This happened on November 11 last year. A friend’s kid attending Yankee Ridge Elementary was pulled out of a classroom activity dedicated to Veterans Day and sent to the office to do some unrelated work instead. Why? The voicemail left on the parent’s phone explained that they think the parents don’t want the kid celebrating any non-Jewish holidays.1Did the parents ever said they don’t want their kids to take part in civic, secular festivities? Of course not.
One interpretation here would be: a school administrator disliked the parents, and took them on using their Jewishness as a pretext. Another: they disliked Jews as such and acted upon it.
Whichever the reason, what happened in YR is quite simple. A school employee, – a person whose salary is paid with our taxes, – sent a clear message to an Urbana family: You’re not one of us. You don’t share our celebrations, you don’t value our heroes, because you’re Jews. You don’t belong among us, – because your family is Jewish.
When I heard that story I got enraged. So I wrote to the Board of Urbana School District (and, of course, to its Superintendent, Dr. Ivory-Tatum) asking for clarifications. Just one member of the Board responded, saying that this all was just stupid. Others remained silent.
To whitewash antisemitism as mere stupidity is quite common. So let me restate the well-known facts. While othering of Jews happens in many guises, since 1949 a charge became quite common: that they do not see the nation they are citizens of – the Soviet Union, or France, or the United States, – as their home. This charge is known as the dual loyalty trope. It can be very explicit (Jews in Soviet Union were often told they shouldn’t be educated or promoted, as they are just waiting for a chance to make aliyah), or sugar-coated (Trump berated American liberal Jews for not appreciating his placating Israel nationalists), but the essence is always the same: the othering.2I cannot read minds, but I would classify what happened in Yankee Ridge as mindless dual loyalty charge. The school official didn’t even bother to draw a logical line, but acted on a feeling: if you’re a Jew, you are not sharing our values.
I do not think any of this would be news to the Board or Dr. Ivory-Tatum. When the Board and the administration decided to do nothing at all about the case, I could see but one explanation: they do not mind the dual loyalty charge against their fellow citizens, – or perhaps antisemitic acts in general, as long as they are not too overt. Especially when they are directed at those they perceive as enemies.
So I went to the Board meeting, to talk about the incident. I reckoned, a public account of what happened, recorded and seen by hundreds of Urbana citizens will force them finally to react: to issue a public statement, perhaps an apology. In short, I counted on the power of shame. The District, however, counted on the power of one of those technical glitches, which so conveniently turned off the video feed during my citizen’s statement. The recording starts where my statement ends.
And here am I, doing what I hate, writing about antisemites. Trying to get people in charge of the education in this town to answer some very simple questions.
I asked Dr. Ivory-Tatum, who has a doctoral degree in educational leadership, what she knows about othering. She took quite a few graduate courses, on inclusion and exclusion, on diversity and racism, but it seemed her memory failed her. Perhaps she cares about inclusion only when it helps get funding, or wrangle a salary raise for herself? Hard to say, – she stayed mum.
I asked the Board President, Mr, Poulosky, whether he celebrated the Presidents Day, just a couple of weeks ago, at home. He seemed to indicate he didn’t, – and so I asked whether it would be OK for the teachers to exclude his kids from lessons on George Washington or Abraham Lincoln on this ground, – or perhaps, on the ground of them being Christians. I guess my query stunned Mr. Poulosky: how his kids, how any Christian kids can be excluded at all? Whichever the reason, – he stayed mum.
I usually write on this blog about the larger issues, – affecting many people. Here, just one family was attacked. The Board and the administration can easily dismiss this incident as something insignificant, paling in comparison to them saddling the district with tens of millions of dollars of debt for no clear purpose, or dismantling a successful predominantly minority elementary school for some shadowy (or just shady) reasons. They are important and busy people! But in one incident, the whole is reflected. The rot is never confined: oppressing some always means betraying us all.