Cecile du Bois is getting grief at her school for opposing affirmative action. Her teacher asked her what she thought about it, and Cecile told her the truth. She is against it. And for that, she got all the grief.
And I’m not complaining, I am merely expressing my frustration with the atmosphere of being “weird, and going against the flow”. My very own friend advises me not to speak my mind if I am going to offend anyone. And yes I did, I poured it all out, given the opportunity because the discussion was on womens rights and for some reason my teacher asked me if I agreed with affirmative action. Does affirmative action relate to womens rights? Not in my world it does. I guess in her world where being against illegal immigration and calling African-Americans “black” are racist, it does. Well, if asked a question, I am compelled to answer honestly. My mother suggested I could have asked her what it had to with Mary Wollstonecraft, but I was so flustered by her laughter at me, I replied. I said “No”. And did that cause commotion!
Go to Cecile’s blog and read the whole thing.
I can just about understand (although I despise) the way that Cecile’s classmates (if that is the right word) are treating Cecile, but some way ought to be found of communicating to Cecile’s ‘teacher’ that she is now being deservedly trashed for profoundly unprofessional conduct on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, and everywhere else in the world where the blogosphere counts for anything if this posting has the desired effect.
Isn’t education supposed to encourage people to tell the truth and to stick up for their ideas? Someone she can not manipulate and ridicule should also tell this Grade A Bitch of a teacher that there are impeccably non-racist arguments against affirmative action, like: affirmative action exposes all those people from ethnic minorities who do get ahead to the accusation that they are only did well because they were given an unfair advantage, even if they actually got ahead entirely on their own merits and by their own efforts. Affirmative action encourages racism, in other words. Hasn’t this ignorant woman even heard of this line of argument?
And even if she has not, she has no damned business encouraging all her other pupils to pick on one pupil, just for expressing an opinion, honestly and courageously.
If you agree with me about this, please do at least one of the following things.
- Add a short comment to Cecile’s own blog, supporting and sympathising, and do it now. Warning: when I tried to do a quite long comment I came up against a thousand character limit, so don’t try to write at too great length. Something short and nice, and soon.
- If you are yourself a blogger, then write about this thing yourself, and link to this posting. Link to Cecile’s blog as well, of course, but the particular advantage of linking to this piece is that the number of linkers will be automatically counted and announced here, and people reading this will be able to swing straight over to your blog, and then link to you themselves. I’m going to do a piece about this on my Education Blog just as soon as I can.
- Put a supportive comment here as well, especially if you want to say something that makes use of more than a thousand characters. Cecile will definitely get to read it because I’ve already promised this posting in my comment at her blog.
It is not strictly relevant to the rights and wrongs of how she is now being (mis)treated, but since it may cheer her up, I will add it anyway. In my opinion Cecile is a terrific writer, and very possibly destined for literary superstardom. (She is certainly obeying rule number one for being a writer, which is to Live Interestingly, and rule number two, which is to get started with Living Interestingly good and early.) Be sure to scroll down, past all her links to other people, to the links to her own archives and previous postings. I particularly enjoyed her description of going to the movies with her Dad and brother, which Cecile’s Mum also liked. LOR: LOL.
If only for coining the phrase prostitute college, Cecile du Bois is destined for world fame sooner or later.
Spot-on, Brian. Thank you for supporting this wonderful person.
I agree with your sentiments entirely, but supposing your plan works, let’s take a quick look at things from the teachers point of view. You are a timid lefty who feels everything would be much better if it was covered up in an extra good wrapping of government red tape. You are ‘trashed’ from amateur pundits from around the world that have webpages prominently featuring handguns. You get emails (eventually someone will find her email), and your school gets phone calls about the matter.
Conclusion: Cecile is part of an underground neo-Nazi movement and they’re targeting you!
Well, maybe not. I hope not. But I can’t see the teacher changing her mind and apologizing. I’ve dealt with this kind of institutional mass mind before and reasoned arguments and common sense do nothing to stop it.
But good job sticking to your guns, Cecille. You’ll feel better later in life knowing that you didn’t “Borg” with the group and think things out for yourself.
I’m not here to carp.
She’ll be a lot more “terrific writer” when she learns a few basics, like the fact that a space between paragraphs makes one’s text a lot easier to read.
I wanted to read that. I even went back twice. I couldn’t be bothered, though. I spend enough time in front of this display as it is, without beating my eyeballs to pieces with that sort of thing.
Someone should drop her a note.
BWT — I like the new look. Really. And I would never have expected that whatever squirrel-cage driven device that was behind the old comments section could have possibly succeeded at going more slowly, but this one has, impressively.
Billy:
I think the bigger problem isn’t that Cécile needs to learn the basics of writing; she needs to learn the basics of HTML and CSS, such as the proper use of the {p} tag. The code is a mess, including, but not limited to, multiple opening and closing {HTML} tags. Combine that with bad color and design selections, and you’ve got a page that makes you want to scream.
As for the design of Samizdata, let’s just say those lavender links on a dark blue background don’t do it for me. 🙂
Go Cecile! Your story makes me angry and sad.
Thinking for yourself is its own reward. I don’t know what that reward is, mind you, but there are not many folks who read or write on this blog that would trade it to be popular, or wealthy, or respected, or anything like that!
Keep up the great work. Your writing is very good; it and your courage will serve you well.
I know–my friend is a much better designer. I should’ve let her do the dirty work. I don’t trust my father as he may do some odd job at it although he’s a former dot com developer. I will space the paragraphs although in English, I was always taught not to space them…
Hey Ted–would you mind helping me html wise?
Thanks so much Brian Micklethwait–I wish I lived over there across the vast sea–so I wouldn’t have to deal with these moonbats daily. I’ve got links to add…
Cecile
Cecille. You’re just as well off where you are. Our moonbats are much worse than your moonbats and ours run the government too! 🙂
Dont have a blog so posted this story on protest warrior, a militant right-wing student site.
My post…
“To state an unfashionable opinion unapologetically in front of a teacher and her little army of conformists who have their knives out for you is immensely brave (for anyone, never mind a 14 year old). But, once again, it does make me wonder, since this kind of indoctrination is widespread, what kind of a country America will be in say 20 years. Don’t be surprised if its not a free one. ”
Actually reading your experience reminded me of my sisters A-Level socialogy class here in Britain in which she too faced discrimination because she dared to speak out against some of the ‘views’ everyone was meant to (and did) except. (Britain is institutionally racist, homophobic and sexist, critics of mass immigration are neo-nazi’s, the bible is a load of rubbish etc) Why I’m extremely reluctant to use the word college or university because, for the most part, they are nothing of the sort.
To never compromise with the truth as you see it is a tough standard for many to live by, and for those who do it can be a lonely road sometimes. But it is pretty much everything there is to personal integrity and at least as important as anything else one can learn at school.
“I will space the paragraphs although in English, I was always taught not to space them.”
Cecile: I was actually afraid of that.
I would offer two pieces of advice. One simple, and one a bit more involved. Take ’em from a proud failure in high school and desperate university-evader:
1) Just look at it. Take the evidence of your own eyes. Look at other blogs (including this one) where paragraphs are spaced. Which ones are easier to deal with?
That brings me to…
2) Think for yourself, child. You can do it, and if anyone ever even hints that you can’t, then you should instantly make your way in the opposite direction as fast as you can.
Trust my guidance in these simple matters, and your life will satisfyingly wrecked. It’s the only way to go, these sorry days.
“I can’t wait to see what it’s like on the Outside Now…”
(Frank Zappa)
Good luck.
Brian:
” Affirmative action encourages racism”
Wrong !
Affirmative action **is** racism !
It is treating persons according to racial criteria.
Go Girl!!! Buck the system!! Think for yourself.
I’m not for Affirmative action, the difference is, I happen to be Asian and can say stuff like that and not be called a “Racist”.
“To be nobody-but-yourself — in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else — means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting. ” (E.E. Cummings)
Take care!! Keep fighting!!!
Cecile,
Good for you! Fight them as hard as you can! If you haven’t already read it, I suggest you read Shelby Steele’s A Dream Deferred.
Tell your teacher you’ll read any book she wants on affirmative action if she’ll read Steele’s book. You’ll come out ahead.
Incidentally, I was once called a racist in a course on colonialism in Africa. I immediately challenged the jerk who said this to recant or face a lawsuit for slander. He backed down quickly and I got an A in the course. Since “racist” is, these days, just as much an insult as any ethnic slur, those who use it deserve the same type of treatment.
One last piece of advice: after this class, check with others who are both conservative and knowledgeable about the professors in your major.
Try to avoid taking classes from any more of the barking lefty moonbat types. Life is tough enough as it is without making it harder for yourself.
Good luck!
Wow, brains and beauty, what a girl! [Now don’t anyone go accusing me of being sexist, just stating the facts, ma’am!] And isn’t the net wonderful for this sort of thing?
Calling people “black” is racist now?
I’d heard the one about the US newscaster interviewing Nelson Mandela and asking him, “Mr Mandela, as an African-American….?” and come across barmy race theorists such as Patricia Williams cleaving to the ancient euphemism “of colour”. But I was under the impression most people were OK with black, which has the huge virtue of being short and an adjective, neutral descriptive rather than predicate of personal existence. — Ah there’s the rub: can’t allow people to be neutral about race.
I’m not really thrilled to see children having to debate political issues; there’s time for that at University (or college as they call it in America. But since she has to, full power to Cecile for her stand.
Support, of course, Cecile. There are, of course, many blacks who disagree with affirmative action. Clarence Thomas, Ward Connerley. Also Thomas Sowell, the economist, author of many books. If you have time, look at my review of his autobiography, “Odyssey” under my name in “Author Archive” on this blog. Best wishes, Findlay.
“Do not walk in the opinion of others, for therein lies the destroyer of your most noble soul.” Jean Jacques Rousseau . A great piece of advise from a man who spent a lifetime contemplating social issues only to produce an endless stream of dreck. Funny that; truth can be found in the strangest of places.
“This above all: to thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not be false to any man.” – William Shakespeare. One of the best pieces of advise ever uttered by the greatest exemplar of human understanding ever to put pen to paper.
Cecile, as you walk the path of life you will come to realize that while companionship / friendship is a basic human need, it is more often than not, only transitory and in some cases not essential. Since happiness is to be found within, it pays dividends to be at peace with yourself and you can only walk that path by being honest and truthful about your beliefs and experiences, not always an easy task but ultimately it is you that has to live with yourself.
Good luck, good fortune and have a great life.
If you believe in something then you should not be afraid to put your point of view. Just because someone disagrees dosn’t make them right and you wrong. Stick to your guns and speak and write as you see fit. These people who deem themselves the guardians of the truth are no such thing, they are just a buch of self rightous idiots who can’t see beyond their noses especially if its where the sun don’t shine. Good on you girl, go for and don’t give in to the too vocal minority.
I don’t know why I read Samizdata – it seems like every day there’s something more depressing going on in the world. That said, congratulations Cecile for sticking to your guns. You’ll find that most people don’t (or do, but are just plain stubborn despite proveable facts contrary to their opinion) and you’ll get a lot of abuse for it, but as another commenter said it is basically the definition of integrity.
Oh and I wouldn’t worry about your HTML skills, or even whether or not you put spaces in between paragraphs. At the end of the day these things are not too important, although writing a collaborative weblog by someone who can only be described as a HTML standard zealot, I do empathise with your situation. It took me over a year of whining by my friends before I started double-spacing my paragraphs…. 🙂
These high school free speech cases crop up regularly (most recently, the real African-American of Omaha); but this is the first I’ve seen where the student has got her story online – and so eloquently!
Emotionally, you want her to make a Federal case out of it (metaphorically: probably not possible, literally): the screenplay more or less writes itself. Realistically, I don’t think the time is right. The Michigan University cases (Grutter and Gratz) last year were a huge defeat, politically and psychologically even more than legally, for the substantive cause of opposition to affirmative action.
And the adjectival cause of free speech seems to be pretty friendless, too, being most threatened, perhaps, in seats of higher learning where, one might have thought, the ideal would have been most cherished. (No pol thinks there are any votes in it, so far as I can see.)
No cause for Cecile to martyr herself for a cause (getting rid of reverse Jim Crow) that seems to be at least twenty years off. But good reason for her to pocket the support she’s had over the recent incident as a little victory over the dittoheads.
What, you guys don’t think her site has enough blinkies? You should have seen it before she took off the Linkin Park music. Embarrassing moment: When we were sitting in John O’Sullivan’s office at UPI, she told him how to get to her URL, and all the blinkies and blasting teen music practically crashed his computer.
Anyway, many thanks to all for their support. It’s nice to wake up in the morning — as I did today (Sunday) to a very thrilled 14-year-old saying, “51 comments on my blog so far! And look at all the links I found through Technorati!” Anyway, I’ll blog about the whole thing myself soon…
Here’s an interesting link: http://washingtontimes.com/national/20040106-103353-6148r.htm
You’ve probably already read about this, but it relates, so I’ll post it. I am a full time staff member of a large state university, and I have to say that unfortunately, this type of thing happens all of the time over here, too. Even on a small scale. At work, near one of the on-campus cafes, there is a free periodicals rack where you can read magazines that other people have finished. I’ve seen issues of “American Rifleman” completely trashed or thrown away. I picked up a few issues of the Economist the other week, and left them in the staff lounge when I was finished, and found them later in the trash. It’s funny to me, because the institution at which I work is considered to be one of the more conservative state schools, being that it sits in a major banking city and has a prominent and well funded business school.
Cheers to people like Cecile DuBois, and the college Republicans in Colorado, and countless other students on both sides of the pond who face this ugly bias every time they enter a classroom, for sticking up for themselves.
Cecile should remember that this will eventually pass. It’s self limiting because in far too many cases “those who can – Do, those who can’t – Teach.” That’s one of those cliches that survives because it is often true. Cecile is obviously a doer, so she will be free – or as free as anyone ever gets – of these morons some day.
An anecdote: More years ago than I care to remember, when I was an eager geology grad student, my younger brother was the same age as Cecile. He called one evening to ask me about a school assignment. He had to write a paper on “Why the rivers in Canada all flow toward Hudson’s Bay” for a science class. I told him about crustal loading during the last Ice Age, about crustal rebound since then (which is still going on) and that Hudson’s Bay was near the center of the North American Ice Sheet – with an estimated 2 mile thick layer of ice loading the crust. I gave him references which he dutifully read and cited.
The result, two weeks later? He got a D grade, with the notation that “The rivers run into Hudson’s Bay because it is downhill”! I wrote a letter but it did no good. I believe there is something in Proverbs about arguing with a fool.
Cecile gives me hope for the future of this country. I just wish that there had been at least one of her classmates with the courage to publicly agree with her. I cannot believe that they were all as brainwashed as her teacher. Cecile should consider their gutless performance before she wastes many tears over their opinions of her. Some of them agreed with her and should have said so, rather than leaving her up there to swing slowly in the wind. Looking at her photo, I am surprised none of the young men in her class were not tempted to defend her even if they didn’t really agree. Perhaps women in the military are necessary after all.
I fully support Cecile’s right to express herself, and I oppose all campus speech codes and the smothering ethos from which they spring. That said, I would be interested to know from Cecile (and others who oppose affirmative action) whether they think anything needs to be done to address the chronic inequality of the races in the U.S. It’s hard to argue that anything like true equality of opportunity exists now. Affirmative action as currently practiced is an imperfect solution, but accepting things as they are is still less perfect. Cecile’s teacher and her fellow students should have engaged her in a civilized discussion along those lines rather than ignorantly dismissing and denigrating her opinions.
Cecile’s is an inspiring version of a too-familiar tale. Those who use their minds are typically in a minority. (Hmmm … Maybe they should receive some “affirmative action” of their own.) Her opponents are not only the proudly unthinking types like her teacher; they also include the selectively kind-hearted souls like Mr. Edwards above, who evidently believes that the only alternative to affirmative action as it exists now would be “imperfect,” i.e. racist, admissions policies. In fact, either option is racist, since both give race primacy as a factor in determining admissions.
A superior choice would be race-neutral admissions policies. Applicants would not be asked their race, and admissions would be determined according to merit. Several authors have noted that the main beneficiaries of such a policy would be not whites but Asian Americans, who are not eligible for affirmative action.
In any event, only by removing race as a factor in admissions and letting the chips fall, will we edge closer to Dr. King’s dream of a society where “the color of one’s skin matters less than the content of one’s character.” And we will all be better off for it.
Mention by Professor Reynolds and Insta-flood coming. No blog here, but I’ll e-mail a couple.
I commented on her blog with a link to FIRE (Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, (Link)). This seems like the sort of thing that they’d take an interest in…
Good job, Cecile. After working in higher-ed institutions for ten years, I can tell you that you’ll have to deal with a lot more of this in the future. Now that the majority of instructors have gotten the predominant worldview in their classes to agree with their own political leanings, they’re seldom interested in actual debate. And politics like that somehow manages to seep into everything.
Look at both sides to be sure as possible that you’re right, and always be ready to defend yourself as politely but firmly as you can. Be a good person, and, if anyone’s going to look bad, it’ll be the shallow people who try to stereotype you to fit their own prejudices. You’ve got a lot more friends than you realize.
Neil, why’d you have to bring up FIRE? I was so damned close to working for them, then they decided not to hire for the position…
Anyway, one of Cecile’s commenters noted the importance of picking your battles. I admire her for sticking to her guns, but doing it on the spot in front of the herd is not the best place to do it. I have quit trying polemics in front of an audience in favor of Socratic prodding with individuals. It’s pretty successful. I still stick to my guns in the face of idiocy, but I have a reckless streak. And, like I said, I’m culling people from the herd by picking the battleground.
At the same time, in a free and open society, this kind of pressure on someone is intolerable. It sickens me. I hate to exaggerate, but every time I hear these kinds of stories, I think of 1984, all of the Soviet literature I’ve read, and life in Uzbekistan.
Thanks for the great post:
This is my post on the matter.
Read Cecile’s Confessions. She is young, 14, and knows that something terrible has happened to her. It has. You can read it in her post. She has been intellectually and politically molested by a close-minded teacher. The teacher could have taken advantage of the situation and had the class debate the issues Cecile raised using facts they had found and not the teacher’s or the student’s ignorant opinion. Good teachers know that when passions run deep, good learning situations exist. The teacher should have been an unbiased referee instead of a cheerleader for her own ‘superior’ viewpoints. Instead of helping the children the teacher took the low road and attacked Cecile. She should be held professionally accountable for that. She is not a teacher but the vilest kind of idealogue – one who preys on children.
I have a son her age. I hope he has her courage and fortitude.
Affirmative action is bad policy because you are not making racist decisions with your money. In a corporation or in Government, your decisions are made with the money of your stockholders and taxpayers. you owe your stockholders the maximum return for their investment. You owe your taxpayers the most efficient government, which means the least possible use of coerced funding. To do otherwise is theft, and theft makes thieves.
Should we have a quota of interracial marriages? Should all white girls be forced to marry black, asians, or hispanics? Should all black women be forced to marry whites? Should we just require all women to give their first pregnancy to support affirmative action?
Money is the product of your work. It is what you got in exchange for part of your life. For someone else to spend it without your permission is theft.
I tried to TrackBack to this entry but keep getting 500 errors. Therefore, I blogged on it here(Link). Thanks for the strong stand.
It just seems strange to me that there should be no effort at all to redress the persistent effects of past discrimination. It makes no sense to say that because laws and opinions have changed (the latter more slowly than the former), everyone is now on equal footing and the chips should fall where they may. If affirmative action as practiced today isn’t the answer, what is?
I would suggest much greater investment in education, coupled with a change in what some like to call “the soft bigotry of low expectations” that leads many teachers to give up early on black and other minority students. That bigotry doesn’t strike me as particularly soft. At any rate, if we’re really going to achieve equality of opportunity (which doesn’t necessarily mean equality of outcomes), that has to start with education, yes? Abandoning all efforts to improve the lot of those who’ve suffered (and still suffer) from discrimination seems quite fatalistic and un-American to me.
Cecile has done well, but embarks on a lonely road. A useful weapon when fighting corrupt teachers (or administrators) is to learn to use the left’s weapons for oneself.
For example, a browbeating can be countered with, “I take your words as a form of harrassment.” Or, “I am feeling threatened by your comments, please stop.”
Or, “I feel the discussion has violated our school’s harrassment policies, and we should report it and follow our conflict resolution guidelines.”
Such use of legal buzzwords are enough to let the teacher know that Cecile knows something that levels the playing field a bit, and might make the pedagogue more cautious in the future.
As a fellow stand-up-for-myself-no-matter-the-cost person, I can only say “good on ya, Cecile.” The price may be high, but the price for staying silent is higher. Your technique will improve with age, never fear. Don’t ever let anyone tell you what to think. Not even your “friends.”
Cheers.
John Edwards,
You cant fix a wrong with another wrong. And you certainly cant improve a society by preffering one group in spite of qualification.
Education is indeed the key, but not state education. It is the education of our fellowman that will make a difference, not throwing money at a broken system. I would like to fix a lot of issues with teachers, not jsut bigotry. The best way to do that is not to fund more, but to make teachers subject to their own performance. If a teacher turns out well educated students, that teacher gets paid well. If the teacher is unable to perform, that teacher loses the job. The other thing is to make parents (or legal guardians) responsible for the actions of the children, take away the nanny state tendency to allow parents a freedom form being responsible for their own children for 6 or more hours 5 days a week.
As for “leveling the playing field”, there is no such thing. We leveled the playing field when we stopped allowing the legal oppression of a race. The mind of men are equal. The place where inequality prevails is where people use force to control others. Legal force is jsut as bad as physical or economic force. The goal is to find the best solution, let those that are the best rise to the top. It has taken many generations to get us to overcome the stupidity of thinking one race should have different rights. The fastest way to equalize is to truly do that, not to grant extra privileges to those who have suffered. There will always be those who foolishly judge based on race, but that does not mean that we punish all of society for the mistakes of the few. More importantly, those who are artificially propped up never find their true potential. Each man must face his own demons in his own way. If he has help from his fellow men who believe in him, great, but help can not be compulsive. when we truly judge all men based on who they are, then we will find equality to be at its best.
Some are born on the mountain, and some in the valley, all have thier struggles. To buldoze the mountain and fill the valley is to destroy the strengths of both.
Keep your integrity, Cecile. Pray. Find a few friends if you can who will back you up, and that will help make the mob turn aside for easier prey.
Your bravery makes me want to weep.
Respectfully,
Tadeusz
Cecile,
This won’t be the last time this sort of thing happens, unless you surrender now. Don’t. What makes us individuals is that we insist on being ourselves, not someone else’s idea of who we are.
While I agree completely with your belief that Affirmative Action is bad, this really isn’t about that. It’s about our individual right and responsibility to think for ourselves.
Your teacher is very wrong to lead an effort to force you to conform in thought. (Not in deed, though; living in a society does require that we conform in deed to some extent.) When she put you on the spot with a question, you had the right and responsibility to answer honestly. If your opinion had been volunteered out of context, it might be deserving of some censure, but not the sort of “rally the mob” type that resulted. (It might then have been construed as disruptive since it might provoke a disturbance…but any teacher worth two pennies of their pay should have been able to control and keep civil the debate, even so.) I can’t help but wonder if you had publically doubted, say, the existence of the holocaust and if getting rid of the Jews would be such a bad thing if you would have had the same reaction. (n.b. I do not subscribe to either of those positions) Your choice of unpopular opinion simply ran contrary to one of the pet indoctrinations of our time, and as such it signaled failure on the teacher’s part (in the teacher’s own eyes) at doing a “good job” teaching. Teachers are supposed to turn out “good little citizens,” they think, and as such they are supposed to see to it that the students leave their classrooms knowing certain “truths.” A major one of those is that Affirmative Action is good. It makes up for past evils. Another one is that government knows best… which it rarely does. And a third is that “freedom of speech” means we don’t have to hear anything that might upset someone, even if it’s true.
The hard part of freedom of speech is experiencing what you did. We can say it; we must also bear the consequences of saying it, and sometimes those consequences are terribly unjust.
I just happened to start reading Heather MacDonald’s “The Burden of Bad Ideas” last night. You are feeling that burden in a different way and personally at the moment.
But you are not alone.
All the talk of the term “African-American” reminds me of a Rush Limbaugh show in which he was discussing illegal immigrants from Mexico — there was some new law on the books basically refusing them the same privileges as American citizens. In the course of discussion, a caller declared “That discriminates against Mexican-Americans!”
Rush’s response was hysterical: “No it doesn’t! It discriminates again Mexican-Mexicans.”
I’m all for supporting Cecile in her battle against her intolerant, mendacious, swinish teacher. It’s tough arguing against the prevailing wind. Don’t forget that the best defense against liberal blather is truth. So keep it up. We in the blogspher are with you.
Well Cecile,…I think you see by now that you’re not alone. And in that knowledge, I hope you never give up your appearant search for truth.
I’ve experienced a story similar to yours a couple of times. I’m 24, so I remember vividly what it was like to be one of the few conservative voices in the otherwise “diverse” liberal groupthink atmosphere of high school.
One piece of advice: don’t fret too much. Your teacher will probably always be a “liberal” idiot, but many of your classmates who are now part of the groupthink mentality will wake up one day soon. I’ve come to find out that some of the biggest “liberal” people in my high school are now conservative. (I put liberal in quotations for a reason; I would imagine you could figure out why.)
One more piece of advice: put quotation marks around the subject in question. “Affirmative” action is a more accurate discription in my opinion because it subtly puts into question the original positive connotation the term had implied. I use the same tactic for Social “Security” and Medi”Care”. 😉
pearl harbor