Monday's Most Active Threads

The most active thread yesterday continued to be the Israel-Palestine thread that I discussed on Sunday. That thread added over 1,200 new posts yesterday and shows no sign of slowing down. When a topic is generating so much activity, posters are often motivated to create spin-off threads. They may want to address a specific aspect of the topic in depth or simply don't want their post to get lost in the deluge. Posters will also often find fairly creative ways to shoehorn the topic into other forums. I would not be surprised to see a thread in the Pets forum titled, "Has the Hamas-Israel war caused you to forget to walk your dog?" The second most active thread yesterday was a spin-off, though not nearly as egregious as that and was also kept in the "Political Discussion" forum. Titled, "Getting Palestinian civilians to safety", the original poster says that she believes getting Palestinian civilians who are trapped in Gaza moved to someplace safe is an imperative. This topic highlights what is a moral issue to many of us, but also an important political and strategic concern. I don't think anyone denies that Israel has the right to seek the harshest retribution imaginable against Hamas. But, Hamas is currently embedded in the Gaza Strip, one of the most densely populated places on earth. Over 2 million people, half of them children, live cheek by jowl with no place to hide. Israel has announced a full seige and cut off electricity and water to the territory. This raises the specter Gaza's inhabitants slowing starving to death, if they are not killed by Israeli bombs first. Is a country whose identity is so tightly bound to genocide really willing to starve 2 million people? Is the world willing to stand by and watch it happen? The current Israeli government may well be perfectly happy with such an outcome and several world powers may find themselves constrained from doing anything about it. But, such an outcome is simply not going to be acceptable to much of the world. Israel will eventually find itself under considerable pressure regarding the fate of Gazan civilians. One solution that seems obvious at first glance would be for Egypt to open its border with Gaza and allow civilians to seek refuge there. Historically, once Palestinians flee from areas of Israeli control, they are not allowed to return. As a result, Palestinians have spent decades living in refugee camps in the West Bank, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria. Indeed there are even refugee camps in Gaza. Egypt is likely uninterested in assuming what would likely be permanent responsibility for 2 million refugees. Moreover, Hamas has no interest in seeing the civilians flee. If Gaza is empty of all but Hamas fighters, Israel would be free to flatten every square inch. The civilians are effectively human shields for Hamas. The result, as things stand now, is that civilians remained trapped. Egypt doesn't want them, Hamas has an imperative to keep them, and Israel appears prepared to kill them all. This is intractable problem that will only get worse. As for the thread, it fairly quickly went off topic to a number of unrelated issues such as whether or not Jews and Palestinians are White. As a result, I locked it.

The next most active thread yesterday was posted in the "Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS)" forum. Titled, "The PD video teachers must watch on Monday", the original poster linked to a video that teachers apparently were expected to watch during their professional development day yesterday. The original poster clearly has little regard for the video and linked it to a recent scandal involving a Montgomery County Public Schools principal. That linkage was confusing to some posters. For one thing, the video dealt with how to handle "trouble-making" students, not school principals. Moreover, while many posters took issue with the video, I don't think a possible connection to the principal was in the top 20 concerns for any of them besides the original poster. The original poster missed an opportunity to post a more serious, well thought-out, and impactful post. The focus of the video presentation was how teachers should handle "troublemakers". I only watched a couple of minutes, but I think that was enough to understand that the presenter was suggesting what, to put it mildly, might be termed an "unconventional" approach to handing students who break rules or otherwise cause trouble. Based on reading many of the responses in the thread, I think the presentation might be explained by this analogy. Imagine that a person who does not know how to swim has fallen in a pool. The best long term solution would be to teach this person to swim so that falling into a pool would never be a dangerous situation for the person. Moreover, the person would benefit from gaining a new skill and being able to enjoy swimming as a sport and pastime going forward. Regardless of all of those benefits, what this person really needs right now is a life preserver. Teachers appear to be overwhelmed at the moment. Regardless of their views of the efficacy of the approach described in the presentation, they need life preservers, not swimming lessons. The discussion in the thread also highlights a phenomenon that I've noticed myself. I don't know if this is a new trend, but public school administrations seem to be full of well-educated but young and inexperienced professionals who are great at program management and developing presentation materials, but don't really have much first-hand experience in classrooms. As such, there is a huge disconnect between their proposals — which likely would be well-received in an Ivy League study group — and the current needs of teachers. It may not even be that their ideas are wrong. They could well be better ideas than those being implemented now. They possibly would have greater long-term benefits. But, the approaches being suggested probably need to be implemented transitionally over time. That goes for more than just this video. In the meantime, as responses in this thread show, teachers would really like to see their immediate needs addressed.

Next was a thread titled, "S/o from another thread. What does POC mean to you?" and posted in the "Off-Topic" forum. The original poster says that she is a Pacific Islander and considers herself a person of color (POC), but she wants to know how POC is defined by others. The issue of how people are labeled these days is, of course, controversial. Should we use the term "Black" or "African American"?, Is "Latinx" an appropriate term or insulting? Or, as this poster asks, who is a person of color? Most of those responding believe that "POC" refers to anyone who is not White. The problem with this formulation is that many groups are defined more by culture rather than skin color. For instance, in this thread a white-skinned, green-eyed individual of Middle Eastern origin asks if she is a POC. A poster who says she is Latina explains that she does not consider herelf a POC because she views that as referring to Black people. In both of these cases, some posters view both of these posters as POCs. However, one poster argues that it is more complicated. This poster argues that the defining characteristic is whether or not an individual is able to "blend in" and avoid the exclusion that comes with having darker skin. But, as the poster also points out, many people will disagree with her. I personally would take issue in one regard with this poster. Immigration from the Middle East has come in multiple waves. Around the beginning of the last century, there were a number of immigrants from what is now Syria, Lebanon, and Israel/Palestine who were largely Christian. This group generally Anglicized their names and quickly blended into their new communities. As a result, members of this group and their offspring almost never consider themselves to be persons of color. More recently were waves of immigration from the same areas, but tending more often to be Muslim. The newer immigrants look exactly like the previous group except for, in many cases, dress. Muslim women frequently choose to wear the hijab and, therefore, cannot easily blend in. Despite having a possibly easier time blending-in, non-hijab wearing Muslim woman, as well as Muslim men, are likely to view themselves as people of color. This is generally not only an issue of how they view themselves, but how they are viewed by others as well. The ability to blend in is not only an issue of skin color. There is an effort to make "Arab" or "Middle Eastern" a census category and I've seen it included on various forms. The choice to select that box will be one of self-identification and have little to do with genetics or skin color. The same is likely true of other groups who may or may not be considered people of color based on skin color alone.

The final thread at which I'll look today was posted in the "Tweens and Teens" forum. Titled, "My son is posting our dinners and rating them", the original poster says that she was aware that her 13-year-old son had been taking pictures of his dinner plate each night, but she just learned that he has been uploading the pictures to a huge group chat in which his friends rate each other's dinners. She doesn't know whether to be livid or find it hilarious. Put me in the "hilarious" camp. I think all but two of those responding also found this to be hilarious. Several posters suggested that the original poster should start making her son prepare dinner once a week so that he could gain an appreciation for what goes into cooking a meal. Others thought the original poster should remind her son not to describe another's meal in terms that would be upsetting to the person who cooked it. Personally, I think that would take the fun out of it. Similarly, some posters were prepared to tolerate criticism of their dinners but most preferred simply not to know what was said about them. Other's competitive instincts came out and they were confident in being able to earn high scores. Several of those responding suggested trolling the kids by preparing meals that tasted good but looked awful. Other suggestions were to create preparations that were funny such as smiley faces on pancakes. About the only naysayers were two posters who don't think phones should be allowed at the table and, therefore, questioned why the original poster's son has been allowed to take pictures. The original poster was somewhat persuaded by the near-universal response that this activity was hilarious, but still not completely comfortable with it.