Read our blow-by-blow description of a conservative school board's special meeting on labor day to ban Obama's speech--and the public outrage that ensued:

http://www.eastcountymagazine.org/?q=node/...




As a side note, our reporter and her husband have children in this district. Her husband was so appalled by the board's clear bias and censorship that I'm told he's considering a run for the board himself. They kept one of their children home to watch the speech (costing the district ADA money) but sent a second child who didn't want to spoil her perfect attendance record.

There are racial and class overtones here in addition to partisan political ones -- and it's not surprising that the most vocal advocate for airing the speech is a very articulate African-American board member who was out-voted by whites - including one board member who expressed disdain at the idea that her own little darlings, who aren't from broken homes, should have to listen to a speech aimed at inspiring the disadvantaged. This terse exchange between white and black board members exemplifies the total disconnect here:

“I’m thinking about my specific children listening to his speech,” Halgren shared, in a somewhat broken, emotional statement. “Children at seven or eight years old—they had no clue that was going on in the world. I consider myself very fortunate…to have an intact family, we had enough, we had parental support, we had everything we needed to raise our children, children from a very good family. But now you’re putting them in a room where there are words they don’t understand, stories they’re being told are about children that they don’t understand, that they can’t relate to.”

Turner countered, “I don’t think it would be detrimental to our children in this district to sit though a 15-18 minute speech by the President of the United States. A lot of times when they have a lesson in school they don’t always ‘get it.’ That’s why the President’s giving the speech! The fact that some of it might go over their heads is no reason not to show it in the classrooms.”

Full story: http://www.eastcountymagazine.org/?q=node/...

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