeping us so safe and secure.

One of my thoughts, whenever I watch a candidate or politician attempt to debase our military, is that “You wouldn’t be so safe and secure without that military keeping us safe.” The reason the U.S. is so secure is because we are one of, if not the, largest power in the world.

Having illustrated my views and points, it is within understanding that I shook my head and was disappointed when a ‘Hero’s Recognition’ for ten students was nothing more then a popularity contest. Only one person had really done anything worthwhile. One of my friends had kept a student secure last week during a seizure while calling for help, and so was duly recognized. The rest were pretty much teacher’s pets who had happened to smile just at the right time. But I applauded and went along with it. Other students came up to talk about groups they started, to help children who didn’t have anyone to help them, like being a buddy to those kids who are always bullied and giving them someone they can truly call a friend, or mentoring and being a big ‘sister’ or ‘brother’ to the poorer children who had no one to look up to. I can go along with that.

What I can’t go along, is turning a school assembly of recognition of deeds done before, into a political tool to make everyone feel like shit about their lives.

A group came up to talk about Darfur and Congo. I have heard a bit before, so I mostly tuned out. But over 75% of this assembly was focused on making the student body feel horrible about being born into a better country. One girl, in fact, was making the people around me rather angry. She was the chosen demagogue and spoke the most. She spoke weighty words, but her eyes told us she didn’t care, that she was only there to try to get people into a cause she didn’t care about.

One of her more memorable lines was this one.

“Dead BODIES of CHILDREN, MOTHERS, FATHERS, laying around in PILES, MURDERED cruelly…”

 It was this and more. And they invited people to the Career Center to show more ‘truth’ on the situation of the ‘world’.

This assembly left a sour taste in my mouth. I saw attempts to try to correlate this into a racial issue, but all they explained were murders, never talking about the people forcing it. They focused on the ‘poor children’ and other such atrocities to make people feel bad about being born into a different country. All I ever saw of the ‘attackers’ and ‘terrorist’ of this were people of the exact skin color, yet they talked about the attackers and terrorists like they were white, and like the children were black.

I have never been more appalled at an attempt to sell an idea.

The sour taste continued to linger in my mouth as I headed to my next class, where I proceeded to get in a fight with one of my friends. I told her my views, that I just felt like we should stable ourselves first.

“There’s no genocide in the US, there’s nothing that bad here, but over there-“

I tried to tell her that I just meant that the debts, everything, should be focused on before we start charging into something that will put us in more debt from having to buy weapons, rations, transportation, etc.

“That’s nothing compared to this! Don’t you get it? There are people being killed over there! This is why I’m not getting my US citizenship, you’re all so selfish.”

While it is tempting to point out the racism deep-rooted in the South still, the problems of racism are being used as a political tool to make the white man and woman look bad, gang turf wars, drugs, racism against immigrants, and such, I withheld my tongue and just shook my head, telling her she wasn’t seeing my point. She just stormed off, and I have a feeling I lost a good friend because of this.

Racism in today’s society has lost its true meaning. In a strange sense, when we push someone who looks different into a Hero pedestal, aren’t we being racist to them? There are no biting words, there’s no hate, but we’re segregating them anyhow. And there are people who claim only a white man can be racist. I don’t even think I need to go into the irony there. Racism is just what it is. Unnatural prejudice against someone because they look different from you.

I stand in my school today, looking around, and I wonder, how many people would hate me for saying my views? How many people will shove me in the halls, throw me in a garbage can, punch me, ostracize me, and spread rumors about me, for expressing my views? How many people would turn their nose at me and declare me a failure for thinking in a strategically and logical sense like schools attempt to do? Am I not supposed to use my mind, or am I to become a sheep following in the flock, sent on my route by whichever dog yaps the loudest?

So there you have it.  An MLK rally that didn't do anything to discuss MLK.  My tax dollars at work….