Schools should have shown President Barack Obama's speech on Tuesday instead of succumbing to parents who wanted it boycotted.
The plan to broadcast a back-to-school speech was met with controversy in some conservative states, most notably Texas. Riled by conservative commentators who claimed the speech would be steeped in political rhetoric, parents urged schools to either not air the video or to provide an alternate classroom for students who did not want to watch the broadcast.
Needless to say, the speech was what any sane person would expect - an apolitical and policy-free encouragement to get good grades.
To the people such as Florida Republican Party chairman Jim Greer, who claimed that the speech was "indoctrinating" young minds with a socialist agenda, two things: First, a speech that calls for young people to take control of their futures is not a socialist speech, and second, both presidents Ronald Reagan and George Bush gave addresses to the school children during their terms in office.
Notice that not everyone who saw those speeches as a child is a Republican. Were school children magically impervious to "indoctrination" then, and today's school children are not? What makes Obama more likely to "indoctrinate" than any other politician?
However, the real problem with this controversy is not what is being said aloud by conservative commentators. It is the underlying cause of why they're saying what they're saying.
A presidential speech to school children is about innocuous as it gets, but people like Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh manage to rile up their legions of followers by making alarmist cries about "indoctrination" and "socialism."
Does the outcry stem from blatant racism? Beck already showed us how he feels about Obama and race in July. Other pundits showed their reservations about Obama's heritage by supporting the "birther" movement. We don't think that the parents who protested the speech were necessarily racist, but it is important to note that proven racists are provoking them. If anything, the parents are probably just victims of pundits set on vilifying Obama, no matter what he does and no matter how illogical it is to do so.
Such outright disrespect should not be shown for our country's highest elected official. What sort of message does it send to children when their parents don't want them to look at their president?
More importantly, students should not be taught to automatically block out, boycott or walk into an "alternate classroom" to avoid people they don't agree with. Schools that boycotted Obama's speech based on the fact that the majority of local parents oppose him ideologically are indoctrinating school children to be close-minded, if anything.
If people are enraged at the prospect of their president speaking to school children, it is a new low in Republican nitpicking. We can only hope their next attack isn't launched at Five Guys Burgers and Fries, the delicious establishment Obama was caught patronizing on an NBC special in June. After all, calling for a mass boycott of a speech to school children is about as irrational and extremist as criticizing what the president eats for lunch.
