Your second footnote had me thinking... how many of us (educators) have experienced a cancellation / attempted cancellation? And how many of us are sitting on that story rather than writing it as an essay because 1) it's emotionally tiring to revisit, 2) it's faded now and you'd rather not feed the flame of a wilted poison fire, 3) it's hard to write about with any sense of objectivity because your life/family/kids/friendships/reputation suffered greatly because of it and its hard to be vulnerable with real pain when you know that "the other side" (ie the hissy-fit consumerist complainers) see the whole thing as a big round of the board game "Sorry" and they were sliding into you to knock your teeth out not because they cared about you one way or the other but rather because they have an agenda and you happened to be an unfortunate casualty to that agenda, 4) it's tedious and won't make for a good essay because complaints are totally boring-- bureaucratic, legal, technical, Kafka-level-absurd-- odder and less exciting the more details you uncover.
All that to say, I'd love to hear the story especially if you can tell it in a banal and humorous way.
I found the story needed to steer clear of the technical political details. I wanted my emotions to be at the forefront for this go around. It's my story to tell, not "theirs."
I'm saving the analytical rebuttal / takedown for a later day. I think its important enough to write about in detail because it's an ongoing social issue: namely that the school I worked at near Birmingham Alabama was nearly all white, was a historic segregation academy, and in 2020, the week after Rush Limbaugh told everyone to "fire the teachers," officially told it's staff "not to use the word 'racism'" in class because it had been "co-opted by the left." Afterwhich, I and a few others lost our jobs.
This has become a ramble. TLDR: write your story at some point! I want to read it!
Your second footnote had me thinking... how many of us (educators) have experienced a cancellation / attempted cancellation? And how many of us are sitting on that story rather than writing it as an essay because 1) it's emotionally tiring to revisit, 2) it's faded now and you'd rather not feed the flame of a wilted poison fire, 3) it's hard to write about with any sense of objectivity because your life/family/kids/friendships/reputation suffered greatly because of it and its hard to be vulnerable with real pain when you know that "the other side" (ie the hissy-fit consumerist complainers) see the whole thing as a big round of the board game "Sorry" and they were sliding into you to knock your teeth out not because they cared about you one way or the other but rather because they have an agenda and you happened to be an unfortunate casualty to that agenda, 4) it's tedious and won't make for a good essay because complaints are totally boring-- bureaucratic, legal, technical, Kafka-level-absurd-- odder and less exciting the more details you uncover.
All that to say, I'd love to hear the story especially if you can tell it in a banal and humorous way.
I've told mine in a semi-serious fashion here:
https://open.substack.com/pub/fourthcastle/p/robin-williams-died-for-your-sins?r=bt3zb&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
I found the story needed to steer clear of the technical political details. I wanted my emotions to be at the forefront for this go around. It's my story to tell, not "theirs."
I'm saving the analytical rebuttal / takedown for a later day. I think its important enough to write about in detail because it's an ongoing social issue: namely that the school I worked at near Birmingham Alabama was nearly all white, was a historic segregation academy, and in 2020, the week after Rush Limbaugh told everyone to "fire the teachers," officially told it's staff "not to use the word 'racism'" in class because it had been "co-opted by the left." Afterwhich, I and a few others lost our jobs.
This has become a ramble. TLDR: write your story at some point! I want to read it!
OK your story is way more important than mine is, geez
Mine is funny only because the stakes didn’t end up being that high
care react