by Guy Page
In a scene from J.R.R. Tolkien’s classic “The Lord of the Rings,” Saruman the Wizard tries to persuade his angry listeners that, despite invading Rohan with an army of Orcs, somehow he is the aggrieved party. He’s a smooth talker. A few people begin to doubt the evidence of their own eyes. But not Gimli the dwarf, who growls:
“The words of the wizard stand on their heads.”
In a press release published yesterday, Sen. Kesha Ram (D-Chittenden) bemoaned “a growing narrative coming from outside of our borders” challenging the new ‘equity and diversity’ instruction in Vermont schools.
To listen to Ram, you’d think that a group of intolerant ideologues had invaded the state to fundamentally alter students’ understanding of American history. Like Saruman in his tall tower, surrounded by Gandalf and the warriors of Rohan, Ram and the public school officials pushing Critical Race Theory would have you believe that they are the misunderstood and oppressed.
She writes: “As our educators engage students in conversations about addressing institutionalized and systemic racism in Vermont, there is a growing national movement gaining ground in Vermont that seeks to install an outdated and dishonest version of history in its place.”
That ‘outdated and dishonest version of history’ is what we learned in school: that America once allowed slavery but then fought and died to end it, and then fought again to end Jim Crow segregation. In its place Ram would teach that white capitalism continues to enslave minorities and that Vermont is – again against the plain evidence of our eyes and ears – a safe haven for ‘systemic racism.’
What is the entire recent history of progressive legislation but the importing of progressive ideas from California? Ram, Santa Monica Class of 2004, should know. Not to mention the British aristocrats in her family tree, according to Wikipedia: “Sir Ganga Ram, her great-great-grandfather, was a supervising engineer and philanthropist in British India and her aunt is Baroness Shreela Flather, life peer in the British House of Lords.”
No, Sen. Ram, Critical Race Theory does not have its roots in the hills and town meetings of Vermont. If ever there was “a growing narrative coming from outside of our borders,” it’s CRT. But the parents who aren’t buying your Marxist version of history and society do have their roots here. More important they’re raising their children here. Look at any Town Hall meeting and you will see just-folks Vermonters standing up and saying in their own way, ‘the words of the wizard stand on their heads.”
And that’s why the “Vermont’s Legislative Social Equity Caucus” is so scared. Like Saruman, they know the truth, too. And so they circle the wagons, lock themselves in their ivory tower, choose your metaphor for hiding what’s really happening behind the insider rules, regulations, and procedures they know so well.
Ben Morley (raised in VT) of FAIR is teaching Vermonters how to file Freedom of Information Act requests for taxpayer-funded school curriculum and communications regarding ‘equity and diversity’ instruction. These FOIA requests wouldn’t be necessary if these supposedly oppressed school officials would just disclose what they’re teaching and why. But too often, they don’t.
What are our school districts hiding? Parents have a right to know.
Categories: Commentary
In Essex, the new Equity policy empowers students to set up tables and hand out materials that show middle school girls how to bind their breasts, so they can be more like boys.
And here is what the school board has been up to in Ohio.
https://www.dailywire.com/news/mayor-tells-school-board-resign-or-be-charged-with-child-porn-over-assignment-parents-erupt-in-applause
I have followed with dismay (but not surprise) the verbal and written pontifications of Sen. Kesha Ram. Like so many other transplants she arrives in Vermont (from the whacky State of California) and feels it is her responsibility to tell Vermonters how to think, how to behave, and how students in public schools should be educated. She complains that “out-of-state” troublemakers want to prevent students in public schools in Vermont from learning the truth about slavery and other evils that are a part of American history.
Absolute nonsense and oh so typical political posturing to capture name recognition. Sadly there are all too many sycophants who will cheer Sen. Ram on.
Many good citizens are thoroughly disgusted and opposed to what is happening in public schools in Vermont and across the nation where children as young as 6-8 years of age are divided into oppressor and oppressed, where skin color is said to determine whether someone is a racist, where young non-Hispanic white children are told they must atone for the evil of slavery that was a dominant part of early American history.
Good citizens must push back, like Mr. Page did in this Commentary, against the nonsensical gibberish that Sen. Ram deposits into the public domain, much like Vermont cows deposit their paddies into the Vermont countryside.
The trouble with the liberal-progressive agenda is a pathological belief that their way of thinking is superior to the thinking of all other sentient beings who do not share their ideology. The “Vermont way” is to tell Sen. Ram she is free to hold whatever beliefs she wants, but spreading false propaganda is not something good citizens of Vermont look favorably upon.
I do not know Senator Ram, but I understand her talking down to the natives. She is not unlike the Marlboro prof. who wants to disarm the Second Amendment. Both of these people live in the intellectually evolved nether world of “Volkenkookoosheim, or Cloud kookoo-Fantasy-Land. They will allow for unborn infants to be legally murdered , but oppose the capital punishment of murderers and rapist-murderers. Perhaps if they witnessed the violent death of a loved one, they might change their opinion, but I doubt it. Liberalism is a pride filled belief system.
The Iron Law of Woke Projection never ceases to amaze.
Thank you Guy for this informative and important response to Ram’s false narrative. The history of the “Vermont is racist” theme was written entirely by people who moved here from away – such as Curtis Read, Mark Hughes, Hal Colston, Kiesha Ram, Faisal Gill, Kia Morris and more recently Suzanna Davis and Tyetsia Green – who brought an ideology at odds with Vermont’s real history but have succeeded in convincing a leftist legislature as well as RINO Governor Phil Scott to carry their water. Vermonters are tolerant and prefer to avoid confrontation but as we are seeing they will not stand by while their children are being brainwashed.
I got to view the slide presentation that the state’s governor appointed equity director gave to high school students at Essex High School. The entire presentation was based on conjecture and made unfavorable references to republican political figures. At one point in the slide presentation, Davis shows a slide with 3 white women and stated. Do you know who benefitsost from affirmative action? She then states and I am quoting, “white women”! This is one of her key points to prove that systemic racism exists. Her statement concerned me, so I researched America’s female workforce based on the 2020 census, which was just released. There is no other statistical outcome, as white women make up about 32 percent of the workforce. Black women were only approximately 6.6 percent of the workforce and Hispanic women also represented a significantly lower percentage of the work force.
I approach the school board about allowing such a presentation to be shown. They reacted by stating that they were doing what the kids wanted and that a alternative activity was offered. I can only imagine what that activity was. The board did not provide details..
All of these people pushing CRT across the country are nothing more than tools for wealthy, white aristicrats. The great wizard(s) are billionaires sitting on estates funding non-profits purely for their own profit on the other end. I find that to be quite the ironic twist that SJW’s completely miss and it’s to their own destruction. They are clowns performing like the owned jesters they truly are – pathetic, ignorant, and doomed to utter failure.
The request for compliance and common ground is a retreat! They feel pressure and have been exposed for unethical governing and teaching practices. Their personal opinion is not a popular one amongst parents, and they realize for the first time that the orthodoxy they hold close to their hearts is an intolerant and close minded philosophy! Abandon ship, it’s about to blow!
The state leaders for this are not giving briefings to school employees and board members that are closed to the general public. Its full force communism and we are being forced to pay for it.
Correction: Now giving briefings via zoom..