6 of our top opinion pieces this week: ICYMI
In today's fast-paced news environment, it can be hard to keep up. For your weekend reading, we've started in-case-you-missed-it compilations of some of the week's top USA TODAY Opinion pieces. As always, thanks for reading, and for your feedback.
1. My daughter thinks she's transgender. Her public school undermined my efforts to help her.
By Jay Keck
"In April 2016, my then 14-year-old daughter became convinced that she was my son. In my attempt to help her, her public school undermined me every step of the way. ... She first came out as transgender to her school, and when she announced that she was a boy, the faculty and staff — who had full knowledge of her mental health challenges — affirmed her. Without telling me or my wife, they referred to her by her new name. They treated my daughter as if she were a boy, using male pronouns and giving her access to a gender neutral restroom. ... My daughter told me that the school social worker was advising her about halfway houses because he thought we did not support her. The social worker confirmed this when I scheduled a meeting with him to discuss it. This felt like a horrifying attempt to encourage our daughter to run away from home. ... Through all this, I’ve learned that I’m not alone. Many parents just like my wife and me are often afraid to speak out because we are told we are transphobic bigots, simply because we do not believe our children were born into the wrong bodies."
2. Joe Biden isn't the boringly reassuring candidate Democrats were hoping for
By Jill Lawrence
"Sen. Michael Bennet of Colorado recently made a pitch on Twitter that a lot of voters across America might find persuasive: 'If you elect me president, I promise you won’t have to think about me for 2 weeks at a time.' ... What worries me is that the third of Democrats who support former Vice President Joe Biden may believe he will be a similarly stabilizing force: someone who will ... not force Americans to think and fret constantly about their commander in chief. They need to take the blinders off. Maybe the nonstop gaffes of the past few days will help in that process. ... In a one-on-one race, Trump would have endless attack fodder that mirrors his own far more serious flaws and could help neutralize them. ... If he won, a Biden presidency would not be all balm. Could Democrats relax if they were always worrying about what he would say next? And that's not even counting the millions of voters who would be on edge about Biden possibly giving away the store to his good friend in the Senate, Mitch McConnell. ... Should Biden be on (the ticket)? Democrats should weigh that decision carefully, and make it based not on warm nostalgia but on cold calculation."
3. Five years after Brown's death and Ferguson protests, America must commit to doing better
By Ben Crump
"Long before the death of black teen Michael Brown at the hands of a white cop in Ferguson, Missouri ... Thurgood Marshall captured the sense of urgency needed to solve the problems of racism in America. 'I wish I could say that racism and prejudice were only distant memories. ... We must dissent from the fear, the hatred and the mistrust,' Marshall said. ... Five years ago (this month), just a couple of days before he was to start college, Brown, who was unarmed, became one of them. ... From the White House to police departments across the country, we see an unmistakable willingness to treat African Americans differently from white people. .... To solve a problem, we first need to acknowledge it. With that in mind ... I find hope in the undeniable desire of those people not just saddened by Brown’s loss but also emboldened by it to take positive action. When Brown died, only one of Ferguson’s six city council members was black. Today four of them are. ... Marshall’s words about defeating racism are as right now as they were nearly 30 years ago. ... 'America can do better, because America has no choice but to do better.' We must, and I believe we will."
4. I was a proud member of the NRA. These days, I think about the moment they lost me forever.
By Ross K. Baker
"My academic colleagues would probably be appalled to learn that I was once a member of the National Rifle Association. ... My dad signed me up as an NRA member at the age of 12, and I became a faithful reader of the American Rifleman and compared my membership to that of being a Boy Scout or a member of 4-H. My dad looked upon the NRA as entirely wholesome, and so did I. ... In college, I drifted away from hunting and target practice and devoted my time to studying and girls, more of the latter than the former. ... What led to my final break with the organization was a chance encounter with an NRA event in Northern Virginia, probably in 2004. ... What grabbed my attention and appalled me were the number of vendors selling Nazi memorabilia or knockoffs. ... In some cases at least, these items were being purchased as objects of veneration. ... That was the day the NRA lost me forever. Today, the organization has become nothing more than a front for firearms manufacturers, and its leadership is corrupted by vanity and self-dealing. ... Its defense of firearms use is indiscriminate. ... The NRA case that everyone should be packin’ caused me to send them packin’."
5. Woodstock now far in the past, but for those of us who were there, it’ll always be far out
By David Colton
"Awkward silences are common when baby boomers get together at parties. Beyond the grandkids or aging parents, everything else worth talking about seems to have happened so long ago. But a guaranteed icebreaker, at least for me, is to dig deep into my hippie past and announce, 'I was at Woodstock.' ... Totally unprepared for Woodstock’s ticketless anarchy, my girlfriend and I slept under trees, using clothes stretched on sticks as makeshift tents. Thousands slept together in the woods along the 'Groovy Way' path, whether in relationships or not. ... If the moon landing a few weeks earlier had been, as Time magazine called it, a 'triumph of the squares,' this 'gathering of the tribes' at Woodstock would be the high point of the 1960s counterculture. The crowd, the people, us, it turned out, was to be the story — sharing, dancing, chanting, skinny-dipping, surviving. It was wonderful in its misery. ... As many as three babies were said to have been born at Woodstock. ... To this day, no one has ever come forward as a 'Woodstock baby.' If any do exist, happy 50th birthday! I bet you’re far out."
6. Trump has gone off a narcissistic cliff. Does anything matter anymore?
By Montel Williams
"The president seems to have gone off a narcissistic cliff. ... We wake up each morning to the president of the United States live tweeting 'Fox and Friends' and litigating a laundry list of personal grievances. So obsessed with cable news is Trump that he regularly attacks the hosts of a rival morning show ... before promoting Fox News’ prime-time opinion shows while simultaneously raging about CNN’s prime-time opinion shows. That is absurd, and we need to say so, because the world is watching. Over the weekend, as protests flared in Hong Kong with the specter of another Tiananmen Square looming large ... the president was busy tweeting conspiracy theories about a suicide. ... That is absurd, and we need to say so, because the world is watching. ... My former party has spent the past few years covering for Trump’s incompetence. Instead of telling the president his behavior is unacceptable, even crazy, Republican leaders have chosen ambition, hate, greed, fear, lies and winning their next election over their country. ... Please treat voting like our country’s future depends on it. A low turnout election will lead to four more years of escalating chaos and depravity. "
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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Transgender youth, Joe Biden's gaffes, Woodstock memories: Top columns
