Life and Love

Closest match: Bombyx mori BmN4 cell DNA, chromosome 24, sequence Common name: Domestic Silk Moth

spiderman dances to the beat

There was the Effacer le tableau.

The Hutu massacres of the first Congo war.

The Rwandan Genocide.

The Bosnian Genocide.

The Isaaq Genocide.

The Anfal campaign.

The Gukurahundi.

The Cambodian Genocide.

The East Timor Genocide.

The Ikiza.

The Bangladesh Genocide, which may have a repeat very soon.

The Holodomor.

The Great Leap Forward.

The Armenian Genocide.

I can go on.

(this was in 1993)

and where did they collectively conclude the next genocide was most likely to happen?

Rwanda.

if, like me, you can't remember the date of the Rwandan genocide off the top of your head, it kicked off in April 1994.

We briefly touched on the holocaust but since we’d already learned in history the year before we spent even more time on things like the Rwandan genocide and the Armenian genocide and of course Canadas own attempt at eradicating the culture of the Native people. And when we were learning our teacher would point to real life events (including but not limited to Trump weird campaign and presidency) and say isn’t this familiar kids?

So I was debating posting this but I think it needs to be said.

So I’m a student teacher and this week, we started at a new school district. Now I won’t presume to begin to pretend that I know what everyone’s political ideologies are in this school district but keep in mind that it’s in rural New York State and rural New York State tends to run red. Not as red as some other places but definitely not blue and not even really purple. 

Anyway yesterday was my first ever professional development day. So I’m all dressed up, introducing myself to other teachers, and I shake hands with the superintendent who seems like a really nice guy.

And about halfway through the day, he goes up to the front of the theater and he starts talking about the best ways to talk to and help transgender/nonbinary students. It’s the basic things we all learn in our education classes. And you can tell that he’s a bit uncomfortable and so are some of the teachers. And at last, he stops and says, “Folks, I have to be honest. My father is rolling in his grave right now.”

And I’m in the back like, “Oh no.”

And so he pauses again and then he starts implying that he was raised to have a very negative opinion on the transgender community. And he continues to say that he had to unlearn a lot in the past few decades and then he admitted that he still doesn’t get it. He outright admitted that he personally doesn’t understand how someone comes to the conclusion that they’re not their assigned gender. And he admits that of course he doesn’t because he’s never had to go through that.

Another pause.

And then he says, “But I don’t have to get it.”

The theater fills with whispers and then he says [and I’m paraphrasing here], “I don’t have to get it. I don’t even have to agree with it. Because it doesn’t matter what I think or what I feel or what my beliefs are. At the end of the day, the only thing that matters is that I respect that student and I respect their choice.”

And then he reminded the teachers of every single policy that the school district follows from letting any student use their bathroom of choice to changing the students’ names per the students’ requests to not telling the parents anything unless the student gives consent to do so.

And at the end, he brought it back by saying, “My father just rolled in his grave again. But it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter what you think, it doesn’t matter what you believe, because it’s not about you. It’s about your kids. And you need to love your kids! Love your kids! Love your kids!”

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