Fourth graders in Wake County, North Carolina have been assigned one book that involves the Black Panthers and racism, and another involving a father’s murder, police crackdowns on Mexican unions, and immigration to the United States.
According to Stop Common Core North Carolina, a parent reported 4th graders have been told to read the book One Crazy Summer, by Rita Williams-Garcia, in which three sisters are sent by their negligent mother to a camp run by the Black Panthers.
A description of the book at Amazon.com states it is “the story of three sisters who travel to Oakland, California in 1968 to meet the mother who abandoned them.”
The description continues:
Eleven-year-old Delphine is like a mother to her two younger sisters, Vonetta and Fern. She’s had to be, ever since their mother, Cecile, left them seven years ago for a radical new life in California. When they arrive from Brooklyn to spend the summer with her, Cecile is nothing like they imagined. While the girls hope to go to Disneyland and meet Tinker Bell, their mother sends them to a day camp run by the Black Panthers. Unexpectedly, Delphine, Vonetta, and Fern learn much about their family, their country, and themselves during one truly crazy summer.
The book is said to “support the Common Core standards,” and is slated for ages 8-12 years and grades 4-7.
Delphine is a positive female African-American role model for girls. She displays tremendous responsibility and loyalty to her family. Her mother, however, is mean. At one point she tells Delphine that she should have gotten rid of her when she had the chance, but there is no indication that her true meaning is understood. The Black Panthers are portrayed in a positive light, and the reader is educated about some of the charitable community programs they set up.
As observed by Progressives Today, one of Amazon’s positive reviews of the book denies the subject matter is too adult for children, since the Black Panthers are portrayed as trying to fight for equality as follows:
A few reviewers complain that today’s young people won’t understand the story as well as they could because they’ve never heard of the Black Panthers nor are familiar with some other historical content. But I feel the comments and context make it clear that such references deal with black groups fighting for equality and against being discriminated against by the white establishment and its cultural enforcers, the white police.
In the same school district, 4th graders are also assigned Esperanza Rising, by Pam Munoz Ryan:
Told in a lyrical, fairy tale-like style, Ryan’s (riding Freedom) robust novel set in 1930 captures a Mexican girl’s fall from riches, her immigration to California and her growing awareness of class and ethnic tensions. Thirteen-year-old Esperanza Ortega and her family are part of Mexico’s wealthy, land-owning class in Aguascalientes, Mexico. Her father is a generous and well-loved man who gives his servants land and housing. Early in the novel, bandits kill Esperanza’s father, and her corrupt uncles threaten to usurp their home. Their servants help her and her mother flee to the United States, but they must leave Esperanza’s beloved Abuelita (grandmother) behind until they can send for her…
Ryan fluidly juxtaposes world events (Mexico’s post-revolution tensions, the arrival of Oklahoma’s Dust Bowl victims and the struggles between the U.S. government and Mexican workers trying to organize) with one family’s will to survive – while introducing readers to Spanish words and Mexican customs. Readers will be swept up by vivid descriptions of California dust storms or by the police crackdown on a labor strike (“The picket signs lay on the ground, discarded, and like a mass of marbles that had already been hit, the strikers scattered?”).
“Again, this is Wake County, one of the largest school districts in North Carolina and the country,” writes Stop Common Core North Carolina. “This story shapes children’s views on class, immigration, unions, police, etc. Do you think this is appropriate for 4th graders? Will students read Johnny Tremain? or similar works?”
While lecturing students in his Public Parties and Campaigns class, a Florida State University (FSU) associate professor reportedly said Fox News Channel is “simply lying” to its viewers, and that MSNBC provides the “truth” as does the New York Times.
According to a report in Campus Reform by Kaitlyn Schalhorn, Dr. William Claggett said “my partisanship is shaping my exposure to information, and it’s also probably affecting how I process information, and the same thing with most Americans.”
“So you know, when I’m at home clicking through the stations, oh here comes Fox News, the Fox News Channel,” Claggett said in an audio recording obtained by Campus Reform. “Oh, I don’t stop there. I know they’re simply lying, and I keep on going.”
“On the other hand, you know, here comes MSNBC,” he continued. “Well, I’ll stop here for a bit, see what truth I can find out the easy way while I’m reading the New York Times.”
As Breitbart News’s John Nolte reported at the end of January, television ratings for that month showed that Fox News beat its competition at MSNBC and CNN for the 13th year in a row.
Claggett also told his students, “I don’t read the Wall Street Journal, again, rag of lies, unless I’m interested in reading the CEO of some particular company.”
A student in Claggett’s class who requested anonymity for fear of retribution reportedly told Campus Reform that Claggett continually makes denigrating comments about Republicans, including former President Richard Nixon whom he refers to only as “Dick.”
“There have been a few times where his comments in class have made me feel uncomfortable, but saying Fox News is nothing but lies was a new low,” the report states. “I’m constantly afraid of speaking my mind in class because I know that my views don’t align with his. And ultimately, I think that my education is worth more than being fearful because I don’t agree with a professor.”
FSU lists Claggett as “an expert on electoral behavior, political change in the United States, national election outcomes, voter turnout and long-term changes in electoral support.”
Keep these in mind as you contemplate the direction of the American government over the past 50 years and especially since the Obama election.
The Goals of Communism
(as read into the congressional record January 10, 1963, from "The Naked Communist" by Cleon Skousen)
1. U.S. acceptance of coexistence as the only alternative to atomic war.
2. U.S. willingness to capitulate in preference to engaging in atomic war.
3. Develop the illusion that total disarmament of the United States would be a demonstration of moral strength.
4. Permit free trade between all nations regardless of Communist affiliation and regardless of whether or not items could be used for war.
5. Extension of long-term loans to Russia and Soviet satellites.
6. Provide American aid to all nations regardless of Communist domination.
7. Grant recognition of Red China. Admission of Red China to the U.N.
8. Set up East and West Germany as separate states in spite of Khrushchev's promise in 1955 to settle the German question by free elections under supervision of the U.N.
9. Prolong the conferences to ban atomic tests because the United States has agreed to suspend tests as long as negotiations are in progress.
10. Allow all Soviet satellites individual representation in the U.N.
11. Promote the U.N. as the only hope for mankind. If its charter is rewritten, demand that it be set up as a one-world government with its own independent armed forces. (Some Communist leaders believe the world can be taken over as easily by the U.N. as by Moscow. Sometimes these two centers compete with each other as they are now doing in the Congo.)
12. Resist any attempt to outlaw the Communist Party.
13. Do away with all loyalty oaths.
14. Continue giving Russia access to the U.S. Patent Office.
15. Capture one or both of the political parties in the United States.
16. Use technical decisions of the courts to weaken basic American institutions by claiming their activities violate civil rights.
17. Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for socialism and current Communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get control of teachers' associations. Put the party line in textbooks.
18. Gain control of all student newspapers.
19. Use student riots to foment public protests against programs or organizations which are under Communist attack.
20. Infiltrate the press. Get control of book-review assignments, editorial writing, policymaking positions.
21. Gain control of key positions in radio, TV, and motion pictures.
22. Continue discrediting American culture by degrading all forms of artistic expression. An American Communist cell was told to "eliminate all good sculpture from parks and buildings, substitute shapeless, awkward and meaningless forms."
23. Control art critics and directors of art museums. "Our plan is to promote ugliness, repulsive, meaningless art."
24. Eliminate all laws governing obscenity by calling them "censorship" and a violation of free speech and free press.
25. Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio, and TV.
26. Present homosexuality, degeneracy and promiscuity as "normal, natural, healthy."
27. Infiltrate the churches and replace revealed religion with "social" religion. Discredit the Bible and emphasize the need for intellectual maturity which does not need a "religious crutch."
28. Eliminate prayer or any phase of religious expression in the schools on the ground that it violates the principle of "separation of church and state."
29. Discredit the American Constitution by calling it inadequate, old-fashioned, out of step with modern needs, a hindrance to cooperation between nations on a worldwide basis.
30. Discredit the American Founding Fathers. Present them as selfish aristocrats who had no concern for the "common man."
31. Belittle all forms of American culture and discourage the teaching of American history on the ground that it was only a minor part of the "big picture." Give more emphasis to Russian history since the Communists took over.
32. Support any socialist movement to give centralized control over any part of the culture--education, social agencies, welfare programs, mental health clinics, etc.
33. Eliminate all laws or procedures which interfere with the operation of the Communist apparatus.
34. Eliminate the House Committee on Un-American Activities.
35. Discredit and eventually dismantle the FBI.
36. Infiltrate and gain control of more unions.
37. Infiltrate and gain control of big business.
38. Transfer some of the powers of arrest from the police to social agencies. Treat all behavioral problems as psychiatric disorders which no one but psychiatrists can understand.
39. Dominate the psychiatric profession and use mental health laws as a means of gaining coercive control over those who oppose Communist goals.
40. Discredit the family as an institution. Encourage promiscuity and easy divorce.
41. Emphasize the need to raise children away from the negative influence of parents. Attribute prejudices, mental blocks and retarding of children to suppressive influence of parents.
42. Create the impression that violence and insurrection are legitimate aspects of the American tradition; that students and special-interest groups should rise up and use united force to solve economic, political or social problems.
43. Overthrow all colonial governments before native populations are ready for self-government.
44. Internationalize the Panama Canal.
45. Repeal the Connally reservation so the United States cannot prevent the World Court from seizing jurisdiction over nations and individuals alike.
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