Dear Glenn Yougkin
While some of Feels Blind’s editors have since moved away or are in the process of doing so, Richmond, Virginia was our home base when we started. Because of our close ties to the state, we were especially disturbed by the Republican Governor, Glenn Youngkin’s, attacks against teachers, public education, and freedom of speech and expression since his inauguration in January. One such attack involves an email account (helpeducation@governor.Virginia.gov) his administration set up for parents or students to report teachers who introduce "divisive content" in their classrooms. "Divisive content" refers to any mention of structural and systematic racism, past or present. The same people who claimed tearing down racist monuments to Confederate soldiers would erase history are pushing back against actual history being taught in schools. Youngkin and his followers also advocate banning books. Before being elected, he went on a personal crusade to remove Toni Morrison's Beloved from school syllabi and libraries.
We don't take kindly at Feels Blind to banning books or refusing to teach students about racism in this country, especially in a state that once housed the Capital of the Confederacy, a city where the impacts of redlining and the refusal to desegregate schools long past Brown v. the Board are glaring. We don't take kindly to attacking teachers, either, because teachers are a national treasure. As such, we encouraged our readers to flood this email address with uplifting messages about the incredible work teachers are doing or nonsense messages. We also encouraged readers to send us these messages so we could cry and laugh along with you. These were our two favorites:
I had a teacher named Bill Smith. He was openly gay and taught in the public schools - middle school and high school. He taught me critical thinking and was the best teacher I ever had. He was also the best teacher that my three younger siblings had after me. As an adult I went into publishing and later owned my own business for about 25 years. I heard that my teacher, Mr. Smith, had suffered from a couple of strokes now that he was well-advanced in his eighties. After decades of no contact, I sought him out to be of assistance to him in his declining years.It was the least I could do for the best teacher I ever had. The best teachers are the ones that teach us to think for ourselves. -Mimi
Dear Governor Youngkin,
Thank you so much for your servant leadership in our public schools in Virginia, and thank you for creating this place to report tips about my concerns about the education of my children in local schools. I especially appreciate being able to surveil my kids’ teachers all day. Previously, I could only imagine what those predictable commie, left-wing, pinko teachers were doing in classrooms. Now that I can see and hear it with my own eyes and ears, I can affirm that it’s worse than I thought.
First, in my 3rd grade son’s social studies lesson, I heard the teacher discussing the three branches of government. She said Joe Biden was the current president. Please immediately fire this teacher for spreading this dangerous misinformation. She also named the branches incorrectly because we all know the branches of government are:
· Q
· Manchin/Sinema
· The three Supreme Court justices appointed by Trump.
At lunchtime, I saw several teachers asking elementary school kids standing close together in line if they had a face mask to wear. This is a clear violation of my child’s right to get COVID followed by my right to send them to school anyway. More importantly, it’s a violation of your executive order to put every Virginia family at risk to protect our freedom from the tyranny of public health.
Immediately after lunch, my oldest son’s middle school “science” teacher told the class about evolution and claimed that the earth was millions of years old. He passed around some rocks and told the kids that they were fossils, lying about their age. There was no mention at all of God creating the earth in seven days or of Noah’s experience during the great flood. This is another liberal nut job that must be fired from our schools immediately to protect our children.
At the end of the day, my daughter’s history class was watching an episode of The West Wing, often correctly referred to as “liberal porn.” This was an episode where the White House chief of staff was concerned about the optics of hiring a young Black man as the president’s “body man.” CRT alert! CRT alert! This discussion of race made me, a middle-aged, white woman, uncomfortable. I can only imagine how the 30% of white cherubs comprising that 12th grade history class must have felt. Violated! Challenged! This was an avoidable trauma for these young minds that should not be subjected to thinking about race.
In conclusion, I thank the Lord every day for placing you in the Governor’s mansion and tearing those masks off our youngest Virginians’ faces so they can breathe again. Now, it’s time to purge our public schools of all teachers who aren’t God-fearing and Trump-loving. God bless Virginia!
A Concerned Mother