Michelle Malkin » The 3 R’s in the Age of Obama: Rappin’, revolution & radicalism

The 3 R’s in the Age of Obama: Rappin’, revolution & radicalism

By Michelle Malkin • September 25, 2009 03:18 AM

The three R’s in the Age of Obama: Rappin’, revolution & radicalism
by Michelle Malkin
Creators Syndicate
Copyright 2009

When the White House announced plans for the president’s nationwide address to schoolchildren two weeks ago, worried parents were dismissed as “kooks.” We pointed to the subtext of “social justice” activism rampant in American classrooms. It’s time for a big, fat Told You So.

Out of the spotlight, politicized lessons continue to supplant core academics.

At the B. Bernice Young Elementary School in Burlington Township, N.J. earlier this year, schoolchildren were instructed to memorize a paean to Barack Obama. A video uploaded to the YouTube account of Charisse Carney-Nunes, author of the children’s book “I Am Barack Obama” and a self-described Harvard Law “schoolmate” of the president’s, showed students lined up in the auditorium snapping their fingers and chanting in unison:

Mmm, mmm, mmm, Barack Hussein Obama
He said all should lend a hand to make the country strong again
Mmm, mmm, mmm, Barack Hussein Obama
He said we must be fair today, equal work means equal pay.

Mmm, mmm, mmm, Barack Hussein Obama
He said take a stand, make sure everyone gets a chance
Mmm, mmm, mmm, Barack Hussein Obama
He said red, yellow, black and white, all are equal in his sight
Mmm, mmm, mmm, Barack Hussein Obama
Yeah! Barack Hussein Obama

…Hello Mr. President, We honor you today
For all your great accomplishments, we all do say hooray
Hooray, Mr. President you are No. 1
The first black American to lead this nation

Acknowledging the historic nature of Obama’s presidency (“the first black American”) is one thing. Deifying him with creepy spiritual references (“red, yellow, black and white, all are equal in his sight” is cribbed from the famous hymn “Jesus Loves the Little Children;” cheering “you are No. 1”) is quite another. Burlington Township (NJ) school officials said Thursday the recording and dissemination of the video was “unauthorized,” but acknowledged that the Obama praise session was part of the students’ official curriculum.

Carney-Nunes’s Obama book was on prominent display during the students’ performance. It is a tool, she says, that “allows children to see themselves through the inspirational story of President Obama growing up as an ordinary child asking, ‘Who will change the world? Ultimately, he realizes that he will.’” Seeing everything through the lens of Obama, as his incessantly self-referential United Nations speech demonstrated, is a trademark of the perpetual Obama campaign.

This O-cult lesson is exactly the kind of junior campaign lobbying activity that White House officials planned around the president’s education speech. Alert parents and administrators called out the Department of Education’s activist, Obama-centric education manuals before the event. Federal officials altered the language. Obama delivered an innocuous speech. But on cue, education radicals goaded students to engage in political activism.

White House and Hollywood moguls launched a “Get Schooled” initiative this month with Obama that urges students to lobby for higher teacher pay and to embrace the rallying cries “Know Your Rights” and “Change the System.”

At the New Trier High School in Northfield, Illinois, educators followed up on President Obama’s address with a 45-minute “extended adviser” discussion last week to explore “the significant messages inherent in his speech.” Illinois writer/blogger Tom Blumer reports that “parents were not informed on a timely basis as to what was going to happen, and were given no specific instructions on how to have their child opt out of the ‘discussions.’” The school’s principal and assistant principal sent out suggestive questions focused on Dear Leader’s Do Something missives:

* Why do you think President Obama listed the responsibilities of teachers, parents, and the government before discussing your responsibility for your education?
* What are you “good at” and what do you have “to offer” your family, friends, and community?
* In the speech, President Obama spoke of some of the steps of Effective Effort. Identify them, using direct quotations from the text to support your assertions.
* Respond to President Obama’s final questions for you: “What’s your contribution going to be?…”

In addition to radical White House Teaching Fellows like Chicago high school educator Xian Barrett (an outspoken charter school foe who founded a “Social Justice Club” and bussed students to protest) and Michelle Bissonnette, a Los Altos, Calif., teacher who is “focused on developing my leadership as a more culturally and racially conscious educator,” the White House has embraced controversial homosexual rights’ advocate Kevin Jennings as “Safe Schools czar.” Jennings founded the controversial GLSEN (Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network), which aggressively pushes sexually explicit, age-inappropriate books and lesson plans on alternative lifestyles.

Lost in all the chanting for change is the core commitment to impart actual knowledge. For progressives in the Age of Obama, setting high academic standards is secondary to the self-improvement of the “whole child” and “service” to the cause of social justice.

Out: Readin’, writin’, and ‘rithmetic.

In: Rappin’, revolution, and radicalism.

Mmm, mmm, mmm.

Photoshop: Leo Alberti

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Posted in: Education,Kevin Jennings

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#101

On September 25th, 2009 at 7:49 pm, Rob said:

ARGGGGGGHHHHHHHH

FOX interrupted a great Glen Beck for the socialist Obama’s speech…. I don’t ever want to hear Obama’s voice again!

The cool thing about Beck’s show was there were some black women there speaking sense and making me feel bad about all the anger I have been having toward blacks. Only on Glenn’s show does anything make sense….
#102

On September 25th, 2009 at 8:31 pm, tbear44 said:

On September 25th, 2009 at 8:28 am, On-my-soap-box said:
If Obummers mom was white and his dad was a mutt, wouldn’t that make the man half white not black? I know, I am racist!!!

I keep asking this question. Everyone on the left fall all over themselves saying Obama is the first black president. I insist he is the first “interacial president”,
and the left wingers go wild. I then state: “My sister is white as a sheet, married an Ethiopian who is black as night. Are her 2 children black?” I have yet to get an answer on that one.
#103

On September 25th, 2009 at 9:53 pm, ajmontana said:

3 R’s of Odopey….

Ridicules
Radical
Racist……

and many more unfit for print.
#104

On September 25th, 2009 at 10:02 pm, prendad said:

I watched some of the UN farce but I had to turn it off. I could not listen to the ravings of the Libyan, the ravings of the Venezuelan, the ravings of the Iranian or even the ravings of the American President. The UN failed a long time ago. It is largely a country club for terrorists now who come over here to spend OUR money eating, drinking, talking nonsense and kissing each others asses. Move the UN to Siberia. Then let us see how many people show up. Congratulations to Israel. Netanyahu gave a decent, hard-hitting speech.
#105

On September 25th, 2009 at 11:40 pm, realitycheck said:

On September 25th, 2009 at 6:36 am, txvet2 said:
The left has been indoctrinating our kids for decades.

And that’s why the people who are teaching the kids are in the tank for the Left in the first place.

The Left, Socialists, Communists, etc aren’t stupid. They’ve figured out how to win the game incrementally. It’s like chess, if you’re patient, and chip away at your opponent, you win every time.

In the case of political idealology, the introduction of moral, political and philosophical relativsm, will ultimately achieve your intended outcome.
#106

On September 26th, 2009 at 12:14 am, lonewolf said:

Netanyahu gave one of the most concise, compelling speeches ever heard in the UN.
#107

On September 26th, 2009 at 12:30 am, cwbois said:

…Hello Mr. President, We honor you today
For all your great accomplishments, we all do say hooray

Just exactly what has he accomplshed so far thats so great? The massive debt he’s piled up for these same kids to pay? This whole things goes way beyond creapy into the gag me with a spoon zone.
#108

On September 26th, 2009 at 7:23 am, ArizonaNeanderthal said:

Regulus you could be Czar of New School Songs.
#109

On September 26th, 2009 at 7:46 am, cheapseat said:

ot; reagan toppled the ussr without firing a shot, by forcing russia to spend tons matching weapons systems, by supporting gorebechov, then that nutjob yeltsin, and voila. the chinese obviously learned the lesson. they keep loaning us money watching us waste it on the u.n. and nation building, they support democrats with money and votes, and they have witnessed us electing our own yeltsin. hmmmm.
#110

On September 26th, 2009 at 7:58 am, jamesgreenidge said:

This is really a Johnny-Come-Lately story because similar has been occurring in schools in Southeast Queens almost since the beginning of the year when the Bush classroom photos were piling up in the ash cans outside. I laugh at the lame excuse that it was for “Black History Month” (like we even need such, like black “leaders” of a whole race. Do Asians have one?). If you’re white or Asian are you PC-compelled to Hmmmmm along with Bama too? What’s the penalty if you don’t? What should really alarm folks is that this Nw Jersey school just happens to’ve gotten CAUGHT!

James Greenidge
Queens, NY
#111

On September 26th, 2009 at 5:17 pm, right4life said:

democrats with money and votes, and they have witnessed us electing our own yeltsin. hmmmm.

come on…yeltsin was a decent guy…had a lot of guts to jump on that tank…

ok he had a drinking problem…but he wasn’t a stone-cold murderous, evil, dog like PUTIN is….
#112

On September 26th, 2009 at 10:49 pm, ErinF said:

I think Rush has to have Mr. Snerdley make his own version of this stupid song. I’m sending him an email.
#113

On September 27th, 2009 at 7:35 am, ArizonaNeanderthal said:

ZURICH (AP) – Director Roman Polanski has been taken into custody by Swiss police on a 31-year-old U.S. arrest warrant, organizers of the Zurich Film Festival said Sunday.

The old pervert has been living in France–that figures.
#114

On September 27th, 2009 at 3:48 pm, mattm said:

Yet I still don’t give a rats a** about the race of the POTUS.
#115

On September 27th, 2009 at 8:27 pm, Rob said:

Rape
Robbery
Racism
Radical
Reconquista
Redistribution
….

Too many “R”s to choose from…

And WE are going to have to “choose” sides soon…