NYC Principal Bars Students from Singing "God Bless Usa" at Graduation

[Sand_Rogue]

Originally Posted by PRB

She's a Jehovah's Witness. They can declare no sovereignity to any Country, only to God. They don't believe in any kind of 'pledge' or swearing to a man made entity....they do not allow their members to join the military.

Very strange cult......they come to my door all of the time....

She is ovelaying her personal beliefs upon that school and should be sued for it.

This has nothing to do with 'culture'...she is lying.

Double facepalm for me. One for being a former JW one for being a (still proud...kinda) New Yorker.

Just as a side note, as a Jehovahs witness, people are encouraged to "preach to the good news." She probably thinks this is some kind of proselytizing. Conversely Witnesses are also admonished to not "become unevenly yolked" and to "pay back caesars things to caesar." In other words taking on jobs where you might be asked to take an action that conflicts with your spiritual integrity (ie police, military, any kind of government work INCLUDING A PUBLIC SCHOOL PRINCIPLE) is highly discouraged. Looks like someone needs to read the watchtower some more...

[tunanut]

Well I just went to my daughter's elementary graduation and they started with the pledge, then sang America the Beautiful. It was a beautiful thing.

[greenberetTFS]

It's not just her,she's getting complete support from the very "Top" of the school system,not good, not good at all........

Big Teddy

[ddoering]

More liberal asshats that have exceeded the capabilities of their genes. Its no wonder that civilizations rise and fall.

[head]

Better choice would be God Bless America or America the Beautiful or, I dunno... The Star-Spangled Banner.

[BOfH]

It's NYC stupid!

In retrospect, maybe that shouldn't have been in pink...

The fact that she's a jeowah's witness explains a lot, 99% of the subject matter.
I despise religions in general and very few are as radical as that cult.
The only way for me to get rid of their unwanted sunday morning 7 am visits was, one morning, to open the gate and let my adored dobermann better convey the message that I was sick and tired of their persistence, that I didn't want anything to do with them and their jeovah and that they were receiving the last friendly warning.
That being said, she should be removed from office. A public official should never exercise his/her duties in such a narrow minded and egotistical fashion.
Quadruple face palm on that ( I asked a coworker to lend me two hands)

[sf11b_p]

Hell with it, have 'em sing "Blood on the risers".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VWgsdexkv18

[BOfH]

Only in NYC, only in NYC


Children singing ‘God Bless the USA’ heckled by man screaming ‘burn in hell’

Children singing “God Bless the USA” with a Republican congressman were heckled by protesters who said that those responsible for the event will “burn in hell.” Video of the event was first posted by Politicker.com.*

The event was held outside Public School 90 in Coney Island, N.Y., where school principal Greta Hawkins decided to axe Lee Greenwood’s hit from a kindergarten “moving up” ceremony while keeping Justin Bieber’s chart-topping “Baby.”

Some were offended by the principal’s decision, prompting Rep. Bob Turner, who is running for the U.S. Senate, to organize the event on Tuesday morning.

Shortly after the ceremony began, chaos ensued.

“You Republicans come go to a Republican area and do that, we don’t do that here,” one protester said. “This is ridiculous, this is sad. This is so crazy. This is sad.”

“Excuse me sir, can you let the kids sing please?” a man presumed to be a Turner staffer interjected.

The heckler immediately screamed “No!” and added “The kids don’t even know what they’re singing! They got something you tell them to say! It’s ridiculous! It’s sad, sad, sad. Y’all are going to burn in hell! You all burn in hell! Shame on you! Shame on you!”

snip

http://dailycaller.com/2012/06/19/ch...-burn-in-hell/

[Pete]

Hmmmm - Because kids sing God Bless America they'll burn in Hell?

Must be lib think. The liberal mind on display for all to see.

[Richard]

A bit more to the issue and the Congressman's actions which help explain some of the vitriol expressed, including some information which had been misreported in the initial news reports on the principal's actions.

As Issue Divides School, Congressman Takes a Side
NYT, 19 jUNE 2012

Political opportunism, at its most benign, gives us bemusement and exasperation; at the more extreme end of things it inspires a wish for high-grade exfoliants to scrub away all the contact grease and grime.

It was toward this end of the scale that Representative Bob Turner, who is seeking the Republican nomination to oppose Senator Kirsten E. Gillibrand, a Democrat, showed up at a public elementary school in Brooklyn on Monday to lead a group of flag-waving children in a defiant rendition of Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the U.S.A.,” a song for which the school’s principal had voiced by now well-known disapproval.

“What’s better than having a congressman come out here?” Representative Turner asked me outside Public School 90 in Coney Island on Monday. Explaining what he hoped to accomplish, he said he had come “to continue and further an appreciation for the U.S.A.”

On one level the congressman’s actions might seem anodyne enough, but P.S. 90 is an embattled place where partisan intrusion was bound to deepen conflicts. Its principal, Greta Hawkins, who is black and presides over a predominantly white staff, has been under siege, the recipient of racist hate mail from unknown sources, and the target of a group of parents and some teachers who find her management style antagonizing. The school is divided among those who are staunchly devoted to her and believe she is striving for excellence, and those who aren’t and don’t.

Representative Turner’s choral efforts were hardly welcomed by all or even by many. Coney Island is close to the congressman’s district but not actually in it.

“This is a country song,” said Dina Rosado, president of the school’s PTA and a great believer in Ms. Hawkins. “This is Brooklyn. This is not the country.” Ms. Rosado’s husband, Jorge, directed a sign at Representative Turner that said, “Shame on You.”

A news release distributed by Mr. Turner’s campaign aides explained that he had reached out to parents after Ms. Hawkins banned the song from a kindergarten ceremony on the grounds that its lyrics were too adult. That decision became a matter of national attention after The New York Post reported that she had sought to replace the song with Justin Bieber’s “Baby.” This never happened. Still, the story managed to gain an insidious traction, diagraming in miniature how we’ve wound up in a world where facts are routinely eviscerated for the sake of political spectacle.

Even after the city’s Education Department explained that Ms. Hawkins had eliminated both songs simultaneously, Representative Turner’s campaign staff perpetuated the myth, declaring in its news release that Principal Hawkins had forbidden kindergartners to sing “God Bless the U.S.A.” but instead allowed them “to sing a Justin Bieber song gauged toward teenagers.” When I asked the campaign press aide why this was being stated even when it wasn’t so, she said that she had relied on what had been “widely reported.”

Mr. Turner was not the only representative seeking to capitalize on the drama. Michael G. Grimm, whose district includes Staten Island and part of Brooklyn, but not this part of Brooklyn, and who has criticized the principal, was scheduled to attend the singalong. He changed his plans at the last minute, because, as a news release put it, “The House of Representatives is in session.” That release, too, reiterated the Bieber claim, despite the evidence. In lieu of Representative Grimm, aides were sent to hand out free copies of Mr. Greenwood’s book, “Does God Still Bless the U.S.A.?”

With so much at stake for children in the city right now — steep cuts to early-childhood and after-school programs on the horizon, and schools that by the end of the year have run out of money for substitute teachers — it would seem little to ask for politicians to acquit themselves productively in regard to public education.

Getting passionate teachers and keeping them is, of course, one of the biggest challenges of all.

After Monday’s event had devolved into rival groups of children singing in a kind of face-off — those who came with the parents who dislike Ms. Hawkins singing Mr. Greenwood’s song, and those who came with parents who are her fans belting “America the Beautiful” — a 25-year old teacher, Chiara Nakashian, emerged from the school. An Oberlin graduate, she’d come to P.S. 90 through Teach for America and found herself deeply inspired by Ms. Hawkins’s work ethic and standards. “She is an amazing woman,” she told me.

But all the vitriol and divisiveness were getting to her. Ms. Nakashian said she’d stay another year, but after that she couldn’t say.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/20/ny...principal.html

And so it goes...

Richard

[Pete]

So Richard - is it a bad thing that Mr Turner showed up?

The press as usual comes down on the lib side and presents their picture of things.

Interesting that the press is silent when schools send the little munchkins out to wave signs at political events.

When my munchkins were in HS I took them out one day when IIRC Code Pink was running a protest downtown.

The Principle was all smiles as I was explaining why I was signing them out - until I said we were going to be part of the counter protest. gasp - eyes get big!

EDITED TO ADD: Richard, I did read that article - and it sure reads like an op ed story not news. I looked all over the web page and couldn't see anything stating it was an Op Ed. Maybe thats the problem - the MSM doesn't know the difference between News Stories and Opinion Statements anymore. To them it's all one in the same.

[Badger52]

Originally Posted by Pete

The press as usual comes down on the lib side and presents their picture of things.

Interesting that the press is silent when schools send the little munchkins out to wave signs at political events.

Locally I recall HS students getting bused down to the capital to "report on current affairs first-hand" (read, bolster up the mob) when the legislature went AWOL awhile back. Several who I personally engaged 1:1 didn't even know the actual Governor's name, just that their teachers had bemoaned that "our rights are being stolen." (Art class was enlisted to make some signs for this "civics" lesson.)

The media did not report that local parents & citizenry afterward proceeded to hand the school and school-board their ass at a city meeting for such shenanigans.

Plus ca change...

[Dusty]

Public schoolteachers, for the most part, seem communistic to me.

[longrange1947]

Richard - Nice Op Ed piece of fluff that means little except "the liberals are right and the others are not". Of ocurse you would expect that now from teh liberal press.

My question, what is so "adult" about the song "God Bless the USA"? I just can't figure it out, except what was said in the very beginning that it may "offend" some people. Once again, what is so offensive about the song?

I think it is PC run amok and we can no longer flay our flags, wear our t-shirts, or do anything that expresses our pride in the USA for fear it will offend.... someone.

As for the idiot yelling, that is the standard Lib tactic of he has his right to free speech and the other does not as he can drown them out. For God's sake don't do that to them as they will go berserk and the press will pillar you for it.

My 2 cents, but this type of don't talk good about the USA as it will offend is crap.