RE: [Leica] States' Rights and Racism HOME SCHOOLING - OFF-TOPIC STORY

["bdcolen" <bdcolen@earthlink.net>]

During the early 70s I spent about 18 months covering what passed for
"education" in Prince George's County, Md, the first county south of the
city, the county to which blue collar whites had fled, and to which
middle class blacks were just then beginning to flee - a county mired in
its Southern past; a county just then struggling with forced bussing....

Well, one of the "ladies" who always showed up at the school board
meetings to rant and rave about the evils of the Feds, the evils of
bussing, and the evils of Shirley Jackson's story "The Lottery," which -
horrors! - was in a collection of short stories one grade was reading,
was "home schooling" her kids and a couple of other kids. For some
reason she decided that she could trust me, probably because she so
thoroughly hated the Post's regular education writer and saw me as a
young push-over. And so she agreed to have me write about her home
schooling effort.

I spent a day in this woman's basement, where she "educated" about a
half-dozen kids using McGuffey Readers and materials prepared by groups
I don't even want to think about. And then I wrote a long feature story
about the day, a story that ran on page one of the Wash Post.

Well, I was convinced that the story made her sound like the racist,
fascist, nut job she was - using her own words to convey that. My
colleagues on the paper also read the story in that light. But when the
piece ran - she absolutely loved it! Why? Because I quoted her
accurately and let her tell her own story. So believing that she was a
crusader for Truth,Justice, and Jesus's American Way, she was convinced
that the story showed her in a good light - when in fact it showed her
to be exactly what she really was. :-)

End of story.


- -----Original Message-----
From: owner-leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us
[mailto:owner-leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us] On Behalf Of S Dimitrov
Sent: Tuesday, February 11, 2003 9:21 PM
To: leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us
Subject: Re: [Leica] States' Rights and Racism


My favorite code term is "home schooling." Every cracker, er, I mean
gentleman and gentle lady, that I've come across espousing the practise
was flaming non-white person challenged. I hope that was the PC way of
saying it.  Slobodan Dimitrov


Robert Marvin wrote:
    Despite racist use of the term 'State's Rights' as a  code, not
every use of
> that term has to be racist and I'm certain that that was not Marc's 
> intent.
> >
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