I have previously written about the increasing monitoring and discipline of teachers for conduct in their private lives. In San Diego, three high school coaches and a volunteer teacher were suspended for wearing costumes with black face at a Halloween party. They were not doing a minstrel show but were going as the Jamaican bobsled team featured in “Cool Runnings.” The party was at the San Diego State University.
The punished individuals include the varsity head football coach, an assistant coach and a teacher at Serra High School will be suspended. Notably, a volunteer will also be suspended.
People can debate whether wearing makeup to look like a Jamaican bobsled time is racist. My concern is purely one of free of expression and association for teachers. This was not a criminal act. They were not participating in a KKK cross burning. They clearly do not believe that wearing black makeup is racist or wrong. They have a right to make such decisions in their private lives. Nevertheless, both the NAACP and the Anti-Defamation League supported action to be taken against the teachers and coach.
I certainly understand why many find black face to be offensive and I am surprised that people continue to use it in costumes. However, free speech and association protects different values and expressions. Citizens are not required to satisfy majoritarian views on proper humor or, as the English call it, “fancy dress.”
Superintendent Cindy Marten took the group out for a public lashing, stating that “[t]hey send their apologies to any person or group of people they have offended and want to make it clear it was not their intention to offend anyone.” She called it a “critical teachable moment” but what does it teach about free speech and privacy for public teachers?
Lei-Chala Wilson, President of the NAACP’s San Diego Branch, praised the discipline and added “We found nothing funny when we saw that picture was posted.” The concern is that public teachers should not have to satisfy others in their private lives as to whether the public finds their jokes funny or their associations acceptable. I was struck how it was simply assumed that such private conduct off-hours are naturally the subject of public discipline and accountability.
What do you think?
Randyjet: Please cool your jets. I expressed very little in the way of opinion about the matter, so you have no earthly idea what I support. And the comparison to McCarthyism is a bit hyperbolic, don’t you think. I simply stated that teachers are often held to a higher standard of private conduct. They typically have employment agreements that specify private conduct that is off limits. Legally, I don’t have enough information to make a judgment. Morally is another matter. Why would they want to be the Jamaican bobsled team? Didn’t that have its 15 minutes of fame a few decades ago? And the teachers didn’t lose their jobs, freedom or lives. They were suspended. It seems to be a pretty appropriate response, assuming their contracts permit it.
Juliet, the FACT is that YOU stated that you are in favor of free speech, but that USING it will carry consequences to job, earnings. and freedom. THAT is the essence of McCarthyism. These teachers were not mocking black folks, nor were they being racist. So even your weak defense of this illegitimate discipline as to contract provisions is absurd. I guess that a teacher such as Angela Davis should know that being a member of the CPUSA would be offensive to most Americans, she should have been fired since it reflects negatively on her school and raises a legitimate question as to her integrity.
Randyjet: There you go with the straw men. Improve.
Again, freedom to speak doesn’t mean a person is entitled to be free of the consequences.
OS Would it have been acceptable if they had used a tanning salon or darkener to achieve the same thing? Can you not see a difference between an Al Jolson blackface and what these people did? Maybe you can tell us how a white person could do the Jamaican bobsled team without having black face. Is any depiction or skin darkening by a white in itself offensive? I could see an objection if they had done the outlandish characterization of black features that Jolson and minstrels used. The fact is that they in no way disrespected blacks or the team and in fact were paying tribute to them since most people regard them as heroes.
Then I hope that you would not be against teaching Mark Twain’s Huck Finn in our schools, even though many people would consider that offensive. We will also have to get rid of Conrads. book Nigger of the Narcissus. That needs to be banned from our libraries and schools as well?
“These teachers were not mocking black folks, nor were they being racist.”
Randyjet,
Where is your source confirming this, it wasn’t in the linked news story? And as far as Shady_Grady’s point. Just what is so funny, or interesting to some White people in dressing up in Blackface?
People who decry PC and support the First Amendment are “BIGOTS?”
Lief, I guess it would have been OK if these guys had gone to a tanning salon and used skin darkener to get the same effect? If it had been their own coloring, and not make up, then I have to assume it would be legitimate since it would be their own color. If you object to even that, then I guess you will have to go on a campaign to close all tanning salons too, since that is demeaning to black folks.
I don’t know how a white person could portray the Jamaican bobsled team without black face. Now if they were playing a fool or a lackey in black face, THAT would be racist and demeaning. Those bobsledders were heroes for crying out loud, and it is quite appropriate for coaches, to play those guys since they overcame the odds in sport to compete on a world class level.
Juliet N is a firm believer in McCarthyism I see. I recall that we were supposed to have free speech and free elections in the US, but of course, if you engaged in such activities, you would suffer consequences such as loss of job, jail, and in a few cases death. Of course, that voids the idea of freedom entirely. I am appalled that any person on the so called left would support such crap. An employer cannot fire a person for activities outside of work as long as there is no link to his employer in such expression. You cannot have a protest activity wearing your uniform or company logo. THAT is wrong, stupid, and can subject the person to sanctions.
I DO support hate crimes laws because such activity is not free speech, but is terrorism which is not protected. The fact is committing a criminal act in furtherance of a political goal, should be punished more severely. Just as using a gun in a robbery will result in a stiffer sentence, hate crime laws make it less attractive for KKKers to engage in their criminal activity
Halloween, the annual time for educating unsuspecting white people that something they didn’t know was offensive is in fact offensive because people who find it offensive have heard that it used to be offensive.
The value of PC is simply to tame the potentiality of extreme behavior going amok. Most things we deem racist or offensive are hardly so, but people , the storied offended, need to come against such expressions in order to prevent those who are truly offensive and racist to have a free, unchecked leisure for the expression of their evils.
I say that PC is like Jesse Jackson, or Al Sharpton, or to some lesser extent Abe Hoffman. Their value is that their presence makes some think twice about expressing their hatred towards blacks or Jews.
AS a black man though, I do feel that it is part of one’s first amendment’s rights to dress up in black face. Whether the intent is really to shock or out of simple ignorance, I don’t take it personally when someone is dressed so , and deal with it just as, perhaps, Native Americans deal with the mascotization of their symbols: they assume ignorance more so than hatred. And people certainly have the right to be both hateful and ignorant. And people also have the right to be offended by something that demeans their identity.
As for most things we deal with in this country, PC should not be legislated, but thoughtless, offensive behavior should not be condoned either. Had these same teachers been taped cursing like sailors in public, most sensitivities would have been hurt and they would have had to pay some price for it. Which is worse, cursing in public or dressing in blackface, considering its history (on par perhaps with the N word) in this country?
As one could expect those who love to cover their own bigotry with statements decrying PC come out braying their indignation of how peoples’ freedom of expression is being trampled. Let us forget 200 years of slavery, it’s all in the past. Let us also forget 100 years when “Jim Crow” was legal in this country and citizens were not permitted to drink at the same water fountains as those with white skin, it’s all in the past. Let us forget a disgusting human being named Al Jolson (sadly a Jew) who for years was the most popular entertainer in this country, while singing in blackface, after all it’s all in the past. As a Jew I suppose I should forget a time when there were towns all over this country that had signs saying “No niggers, dogs and Jews allowed”, it’s all in the past. Let us forget the portrayal of Latino’s and Blacks in movies/TV that showed them as incompetent fools, that too is in the past isn’t it? Let us too forget that our President, a man with many failings, has been and continues to be portrayed with epithets that have little to do with his policies and everyhting to do with the color of his skin, he was elected wasn’t he?
In decrying PC we minimize the fact the use of blackface, given the burdens of history, is an expression of bigotry. The Jamaican Ski Team…..really? That was the best these educators could do for Halloween and seriously it was all just an innocent act wasn’t it? Now I don’t believe in hate crimes laws and I don’t believe in prosecuting hate speech criminally as an absolute. The linked article gives no real information on the context of how the use of these costumes were discovered in the school and where the pictures were posted. I will present though a hypothetical. If a person is a retail business owner and as part of Halloween encourages his employees to don costumes for the week leading up to Halloween, as many do, if some of that person’s employees choose to dress up in blackface minstrel costumes and he sees that, does he have the right to discipline these employees? I think he does. In the same vein, if this school has a number of black students and pictures of these educators in their blackface costumes become well known and widely seen in the school, does the principal have the right to discipline these educators. I think he does because they showed terrible judgment. I know many here would disagree with me on that and to their disagreement I would respond with this question. Do you think White people dressing up in Blackface for any event is appropriate?
I hardly see any reason for offense since the Jamaican bobsled team was a real hit in both the film and in real life. If it had been blackface as a minstrel show, then there might be some reason to be upset, but even that would hardly warrant any action on the part of authorities. The only offense I have since I am an old civil rights activist, is that the person who suspended these people is still in power. It is time for the superintendent to find another job, maybe with the NAACP as their thought police chief.
Teachers are typically held to a higher standard of private conduct. Perhaps black parents would feel their children are unsafe with teachers who conduct themselves this way. I know I would not want my special needs children being taught by people who made fun of people with disabilities. I also know, in most states, an employer could certainly fire an employee for distasteful conduct in public that reflected negatively on the employer’s business.
Freedom of speech does not necessarily mean freedom from consequences.
Back in the 70’s I referred to a ‘lady friend’ of mine. Immediately a ‘female’ in the group rose to rip a strip off of me for using the term ‘lady’. “I don’t refer to you as a gentleman. I take offense at your using such a male chauvinist term as ‘lady’. Perhaps we have evolved and ‘lady’ is no longer an insult.
But, let’s call a spade a spade and think a minute. Redskins could very well refer to great warriors. A white man could be a belittling term. Black is beautiful was all the rage before someone insisted on African American. Am I Ukranian/Scottish Canadian/American? This nonsense only serves to color over the real issues.
If you want a valid target then look at the logo of the Cleveland Indians, or it just might be a goofy Indian so happy because he is playing baseball.
Who was the tattle tail? Or does the superintendent have nothing better to do than look at facebook? It is nobody´s business what people do in their free time. If they had dressed this way at an official school function, it would be a totally different matter So, either there´s a snitch who wants to get someone fired and the super is so stupid she listens to him, or she sits around all day reading facebook posts. I would hope the superintendent of my puplic schools had more sense than that.
Barkin, Good flick on HBO, The Greatest Fight of Ali. It is about the Supreme Court Case Clay/Ali v US and his draft resistance. However, @ the time was also the case of a defendant showing up in a Ca. courtroom wearing a jacket saying, “F@ck the Draft.” Justice Harlan, who changed his vote on Ali wrote the opinion on this Ca, case[Cohen v US?] saying it was protected speech. Free speech wins almost every time. I fear that is in jeopardy from ideologues on both sides of the spectrum. The left w/ their college speech codes and Halloween costume policing is very troubling.
Why is it that white people find it so amusing to dress up as caricatures of black people? That’s a consistent occurrence in Euro culture. I don’t see the joke.
PC stands for penal corrected. These people ought to sue the perps who are correcting them and show up in court in black face. Have someone black show up in white face and an Indian show up in blue face.
Say what……
Tina, As we and some others have come to see, we have become a culture that courts victimhood and rejects common sense and the Constitution, our beautiful, common sense, framework of government.
PC is pernicious and every bit a threat to our Constitution as Fascism, Dominionism, Communism, etc. They are ALL a threat to out Constitution, for anyone w/ an open mind.
It? If I dress up as an indian chief (popular costume) and paint my face a reddish tint then I offend American Indians? How about the hispanic community? What costumes do I have to stray away from with them? Should I choose my costume to be that in which it does not reflect any race just strictly my own? No. This is just silly to me and never should have happened. They are dressing up for Halloween not making some racial statement! But now, it will be an issue.
“I am surprised that people continue to use it in costumes.” – JT
I am surprised they do it too.
“Experience is simply the name we give our mistakes.” – Oscar Wilde
I am so sick of political correctness. I think most of the country is getting sick of it. But Im sure the race card progressives around here will disagree. Even though most of them are really the racists trying to pretend they are not.
Voter ID laws is a prime example. They basically say black people are lazy and too cheap to get proper ID’s to prevent fraud.
But back on topic, we are seeing a disturbing trend of peoples private lives being subject to public eye by nosy people. It has got to stop.