Thursday's Most Active Threads

Yesterday's first and second most active threads were both on the same topic, but in different forums. I didn't know there were two different threads until just now and, having discovered it, I locked one. Rather than discuss the same topic twice, I will combine the two and talk about them both at once. The most active of the two was titled, "Louisiana orders every classroom to display Ten Commandments" and posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. The second was titled, "Ten Commandments at LSU" and posted in the "College and University Discussion" forum. The topic both of these threads are discussing is a bill recently signed into law by Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry that requires every public school classroom in the state to display a poster of the Ten Commandments. Civil liberties groups are challenging the law which they say is unconstitutional due to violating the Establishment Clause. The U.S. Supreme Court struck down a similar law in Kentucky, ruling in the 1980 case Stone v. Graham that posters of the commandments violated the First Amendment. This suggests that the civil liberties groups are correct and will prevail in their litigation. Though, with today's Supreme Court, who knows? One justice, Samuel Alito, was recently recorded saying that the U.S. should return to a "place of godliness" and will likely support Louisiana. Justice Clarence Thomas has held that the Establishment Clause does not apply to states, meaning that he is also likely to support Louisiana. The Louisiana law attempts to frame the display of the Ten Commandments as being a document of historical value that is important to American history. One issue that I noticed with this law is that there is not a universally agreed upon version of the Ten Commandments. Catholics, for instance, have a different version than most Protestant denominations. Indeed, by my count, the version included in Louisiana's law actually contains 12 commandments. This may be an effort to appease both Catholics and Protestants. Probably the most disappointing aspect of both of these threads is that very few posters showed an inclination to adhere to values. In a perfect world, everyone would have a set of values. They might not be the same values — differences would still exist — but everyone would have some sort of code by which they lived their lives. An issue such as this would be measured against those values. Those who valued separation of church and state would naturally oppose it. Those who valued the spread of Christianity would support it. The two groups could debate in good faith. But that's not what happens in these threads. Instead, partisanship has divided folks into separate tribes and they they react on the basis of tribe rather than values. This is particularly evident among conservatives who normally claim tremendous appreciation of the U.S. Constitution, but in this case are willing to ignore or at least brush off the plain statement that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion", the so-called "Establishment Clause". They argue that the U.S. is a Christian nation and, therefore, the Ten Commandments should be an acceptable document. Personally, I look forward to seeing how teachers who conservatives believe should never talk about sexual relations explain the commandment forbidding adultery to young children.

The next most active thread was posted in the "Tweens and Teens" forum. Titled, "Bumkini", the original poster says that her daughter wants to wear a skimpy bikini bottom because all of her friends do. The original poster concedes the daughter is correct about the current style, but still opposes it. In addition to her normal discomfort which such revealing outfits, the original poster is also worried about a sex offender who lives on their block. I recently discussed a thread on a very similar topic, also dealing with revealing swimwear at pools. The arguments in the two threads are essentially identical. On the one hand are those like the original poster who believe such swimsuits are not proper, too revealing, attract unwanted — or even worse from these posters' perspectives — wanted attention from adult men. They, like the original poster, would not allow their daughters to wear such clothing. A contrary viewpoint was put forth in a thoughtful post in which the poster noted that attitudes toward the  amount of skin exposure that is appropriate has changed over time and between cultures. What is consistent is people blaming girls and women for the "inappropriate sexual thoughts and behaviors of adult men". This poster believes that individuals are responsible for their own behavior and chooses to worry about inappropriate flirting with adult men and social media communication with adult men rather than fight over swimsuit bottoms. While she doesn't approve of her daughter's choices in this regard, it is not a battle she is willing to fight. Others don't believe that women's or girl's clothing should be policed at all and blame males for any inappropriate thoughts that scantilly clad girls might provoke. This issue is closely tied to attitudes toward sexuality. Just about everyone seems to agree that exposing vast amounts of skin on a women's backside is sexually provocative. Some say that it is the duty of the girls to prevent this, others say that it is up to the guys to control themselves, and a small minority argues that teenage girls have sexual identities that should be accepted. Other posters argue that the Dads at the pool don't want to see their daughter's friends nearly naked because it makes them uncomfortable and that dressing in such a way is disrespectful of them. In contrast are posters who are quite open about ogling young women and girls, justifying it because they assume anyone dressing in such a manner wants such attention. Many posters used this thread as an opportunity to speak very inappropriately about women and girls and eventually I locked the thread. Those posters would probably feel much more comfortable going to a pool in Iran or Saudi Arabia.

Next was a thread titled, "Hope for DCPS?" and posted in the "DC Public and Public Charter Schools" forum. The original poster linked to an article that described changes in Brooklyn, New York middle schools to increase diversity. A lottery system was implemented which included preferences for disadvantaged students. The resulting student bodies were significantly more diverse. Contrary to the fears of some, the changes did not result in a significant number of White families fleeing the public middle schools. Because of this success, the original poster is hopeful that a similar transformation can take place in District of Columbia Public Schools middle schools. The issues of race and diversity in DCPS schools has long been discussed in DCUM's DC schools forum. The forum was even the subject of a Brookings study that accused the forum of contributing to segregation of DCPS schools — a contention that I strongly dispute. As many posters point out, DCPS middle schools don't have much in common with the schools in Brooklyn. The Brooklyn schools are in a very dense area and students tend to live similar distances from multiple schools. Being assigned by lottery to one rather than another doesn't make much difference in terms of commuting to school. In DC, however, commute problems caused by a lottery system would likely be significant. Moreover, the two most popular middle schools, Deal and Hardy, are already fairly diverse. Posters also argue that there are not currently enough White kids in the system to diversify additional schools. Further diversification would require attracting White students who currently attend private or charter schools. This thread fairly quickly turned into a full-fledged debate about DCPS and race, losing any focus on diversification or middle schools. White posters argued that they are not opposed to diversity in the schools, but they worry about lack of safety, unruly behavior, and poor academic quality that they believe characterizes many of the schools that White families avoid. Many of these posters express the belief that DCPS doesn't care about high-performing students and prioritizes disadvantaged students at the expense of those who are stronger academically. Minority parents, and some White parents, have little patience for these posters. As one poster explains, White parents believe that the needs of their children are not "centered" in DCPS, something to which they are unaccustomed. They then try to change things to be more oriented around their desires. This is alienating to non-White families. The view that White students are high-performing and non-White students (other than Asians who for the most part have little pressence in DCPS) are low-performing is probably the most crippling aspect of DCPS. There are plenty of high-performing Black and Hispanic kids. The problem is that the parents of high-performing students of any race self-select out of schools that they don't think will meet their kids' needs. In Brooklyn, White families were confident that any of the middle schools into which their kids might lottery would meet their needs. DCPS is not capable of offering such assurances and, as such, struggles to attract high-achieving students to most of its schools.

The final thread that I will discuss today was posted in the "General Parenting Discussion" forum and titled, "I worry about my son a lot more". The original poster says that she worries a lot more about her son than she does her daughter. She feels that boys have a more difficult time of it. In her view, boys have to eventually have a lucrative high-paying job to afford living in a high cost of living area like this one. Therefore there is more pressure on them in high school and college. In contrast, the original poster believes that her daughter always has the option to be a stay at home mom. The original poster stirred up quite a hornets nest. Some posters believe that it is ludicrous to claim that boys have harder lives. They point to the sexual harassment girls and women face, the threats to the bodily autonomy due to such efforts as abortion bans, and workplace discrimination that results in lower pay for women. Others agree with the original poster, pointing to the existence of programs aimed at empowering women and minority boys but the dearth of such programs for White boys. The discussion diverged somewhat to talk about which gender was easier to raise. Again, arguments were made in favor and/or against each. Some posters thought that there are enough challenges to go around. Fairly quickly I realized that I really have no interest in reading this thread. It's the sort of thread that makes me question whether the world really needs a forum like ours. I don't know how some of these posters found their way to DCUM or why they stay around, but they certainly don't represent the well-educated urban parents who originally formed the base of DCUM posters. A number of those participating in this discussion would likely find themselves more at home on Cro-Magnon Urban Parents. For instance, the poster who wrote, "I feel sorry for all the boys out there being ‘raised’ by man-hating mothers and clueless, sniveling fathers." This poster's position, as best that I can tell, is that boys have to be raised to support a family because being a stay-at-home-dad will never be an option. Conversely, girls will always have the option to stay-at-home. The poster also complained about "ridiculous double standards" without recognizing the one that she had just described. I don't have anything more to say about this thread other than that I will not get back the time I have spent writing about it and that is a pity.