The Night After

He woke gasping for air, his mind reeling in a jumbled panic, as if tossed and winnowed by a strong wind.  Drops of sweat from his forehead fell into his eyes, stinging, and his vision blurred.  A quick glance toward his wife and child, huddled next to him for warmth, reassured him they were safe, but a feeling of unease clung to his heart, like smooth bark to a tree.  His wife was restless: her head rolled irritably from side to side, and her lips were moving, but he heard no words.

He listened for sounds in the dark – thieves, soldiers, evil spirits – but heard only the night sounds of the livestock.  Then, in his brain, the noise began again.  From the base of his neck it grew upward, becoming more urgent, louder, fiercer.  The thrumming of angry bees! Cries of alarm!  Shouts of pain and shrieks of fear!  Stop!  Stop!

He leapt up and clasped his head with his rough hands, his heart pounding and his breath ragged.  What was happening to him?  What did it mean?  Suddenly, the noise dimmed, and he heard a command.

“You must flee.  Take the child and his mother and flee!”

He spun around.  “What?  Why?”  The sound of screams rose again in his brain.  “Who is there?”  Silence. “She just gave birth,” he pleaded.

“Flee.  Take the child and flee!”  The voice commanded.  “Now!”

He heard a small cry behind him.  He turned and saw his wife staring at him with wide eyes.  “We must leave,” she said, “they are coming for the child.” Her breasts rose and fell as rapidly as the ribs of a young deer winded after a long chase.

“What?  Who?  I hear no one.”  At least, no one who is outside of my head.  He walked to the half-door and peered into the darkness. “No one is here.”

“They are coming,” she replied, her voice quavering.  “I heard their voices.”

“Perhaps in the …” he began, but the noise returned, blocking all thought.  Shouts, curses, screams, dogs barking, babies crying.  And a feeling, a feeling of deep despair, a feeling of all the horror and injustice that slashed across so many lives.  He put his hands over his ears.  “The noise!  The noise!”  He stopped himself, unsure if he cried out loud, but his wife said nothing.  He staggered over to their belongings.  “Okay! Okay! We’ll leave now.”

He hurriedly gathered their few possessions and stuffed them into a rough sack.  Into another, he poured a measure of grain and filled the remaining space with hay.  He found two empty jars that he filled with water from the animal’s trough.  It would have to do.

“Are you sure you can do this?” He asked his wife.  “The birth … just yesterday.”  He did not know what else to say.

“Yes,” she said.  “I must do it.”

He tied the two bags to the donkey, making a rough saddle.  He stuffed cloth into the mouths of the water jars, then looped string around their necks before placing them carefully across the donkey’s back.

“Come,” he said to his wife.  “Let me help you onto the beast.”  She clutched the baby with both hands as he picked them up and gently settled them onto the donkey’s back.  “We are ready.”

“Yes,” she said, “we must go.”

They left the small, crude building, precariously constructed of layers of irregular, unfaced stone, and walked along the narrow dirt road through the village.  Small explosions of dust shot up around each footstep, then abruptly returned to the ground. All was quiet until they reached the village’s southern edge; then, as if tormented by the Evil One, dogs began to bark and howl, making a fearsome noise.

“The soldiers are here!” His wife said in a strained voice that was half whisper, half smothered scream.  “We must hurry!”

“We’ll move away from the road,” he replied, tugging the donkey’s rope to the right and plunging them all into the trackless wasteland. “We’ll stay away from the road,” he repeated, as if convincing himself that safety waited in the wilderness.

They continued in silence, heading south and west over rough ground.  He willed more distance between them and the village, but distance was slow in coming amid the rocks and sand.  Behind them, they could hear rough voices, the sound of doors kicked in, the shouts of men and the shrieks of women. “Faster,” he thought to himself, “we must go faster.  We must get away from the noise!”  He pulled harder on the donkey’s rope, causing the animal to make a few wild, lurching strides before settling back into a comfortable gait.

His wife admonished him:  “Steady.”

Slowly, ever so slowly, the voices from the village faded, and the incessant thrum of sound in his brain diminished.

They walked for a long time, and he lost a clear sense of the direction in which they were moving; the night sky was filled with clouds, so he could see neither moon nor stars. He remained alert, every nerve a snare, his eyes scanning the black desert night, his heart thumping with dread.  Dread of what?  He didn’t know.  Serpents.  Lions. Soldiers. Wild dogs. Evil spirits.  Dread.  Dread.  Dread. Every breath a strangled cry for help.

The baby stirred once, and his wife nursed him.

Later, when even his dread was exhausted, she spoke: “I bleed.” Her voice was faint, the sound of a small bird on the other side of a sandy hill on a windy day.

“What?”  He mumbled.  The noise, the voices, even diminished, had beaten his brain into a stupor.  “Bleeding?  Why?”  He stopped and looked at her dumbly.

“From the birth.”  Her voice was tiny, as if it took great effort to make the smallest sound.  “There is cloth in the bag.  I need it.”

“Cloth,” he repeated.  He dropped the donkey’s rope and went to the bag.  He stood there for a few seconds, staring at the bag, before remembering what he needed to do.  Slowly – his fingers were thick and stiff – he untied the bag and rummaged through it until he found a few pieces of cloth.  “These?”  He asked, holding them up as if she could see them in the dark.

“Yes.  Take the baby.”  She held the child out to him.

He took the baby into his arms.  It was too dark to make out the child’s face, but he felt alarmingly light, as if he might float away.  He stood beside his wife in the dark, grimly holding the baby onto the earth, half-afraid that his thick, clumsy fingers might scar the newborn’s delicate skin.

Without leaving the donkey’s back, his wife quickly secreted the cloth beneath her clothes.  “I am ready,” she said.

“Do you need to rest?” He asked, anxious for her and the child.  He looked toward her face.  He could see little in the dark, but she seemed to be shaking. “Do you need to drink?”

“We cannot rest yet.  The women are still crying out.”  She did not explain how she knew this, or its significance.

He gave her the baby, re-tied the bag, then picked up the donkey’s rope and resumed walking.  His feet hurt and were difficult to lift, as if he were carrying a heavy tree trunk up a steep hill; he stumbled a few times but caught himself.  “It’s important not to fall,” his delirious brain warned his legs, “because you won’t be able to get up without help, and there is no help out here.”  He was thirsty but did not drink; his wife would need the water to produce milk for the child.

Surely, he thought, the sun will soon rise.  But the night remained dark.  Surely, he thought, there will be a village where they can rest.  But there was no village.  Surely, he thought, God will help them.  But God was silent.

Hours and hours into the deadening, silent walk the wind began to blow.  Sand peppered his face.  He looked back at his wife.  She held the child wrapped in her garments with one hand and was leaning forward, her head down near the donkey’s neck, grasping the beast’s mane with her other hand.   He turned to look ahead, but his eyes were filled with dust and sand.  He looked down, concentrating on each step as if the next one, just one more, would magically bring them to a village.  But there was only sand, blowing sand, and his feet were blending into the sand, becoming sand.  The voices in his head were legion, growing louder and louder and louder, conspiring with the wind and sand to overwhelm his senses.  He had a vision of terrifying beings flying through a cacophony of lamentations, of sounds made visible.  He heard, or sensed, sound coming from behind them, rolling faster and faster across the sand from the north.  What to do?  Where to hide?  He stopped, panicked, confused, and then felt himself being lifted up on a great wave of wailing.  The donkey’s rope slipped from his hand.

“My wife!”  He shouted.  “The baby!”

He heard the voice of a rabbi from his childhood, reciting words as chilling to his young ears then as they were now.

“A voice is heard in Ramah, mourning and great weeping, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, because they are no more.”

“No!” He cried aloud, but everything went black and silent.

He did not know how much time had passed, but when he recovered from the fall, the sun had just breached the eastern horizon.  Surely, he must have fallen a great distance, for he had been carried high into the air, three times higher than any building in their home village, by the black rolling wave of sound.  He thought of his wife and child and quickly rolled over to look for them.

He found them, sitting next to him, keeping watch.  And although he was safe in his mother’s arms, the baby began to cry.

Word Was

Word was
Among the three of them,
Seers of the East,
That a king was to be born.
Silently, they navigated the heavens to meet him.

Word was
To a young woman,
That she would birth the savior of her people.
She told one man,
Then she was silent.

Word was
He was born in a stable
On a cold, silent night,
Visited by seers from the East,
They remained silent.

Word was
A jealous king demanded
The blood of the child.  The family fled,
But Israel cried out for her children.
Then all were silent.

Word was
A young boy amazed
The scholars of Jerusalem with his knowledge,
Then caravaned away with his anxious parents.
Everyone was silent.

Word was
The Word revealed himself,
A prophet to his own people,
Rejected and driven away.
But the Word did not remain silent.

Word was
On the streets, among the poor, the homeless
The lame, the sick, the deranged, the prostitutes.
The Word was warned by the elders, the Scribes, the Pharisees.
But the Word did not remain silent.

Word was
That the Romans, the imperials
Would torture, crucify, kill
Troublemakers like him.
But the Word did not remain silent.

Word was
The Word was arrested.
Elders found him guilty,
Romans were impatient, the people shouted “Crucify!”
The Word was silent.

Word was
He was savaged, scourged, crowned with thorns.
The Word carried his tree, his death, to the Place of Skulls.
“Save yourself!” the crowds shouted as the Word was raised up to death.
The Word was silent.

Word was
The Word was taunted by a thief, but another said,
“Have you no shame?
“Remember me,” the second thief pleaded.
The Word said, “I will remember you.”

Word was
More taunts, more shouts.
Thirst, pain, blood, hands, feet, head!
The ninth hour.  Where is God?  Where is God?
The Word cried, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?”

It is finished!

Three days of fear
Huddled in locked rooms.
The women ventured forth to anoint,
But the Word was not in the tomb.
The Word will not be silenced.

Logos was, is, will be.
In the beginning was the Logos, the Word.
The Word floods, sustains,
Cradles the universe.
The Word will not be silenced.

The Word says, “This is my flock, care for them!”
The Word says, “Blessed are the poor and those who suffer!”
The Word says, “Feed my sheep!”
The Word says, “What you do for the least of them, you do for me!”
The Word will not be silenced.

The Word cries, “What are you doing?”
The Word cries, “They thirst. They hunger.”
The Word cries, “They hurt. They bleed.”
The Word cries, “What are you doing?”
The Word cries, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?”

Word was

Why I Like Books

This is in response to a comment that a friend of mine made about books.  She said that she doesn’t trust the opinions of people who don’t read.  Usually, I would agree with her without a second thought.

But I had a second thought. And another thought. Then a fourth. Soon, the thoughts grew unwieldy and the comment morphed into a question.

Why do I like books?

I own upwards of 3,000 of them, and I’ve read countless others, but it’s not a question that I find easy to answer.  Books have so many layers that it’s hard for me to point to one and say, “That’s it!  That’s why I like books.”  It’s like being asked, “What’s your favorite book?” or “What book are you reading now?”  The answers to those questions involve long discourses that exhaust the patience of the most patient of listeners.  Reasons to like books are like an endless table of contents or the microscopic two-volume edition of the Oxford English Dictionary.  As the demon said, “My name is Legion; for we are many.”

For me, books are an immersive, sensual experience. I love holding them (even electronically), reading them, owning them. I like the way they smell and look. When I pick up a new book, I look at the front and back covers and read any blurbs.  I read the summaries and author biographies on the inside of dust jackets. I read the publication and copyright information. I read typographical notes. I scan the list of other books the author has written. If there is a table of contents and an index, I look at them. If a non-fiction book has endnotes or footnotes and an extensive bibliography, I’m in heaven. Usually, I do a little research about the author and the time period in which he or she wrote, as well as the time period covered by the book. I start forming questions: What, in general, is this book about? Since the book was written in the 1920s (for example), what about that time period might influence the author’s writing? (I know, that’s taboo in New Criticism, but who cares?) For fiction, what story is being told? Is this book part of a series? For non-fiction, why is this author writing about this subject? What are his or her qualifications? Then, and only then, I open the book to the first chapter and fall down the rabbit hole.

Interpolation: Electronic books have the irritating habit of opening at the beginning of the first chapter. I don’t want the first chapter until I’ve done a little exploring.  Open on the damn front cover!

But . . .

My friend’s general point about the importance of books and opinions is well-taken; Donald Trump is a perfect example of what happens when a person doesn’t read. But I’m not inclined to dismiss the opinions of everyone who hasn’t read very much. I’ve known some wise old men and wise old women who were not great readers. They usually limited their opinions to their experiences or to the experiences of people they knew – and even then, they spoke of concrete behaviors or of ordinary human joy and sadness. Sometimes they told stories, folklore, that were a reservoir of insight. If they did extrapolate to larger issues, it was based on a simple moral code or common sense; sadly, those tools are sometimes as ill-fitting for the situation at hand as a horse and buggy would be on the runway at the airport. One of the valuable things about books is they expand awareness beyond individual experience, beyond simple moral codes and what passes for common sense, allowing us to better appraise a situation.

Interpolation:  But then, some of our greatest literature began as little stories with  morals that were endlessly elaborated on (the Iliad, the Odyssey, the first part of Genesis, Dr. Suess), so even a horse and buggy can be useful. It all depends on where we’re going.

I tend to vacillate between a simple moral code – this is right, that is wrong – and a recognition that my understanding of the world is too limited to pass judgment. In a nation as wealthy as the U.S., denying people food, shelter, medical care, and education is wrong. War and killing are wrong. Possessing nuclear weapons is wrong. Destroying the environment is wrong. Books provide the context for my judgment, because I wouldn’t know very much about war or nuclear weapons or economics or climate change without books.  But not all books are equally useful for a particular task (the horse and buggy at the airport problem).  I have direct personal experience (now outdated) with nuclear weapon systems, initiated through books and expanded through training and day-to-day work as a technician, but the knowledge I have is technical and doesn’t help me to form moral or political judgments. The same is true of economics, which I studied in college. So, while books provide the context, many books, especially non-fiction books, don’t provide me with tools for judgment, for determining right and wrong.

Books have taught me how to employ arguments in support of my opinions. And data: my knowledge of things that I can’t directly observe is derived from books. But to be honest, books also complicate decisions, and they make me reluctant to judge others who make different decisions. More data and anecdotes and case studies, more vignettes of a rejected lover or a child who has lost her mother, make the world anything but black and white. That’s a good thing, but it can make decisions more difficult.

Why do I vacillate between judging and not judging? If I were a Black man in the U.S., I might be angry enough to fight. To be sure, killing would still be wrong, but if the police attack me, is burning a police car wrong? Do I rely on our system of justice if I’ve observed that it isn’t very just for Black men? If I were a woman who had been assaulted, would I walk away from catcalls, even those whispered by powerful men? Or would I expose them to anger and ridicule, if not punishment? Since I haven’t experienced any of that, my knowledge is based on what I’ve read, along with a comparatively few conversations with people who have experienced them. Can I pass judgment, based on what I read in a book, on people who have experienced horrors that I’ll never experience?

My earliest opinions about right and wrong came from experience:  I did something wrong and my parents corrected me. Before I could read it, nuns and priests told me what was in the Bible, and they painted a terrifyingly binary world: This is right! That is wrong! (Nuns and priests once wore only black and white; I think it reflected their worldview.) The tiniest thing I did Down Here would be noted Up There, and enough notes sent Up There from Down Here meant I was going Down There for Eternity, whatever that was (it had something to do with pitchforks). As an adult reader, I’ve come to realize that the Bible offers more nuance than I was led to believe; it’s not a simple recitation of a moral code. The Hebrew scriptures are chock full of moral ambiguity. David, the putative author of the psalms, is forever begging God to destroy his enemies, and at least some of the time God obliges. Thou shalt not kill – Oh, except for these exceptions for King David. Jesus cures sinners, telling them to “sin no more,” but he doesn’t cut them out of his will (so to speak) if they sin again.  There’s more than a little slack in the Bible, but you must read it to discover which behaviors are excusable slack and which behaviors punch your ticket for a trip Down There.

Books of fiction allow me to imagine the minds and souls of people making decisions under duress. The people in a novel might be different than me, they might be more likeable or less likeable, but their human experiences are my experiences, actually or potentially, and I can learn from them. Perhaps the imaginative freedom – it’s me but it’s not me – fiction offers can help me develop empathy for others; perhaps that empathy will modify my notions of what is right and wrong; perhaps that will help me to look more kindly on others.

That’s what fiction does for me. 

Interpolation:  Poetry is like fiction, except it’s fiction hammered to a sharp point.  When I recite poetry, there are no characters to like or dislike or hide behind; even the poet vanishes.  There is the sound of the words.  There is my existential condition exposed.  There is nothing else.

Yes, I enjoy a good story, and there are writers and writing styles that I prefer over others, so I also make aesthetic judgments.  I have high expectations for fiction, much higher than I do for non-fiction. Non-fiction must be theoretically sound and factually correct, but I know that non-fiction is contingent, subject to the flow of events that will, sooner or later, invalidate its numbers and embarrass its grand schemes.  Fiction is non-contingent, and from fiction and essays I expect insight, writ large or small, into la condition humaine. Tastes change and some books go out of style, but the human condition hasn’t changed very much in the last 5,000 years. Some of us are warmer and better fed now, but most of us aren’t. And all of us still experience joy and anguish, all of us still suffer through sickness, all of us will one day die. Fiction – stories – speaks to us of those conditions in ways a research study cannot.

The simple morality and stories of old men and old women can also help; they sometimes possess what we call wisdom. Wisdom isn’t automatically granted to older people, any more than it’s automatically given to me when I read a book. But experiences and ideas, whether lived, gathered from a story told in an out-of-date living room, or gleaned from a book in a musty library, provide me with the ability to develop wisdom, if I’m willing to sit and think, to ruminate. Old people not only have experience, they have the time to sit and think, to poke and prod and savor experience, so that’s why so many of them possess wisdom. Yes, their world was just as full of mistakes and cruelty and violence and suffering as ours, but it was also filled with hopes fulfilled and love and good meals and laughter.  Old people know things.  Perhaps they can tell me a story that addresses the anguish I’m feeling right now because they’ve experienced it before – or their great-great uncle Dave, who died in the Great War, experienced it when it he fifteen-years-old.  And even if they can’t offer a story, they understand how to sit and bear witness to suffering, because they know that sometimes all we can do is bear witness.

Books, too, bear witness.

When we’re young, we’re less likely to sit and think, to ruminate.  We’re unnerved by anguish and attempt to escape from it; we didn’t understand the value of bearing witness. We didn’t have enough experience of life to possess any hint of wisdom, unless we read.   Books can bridge the gap between experience and wisdom.

I was alone at my father’s bedside when he died. I heard a faint gasp and looked up at his face and knew that it was his time. I don’t know how that I knew, but I did.  No, I know how.  I knew because of stories that I’d read or heard.  So I did the one last thing, the last rite, that humans do:  I kissed his forehead and whispered, “It’s okay to go, if that’s what you need to do.” His breathing stopped. I checked for a pulse.  Nothing.

All I could do was bear witness to his passing. And then I was alone.

But I wasn’t alone, not really. After a few moments of silence, I knew that I wasn’t alone. There were the ancient stories told around campfires, and modern updates recounted in novels, thousands of stories in hundreds of languages.  This is the human condition.  This is what humans do for each other.  I experienced one story in a vast web of stories that have been told since humans began telling stories, stories that continue to be told by old men and old women. Stories that are found in life and in the pages of books.

That is why I like books.

Night Gathers Darkness

 

Moon everlasting

baldly shines God’s ancient light.

Night gathers darkness.

 

People scurry home,

scarcely daring a glance up

at soul’s blinkless eye

 

Moon everlasting,

a flower tightly clasps itself.

Night gathers darkness.

Whence Education?

In a recent post in Working Class Perspectives, Allison Hurst discusses the Catch-22 of higher education in our society.  The working- and middle-classes need it to have any hope of improving their lot in life, but, due to rising costs, increasing debt loads, and limited upward mobility, the benefits of higher education are becoming questionable.

I’ll begin with an assertion:  No undergraduate degree is worth graduating with a $30,000 or $50,000 debt.

As Hurst notes in her post, it is a class issue.  It doesn’t matter if you’re White, a Person of Color, male or female, although the impact is greater on People of Color and women.  Upward mobility is limited in the U.S. , inequality is rampant, and the huge debt burden many students carry creates fearful and compliant workers for capitalists and the ruling class generally.  It’s one of many reasons socialists continue to focus on class.

I took a route out of the working class similar to the one Hurst describes in her post, although at a time when loans weren’t de rigeuer at state schools.  I will vouch for the economic importance of an education:  The jobs that I’ve held required college degrees, although the specific degree didn’t matter (I studied English and economics, and I added additional degrees later, mostly paid for by tuition assistance from employers).  I worked in high tech when high tech was just getting started, not as an engineer or programmer (although I acquired some of those skills on-the-job), but as a technologist.  My job was to translate the Next New Thing into comprehensible language for technicians and (sometimes) for consumers.

More importantly, though, my worldview expanded exponentially because of college.  It continues to expand today, 45 years later, because of the habits of mind formed in college.  That is the single greatest benefit I received, something I consider essential to my well-being.  But the debt loads facing many students today means that the broad, humanistic development of their minds is an out-of-reach luxury.

Should a student take on crippling loans for either of those reasons? No, even though I consider a degree essential.  I suggest working- and middle-class students opt for the least expensive college education possible – usually, a state school – and live at home if it’s at all feasible. Attend a lower cost community college to complete general education requirements (if you have low SAT/ACT scores, this is a good route, because most colleges won’t request the scores if you’ve accumulated 24 college credit hours at a community college).  Keep loans to a minimum (and then only federally guaranteed loans). Work during the year (for spending money, if nothing else), on extended breaks, and over the summer. Go to school part-time, if necessary.

My wife and I have put two kids through college, and we have one in college now (and a fourth next year), in a mix of public and private schools.  How was it paid for?  My wife and I paid some, scholarships paid some, our kids worked and paid some, and loans paid some.  They started at community college at 16-years-old (we home-schooled) and were ready to enroll as juniors in college when they turned 18-years-old.  It’s hard, especially when two kids are in college at the same time, but it can be done.

By the way, I doubt private schools are worth the extra cost, unless a student receives a very large financial aid package and/or is studying something that’s not readily available at a public school.  My son attended one, and while his education was good, I doubt it’s superior to a good public college.  One of our daughters is studying opera at a conservatory, so she is in a private college.  She won a large scholarship, which helps, but we (and she) still pay a non-trivial amount for her tuition, room, and board.  The same might be said of “flagship” state universities, which tend to cost more than the other colleges in the state system.  Yes, there is some “cultural capital” to be acquired at private or flagship schools, but given the exorbitant cost of an education, I doubt it’s worth it.  As Allison Hurst notes in her post, working- and middle-class students are less likely to benefit from cultural capital or connections.

Is this unfair?  Absolutely.  Capitalists (the ruling class) pay little or nothing for a well-educated workforce, although the workers themselves are struggling.  Abolishing student debt would ease the psychological and financial burdens on workers, but it won’t solve the larger problem.  Nor, as Hurst points out, would more education.  Unequal economic and social power in a system in which class mobility is limited is the real culprit.  Worker (not state) ownership and control of the workplace is the solution.  In the interim, democracy in the workplace would be a giant step forward (https://www.currentaffairs.org/2018/08/the-need-for-workplace-democracy and https://www.jacobinmag.com/2018/01/freedom-from-the-boss).

Is this an issue for Catholic Social Thought (CST)?  Yes.  The dignity of human beings – the working- and middle-class – is damaged by our current economic system.  Choice and freedom, essential elements of human dignity, are, in fact, limited in our late stage capitalist society.  We must accept whatever wages are offered, under whatever conditions capitalists determine is profitable (when you’re broke, labor mobility is a joke).   Our well-being, or that of our families and communities (the “common good” in CST), are not a serious concern of employers.  Education is presented as the escape from poverty, when it frequently leads to debt, wage peonage, and psychologically damaged people.  The doctrine of hyper-individualism shifts all responsibility – and consequences – for personal well-being to workers, regardless of how little control they have over the workplace or the larger economy.   The idea of resilient families in a supportive community, of people working together to flourish, is lost.  Addictions, divorces, and suicides are a natural consequence of our economic system.  Catholic Social Thought contains alternatives to this destructive system (for a brief explanation:  https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2019/03/22/what-does-catholic-social-teaching-say-about-economy-its-more-complicated-you.  For a detailed look:  http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/justpeace/documents/rc_pc_justpeace_doc_20060526_compendio-dott-soc_en.html.)

“I cannot praise a . . . cloistered virtue”

Clark vs. the Fort Worth School District is an important case, and not just for its obvious free speech implications. It’s about how we should educate our children and what kind of republic we want to live in.

I am surprised that Georgia Clark’s dismissal occurred in the Fort Worth, Texas school district. Despite a large Latinx population, Fort Worth is controlled by conservative Whites, and an influx of people with Brown skin is perceived as a threat to White dominance, as Trump’s supporters endlessly tell us. The superintendent, and perhaps a few members of the school board, may lose their jobs over this ham-handed episode, because I’m willing to wager a new silver dollar that many people in the community support the teacher. Of course, I’m not especially surprised that the commission ruled in the teacher’s favor. If you follow Texas politics at all, you can’t help but notice the large number of conservatives/racists in positions of public trust. The committee, in effect, was protecting one of their own.

What is the source of White anxiety? In Fort Worth, population statistics tell part of the story.  In 1940, Whites comprised 85.7 percent of the population; by 2010, Whites were 61.6 percent, and non-Hispanic Whites only 41.7 percent, of the population. I suspect Latinx people were lumped in with Whites in 1940, since Blacks were recorded, but no Latinx people. That’s historically unlikely, because we know Texas was part of the native lands of Latinx people.

The number of Black or African Americans in Fort Worth have grown modestly: from 14.2 percent in 1940 to 18.9 percent in 2010. The earliest data on the Hispanic or Latinx population begins in 1970, at 7.9 percent of Fort Worth’s population. By 2010, it was 34.1 percent. The percentages, of course, don’t validate Clark’s belief that the city has been overrun by violent drug dealers; that’s the other part of the story: People of European descent have carried a low-grade infection of racist nativism since they first set foot on Turtle Island, and the infection occasionally spikes a destructive fever, as it’s doing now.

Despite that, I believe the commission’s ruling was correct, because fringe or not, Clark’s right to express her beliefs is a fundamental freedom.

If Georgia Clark had verbally attacked students, then her behavior would be inappropriate and worthy of her removal from the classroom. The commission, however, ruled that she did not attack her students.

Her tweets were clearly protected by the First Amendment, which guarantees freedom of speech and the freedom to petition the government to seek redress for grievances. Sadly, her assertion that Latinx people are illegal drug dealers who are taking over “her” city and school are not even fringe beliefs, since a great number of U.S. citizens, including the president, passionately agree with her.  It’s unconscionable for the school district to censor her (nonviolent) speech.

If she can be fired for expressing anti-immigrant beliefs on a private Twitter account, then another teacher can be fired for privately expressing opposition to Trump’s actions on the border. Once some speech is arbitrarily deemed inappropriate, it’s easy to extend the ban to other forms of speech (or merely to people who are considered troublemakers). The school board’s termination of the teacher was a violation of the Constitution.

I am surprised that The New York Times published such a neutral article on free speech. I know most people claim to want “just the facts” from news organizations, but if that were true, Fox News and MSNBC wouldn’t exist. When I watch the news or read a newspaper, I’m aware of the bias of the source.  The New York Times is reliably liberal (including on matters of war), just as Fox News is reliably . . . insane. (The New York Times, and a great many liberals, are war boosters, regardless of who is president; only the Left thinks this is an anomaly.) If any case calls for The New York Times to demonstrate bias, it’s one that directly bears on the First Amendment, since newspapers rely on it for their survival. So does our republic.

But this incident, to me, raises another troubling question. What does the school board believe the function of education to be? Is it imposed discipline and conformity? Is it passing a seemingly endless array of soul-destroying tests? Or is it the challenge of learning and free inquiry? School districts routinely attempt to throttle back exercises of free speech, especially that of students. Do we want a republic in which young people are early and often told to shut up? Where even adults are afraid to speak their minds, because they fear they’ll lose their livelihood?

Students and teachers don’t lose their free speech rights when they cross the threshold of a public school’s door – if anything, they should be prodded to engage in freewheeling discussions of ideas, even obnoxious ideas. That’s what education is 𝘧𝘰𝘳, even if it also serves other purposes (providing tools for citizenship, providing job skills, providing memories of Friday night football games, etc.) 

Academic freedom is tied to a method of inquiry and learning that requires free speech; arbitrary limitations on academic freedom constricts knowledge – and knowledge is the soil in which wisdom takes root. Academic freedom – free speech – is messy, challenging, and irritating. It is also exhilarating and vital to our survival. Under restrictive conditions, what students learn is but a pale shadow of what our very human civilization means: we are a restless, freedom-loving people possessed of curious minds that love challenges.

“I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue,” John Milton wrote in Areopagitica, “unexercised and unbreathed, that never sallies out and sees her adversary, but slinks out of the race where that immortal garland is to be run for, not without dust and heat.” Are we losing the race because we don’t allow our teachers and students to run?