Today's award goes to the joint and several school authorities in Rhode Island responsible for this disgraceful act of political correctness.
Warwick School Superintendent Peter Horoschak is stepping in after a student mural at Pilgrim High School was deemed inappropriate and painted over because it depicted a man holding the hand of a woman and child.
. . .
The mural was meant to depict the life of a man and it ended with the scene with the man, woman and a child. The student artist, 17-year-old Liz Bierendy, said that she depicted the man and woman has married with wedding rings. According to Horoshack’s press release the scene was painted over because “some of the members of the Pilgrim High School community suggested that the depiction of a young man’s development from boyhood through adulthood as displayed may not represent the life experiences of many of the students at Pilgrim High School.”
According to the release, the assistant principal approached the Bierendy after the concern was raised from the school and “asked her to look at other ways to show the outcome of the subject’s progression to adulthood.”
There's more at the link.
Fortunately, a follow-up report reveals that at least one administrator had some sense.
The student who has been the center of a controversy involving a mural at Pilgrim High School in Warwick says she is going to go forward and complete her mural as she originally planned.
. . .
When School Superintendent Horoschak learned about the incident, which was first reported on WPRO’s John DePetro’s Show, he contacted the assistant principal at the school and requested that Bierendy be allowed to finish the mural the way she saw fit.
Again, more at the link.
Would someone please tell me why showing a man and a woman getting married and having a child is somehow objectionable? Would it be less so if they had the child out of wedlock, or if each entered into a gay/lesbian relationship and adopted kids with their same-sex partner(s), or if they had children using artificial insemination and/or host mothers?
Political correctness! Grrrrr!
Peter
9 comments:
Political correctness! Grrrrr!
I concur!
Amazing. What do you think, Peter? Is there any hope left for us as a country?
I am less concerned with PC than I am with censorship in particular. She got approval for the mural; that should have been the end of it.
But I'm a Crank. I'm for dropping the words "under God" from the pledge of allegiance on the grounds that the original author didn't put them there in the first place. No Church and State argument for me; if you are going to use an artist's work, either commission a specific work to begin with, or leave the existing work as it stands. Don't, for the love of the nine muses, edit somebody else's work. If you are a better (artist, writer, composer) than the person who did the work you propose to edit, then make something of your own!
As the meme goes... I don't want to live on this planet any more.
Really? Has this country become THAT worried about offending someone? They think that someone might, maybe, take some small offense that their as-yet-unrealized future might be different than that depicted in the mural, so they want to censor it?
What about the feelings of those who *DO* expect their lives to go that way? If the mural depicts things differently than what their as-yet-unrealized futures are going to be, wouldn't those people be offended, too????
Save the outrage for things that truly are offensive, and leave the trivial things the hell alone. On the 1-10 scale of offensive things, this mural can't even begin to dream of being anywhere to the right of the 1 mark.
As you said, Peter... Grrrr!
I am glad that someone had some sense, and that the student decided to not make any changes to her original idea. Just have to wonder what this poor girl learned from this experience...
Dirk,
Oh, hell. If public school admin types had any guts they would drive trucks or sell dope or find something else useful and interesting to do.
Political correctness is the tool our enemies have used to subvert and corrupt our society and destroy our country. Anyone who voices an opinion that varies from their agenda is labeled with a negative name. Bigot, homophope, intolerant or facist are just a few. The fact is that the basis of this students mural, a father, mother and children are the most basic and essential building blocks of our society. It is evident that our society is much worse off as a result of this no longer being the standard. It's unfortunate that someone didn't have the courage and take the time and the effort to explain to the youngster who complained that her experience through no fault of her own was a deviation and an aberration and that hopefully she could overcome it and do better for herself than the deviants who are raising her.
Depending on where the school was, the meddlesome administrator's objection might actually have been that for that student body, intact families were the exception rather than the rule.
Not an excuse, just a different frame.
LabRat - if that's the case, an argument could be made that the mural could be viewed as inspirational, then. Just because one comes from a "broken" home, doesn't mean that one's future must also include a broken home.
We won't even get into all the different ways a home could be "broken" - even homes with a mother, a father, and children are often broken, and the truth is, some of the parties in that home would be truly better off if they weren't all under the same roof. Or all the ways a home could be non-"broken", even if they didn't include the "traditional normal" family.
Bottom-line, this was an abuse of power by a petty tyrant of a school administrator, which should not have happened. It would have been one thing if there had been complaints about the mural. But to preemptively decide that someone WOULD be offended is just going way too far.
Ye gads, can you imagine what would have happened if the artist depicted an adult male with his hands on the shoulders of the woman and child! It's a sign of the continuing dominance of the patriarchy!!!111!!!
LittleRed1
Post a Comment