While CMS is at it, here’s more history to include in teacher ‘retraining’ | Opinion
CMS retraining
As a retired history teacher, it’s interesting that Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools teachers will be retrained after the door display at West Charlotte High School showing colored- and white-only entrances.
It is my hope that there will also be a sign placed outside the school saying this land was originally home of the Catawba Nation. Will it upset folks to learn that the land of the Native Americans was taken by the whites? Will teachers also be trained on the destruction of the slave family as a unit and the replacement of people as property?
These training sessions must also expose teachers to the building of internment camps where 90,000 Japanese Americans were held behind doors from 1942-1945, though they were U.S. citizens.
All of this is appropriate content.
Michael Cox, Charlotte
Why all the fear?
The writer is an English teacher in Gaston County.
Censorship is on the rise across the country. School libraries, my refuge as a grade school student, are under threat. A week doesn’t go by where I don’t see the phrase “banned book list” in an article on social media.
I was raised Southern Baptist, and I come from a family that knits brows at the sight of unseemly content. Fortunately for me, they prioritized the quest for knowledge above any divine sensibilities. Growth was the norm.
What are we really scared of? An educated populace that empathizes with people that aren’t like them? I’m scared of not knowing my neighbors, of fences becoming the edges of a war zone.
Richard Morris, Belmont
Congress
American help to Ukraine is imperative. We can not let that country be annihilated by a man who does not even respect his own people and wants to revive an empire lost in time.
It is incredible that the U.S. House, with a minimal majority, is bowing to Donald Trump and his extreme words against NATO. Not even the death of Alexei Navalny will move them to say “yes” to sending help to Ukraine.
Let us accept the fact that Republicans in the House are becoming doormats, taking orders from a past president. They are cowards who are not even thinking about the horror of their actions.
Marita Lentz, Charlotte
Tim Scott
Watching U.S. Sen. Tim Scott recently on State of the Union made me cringe. He never gave a direct answer to any of the questions. Instead he took the opportunity to bash the Biden administration with typical MAGA scare tactic falsehoods and praise Donald Trump with over-the-top platitudes. He wouldn’t even say he stood with Ukraine and NATO despite his own words to the contrary just months ago during a debate. I once respected the man for what he has accomplished. Sadly, he’s now joined a long list of previously principled Republicans who’ve sold their souls for political gain.
Willard Osburn, Cornelius
Burr, drug prices
I was disappointed to see The Observer publish a Feb. 19 Opinion piece by former U.S. Sen. Richard Burr on reducing prescription drug costs. In it, he blamed excess cost on pharmacy benefit managers rather than drug companies. Can he be trusted to be free of bias?
Research by ProPublica has shown that Burr received over a million dollars from the drug lobby, and traded medical stocks while in office, clear conflicts of interest. He was also investigated for dumping stocks at the beginning of the pandemic, while suggesting to some in the public that it was not a major concern. (Editor’s note: Burr was later cleared of wrongdoing).
Consider the source.
Dr. Vincent Keipper, Concord
Get informed
Many of us forget that the term democracy means more than “one person, one vote.” For democracy to succeed, it requires informed voters. Those who lie and misrepresent are rotting our democracy. Voters must seek out reliable sources of truth, not just websites with the word “truth” in them, nor hollow claims of “fair and balanced.” Russia and China are safely spreading false propaganda that confounds U.S. voters. Find and use a fact checker or lose our informed democracy.
Tom E. Bowers, Charlotte
