California Schools Named After Washington and Jefferson Will Be Renamed Thanks to BLM
It is troubling to see the ties that used to bind Americans together being quickly and deliberately severed by forces within the U.S.
One such example has come courtesy of the Berkeley Unified School District board, which unanimously approved a resolution last week that will begin the process of renaming two elementary schools in the San Francisco area which currently are named after George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
Dubbed “Resolution No. 20-064 in support of Black Lives Matter” and peppered with the language and ideals of the radical Black Lives Matter movement, the resolution says the district will rename the schools because both men owned slaves.
Of course, both are also Founding Fathers of the United States; Washington led the young nation’s army in the Revolutionary War and became the country’s first president, and Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence and was later elected the third president of the United States.
The resolution cited the need for justice due to recent incidents including the killing of George Floyd, the Minneapolis man whose death after a police officer knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes during an arrest set off nationwide riots, as well as “far too many other Black Americans to list.”
A name change for Jefferson Elementary was originally proposed and shot down in 2005, but according to the Chronicle: “The current Black Lives Matter movement across the country, following the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, inspired a renewed, successful effort to change the names of the schools.”
The document referenced BLM in glowing terms, saying that “like the civil rights and Black Power movements before it, has effectively articulated the injustices that exist at the intersections of race, class, and gender.”
“To serve as a visible affirmation of the movement for racial equality in the United States, a ‘Black Lives Matter’ banner shall be displayed prominently in the chambers of the Board of Education,” the resolution said.
In addition, the district will launch a “Black Joy campaign to celebrate the full experience of Black students, families, staff, and community members.”
It would be great if the resolution stopped at equality and celebrations, but the fact that it not only included language of the anti-American BLM movement but also the radical agenda of erasing the history of the country is disturbing.
There has been a growing movement throughout the U.S. in recent weeks to figuratively and literally tear down the nation’s founders.
But demonizing the country’s Founding Fathers because of mistakes of the past is like the old saying about throwing the baby out with the bathwater — just because the men and their milieu were flawed doesn’t mean their monuments should be literally torn down.
The evil of slavery was legal and yes, some Founding Fathers owned slaves, but the nation would eventually correct the injustice at the expense of approximately 620,000 men’s lives on both sides of the Civil War.
Like the history of all nations, America’s past is a mix of darkness and light, but our country is uniquely adept at correcting its mistakes, even if it takes generations.
By simply dispensing with that history, the BUSD does an injustice to the founders and gravely impacts the students who will never understand or appreciate the sacrifice that made this nation, which affords them free speech and many other rights, even possible.
Had educators done their job in the first place, the students would be able both to mourn America’s sins while also celebrating its progress past them.
Instead, the cowards at the BUSD have chosen to officially adopt division, setting up the next generation to despise the nation which provides them with prosperity and freedom regardless of race.
Without a fundamental love and understanding of America’s founding, there is little hope for the future of the nation’s unity — and sadly, many in the BLM movement and its allies are just fine with that.
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