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Dr. King’s Dream

February 25, 2010 in Personal

My daughter recently participated in a living museum. It is a part of her third grade social studies agenda.

Students are allowed to represent anyone they want, either living or deceased, as long as they have a book about them in the library. The list to choose from is essential endless. It is a really interesting program. The students stand like statues, with a “button” placed on them. Then students or parents can “hit” the button and the statue begins to talk about the person they are.

The day the third graders selected their person, my daughter called me at my job all excited. The conversation went something like this:

“Mom, did you know we are having a living museum?”

“Yes, I did.”

“And Mom, I got to pick my person today.”

“Really? Who did you pick?”

“She is really famous and important. Her last name is Rice?”

“Rice?” I start scanning the list of names in my head, and come up blank.

“Yes, Rice. I can’t pronounce her first name but it starts with a C.”

Then the blank fills in with the person my daughter selected.

“Do you mean Condoleezza Rice?”

“Yes that’s her.”

I was taken aback to say the least and tried not to laugh. Not that there is anything wrong with Condi Rice. She is a very accomplished person. The thing is, she is black, my daughter is white and the students not only have to represent the person, but dress like them. I thought perhaps she didn’t know what she looked like, but then she showed me the picture she drew of her. Nope, she knew. This was going to be interesting.

I was going to ask her to pick someone else, but she had her heart set on studying Ms. Rice. Every day, she would come home from school and divulge another piece of information she learned about her person. Every day she was more and more excited for the living museum to come so she could talk about Ms. Rice.

We head to the school on the night of the open house for the living museum. They have the parents wait outside as the students assemble in the hallway. The doors open for the attendees to enter. I scan the hall and then see her, my daughter, dressed in a business suit and a black wig. I walk over to her push her button and film her repeating the speech she had prepared on Condoleezza Rice. She does it in a strong clear voice and without any hesitation.

I couldn’t have been more proud.

Before the big day, I asked her why she selected Condoleezza Rice. She responded, “Mom, she’s done a lot of things, and people think she’s important and she seems really nice.”

At that moment, I saw that maybe my daughter’s generation would be it. The generation that judged a person on the content of their character and not the color of their skin.

The one that Dr. King had dreamed of.

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  • http://wordsmoker.com/help/members-3/anonymous/ Because Sexus, Plexus and Nexus

    I admit to having a difficult time separating Condi Rice’s pathbreaking role as an African-American woman in national politics from everything else about her. I probably should be able to do that.

  • http://wordsmoker.com/help/members-3/chillbearlatrigue/ Chillbear Latrigue

    @KTB: You must be so proud. It sounds like you are doing a really good job as a parent. Keep up the good work. No commodity seems to be more undervalued in our society than good parenting. I wanted to pay this sincere compliment before I started in with my joke.

    @Virus: What do you think the chance of us making a living museum on Wordsmoker is? We can prepare videos of ourselves in character and post them in a piece where you can hit the video for the character. If so, can l please be Kerry Weems, Acting Administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services at HHS in 2007?

    Thanks in advance.

  • http://wordsmoker.com/help/members-3/berightback/ berightback

    When I was around that age, I was obsessed with then-Vice-Presidential-nominee Geraldine Ferraro. I even named a gerbil after her, and wrote a letter consoling her after her defeat and congratulating her for “looking happy” during her subsequent Diet Pepsi commercial (my mother still has this letter, which was written for a school assignment). Eventually, inevitably, Geraldine was killed and eaten by a large cat named Diablo.

    The moral? Both the gerbil and the cat were black.

  • http://wordsmoker.com/help/members-3/anonymous/ Because Sexus, Plexus and Nexus

    BRB: I would like to see this comment receive a Smokie Award.

  • http://wordsmoker.com/help/members-3/helmangiraffe/ helmangiraffe

    When I think of people whose content of character I admire, Condi Rice does not spring to mind.

  • http://wordsmoker.com/help/members-3/renesance/ Rene Sance

    @Helman: Amen. I was going to say much the same thing, but I was afraid it would come across as a knock on KTB’s daughter.

  • http://wordsmoker.com/help/members-3/anonymous/ Because Sexus, Plexus and Nexus

    It really is a complex issue, though, what do you do with people like Clarence Thomas and Condi Rice during African-American History Month if you’re a liberal. Isn’t there some sort of ideology-neutral value of having African Americans in the highest offices?

  • http://wordsmoker.com/help/members-3/mama-penguino-2-2-2/ Mama Penguino

    @KTB: I get it, I really do. And there’s much to admire about Condi Rice apart from her role in Bush’s great fuck-ups. The first time I read about her was in Oprah magazine (oh, shut up, it’s really pretty good sometimes and my sister gives it to me every year as a gift and she always renews the subscription before I remember to tell her to stop) and she’s accomplished in so many ways. I don’t want to appear to be a Condi apologist because I do hold her accountable for her poor performance in her previous position. BUT, that’s not the point here – the point is Little KTB picked a heroine outside her race and presented her character with poise and intelligence. I agree with Chillbear – you are to be commended for your superior parenting. I hope Little Penguino shows as much passion about school when she’s that age. Great job, mom!

  • http://wordsmoker.com/help/members-3/chillbearlatrigue/ Chillbear Latrigue

    @HG et al: I can accept your disdain for Rice, if that’s the right word. However, the point on which I am focusing is that you only have to go back as far as 1996 to see this office being held exclusively by white men. I have posted once or twice on here that even if President Obama never accomplishes anything else, his election has shown this country that it is possible for a black person of to achieve anything that he or she wants. I have to believe that in a smaller way, C. Rice’s appointment is part of that same lesson.

    And I guess we’re not doing the living museum. How about dioramas?

  • http://wordsmoker.com/help/members-3/lawyergay/ lawyergay

    BRB: I really wanted your gerbil’s name to have been “Gerbildine Ferraro.”

  • http://wordsmoker.com/help/members-3/dahlelama/ DahlELama

    @KTB: I will admit to both chills and tears. You and your daughter are all sorts of awesome.

    @LG, BRB: My hamster was “MC Hamster.” I know it’s not the same but I feel it should count for something.

  • http://wordsmoker.com/help/members-3/misspeacock/ MissPeacock

    KTB: This was adorable. I got a little bit choked up at the end. What a great daughter you have!

  • http://wordsmoker.com/help/members-3/h-totheomo/ H. Totheomo

    This is awesome. I don’t even care about Condi’s record. Woman has done enough not-bad.

    And I totally want to do a living museum.

  • http://wordsmoker.com/help/members-3/lawyergay/ lawyergay

    KTB: I think it’s great that your daughter got interested in a political figure like this and did a good job with her presentation, but you can’t possibly think that Dr. King was dreaming of a schoolgirl heaping praise on a war criminal who happens to be black when he gave his famous speech.

    In “content of character” terms, Condoleeza Rice is just about the last person anyone should be lionizing, particularly a school-aged child.

    Here’s Rice defending herself from some uncomfortable questions at Stanford last year.

    The U.K. and Spain have launched investigations into torture allegations, and Condi is in both countries’ crosshairs.

    Here is Robert Jackson’s opening statement form the Nuremberg Trials. It’s long but worth it. This is what we used to stand for in this country, at least nominally.

    If I had come to my parents when I was a wee lad with this kind of assignment and said I wanted to do it on Richard Nixon or Robert McNamara or Henry Kissinger, they would have a) been quietly appalled and b) used the opportunity to teach me something about politics and how even well-meaning people can and do use and abuse their power to do horrible, illegal things to other people. Then I would have done my presentation on Jimmy Carter or Abraham Lincoln.

  • http://wordsmoker.com/help/members-3/chillbearlatrigue/ Chillbear Latrigue

    @LG: Call off the dogs already. She is clearly expressing pride in the fact that race played no factor in her daughter’s choice. Is your hatred for Bush cabinet members so great that a third-grader’s choice of Dr. Rice for a living museum (still a good idea for WS) requires you to set the political record straight?

    ““Mom, she’s done a lot of things, and people think she’s important and she seems really nice.”

    To KTB’s daughter, this is what mattered. Race was not a concern. The point of judging people by the content of character was never meant to mean that we couldn’t judge someone negatively, like you and some of the others have done with Dr. Rice. It means that you don’t include race into the equation. While KTB’s daughter may not have come to the same conclusions that you have, I’m certain that neither of your opinions were based on race. I know you all got the point. I just can’t believe we can’t let a third-grader slide on the politics.

    I have no choice but to assign you your role in the Wordsmoker living Museum. You are Barry Goldwater and you will do an excellent job.

    Sorry, Lincoln was taken and Carter is going to play himself for the museum. I want you looking and talking like Goldwater. You video submission is due Friday.

    AuH2O!

  • http://wordsmoker.com/help/members-3/lawyergay/ lawyergay

    CB: You are truly a jackass.

    Race shouldn’t play a role in some third-grader’s history project, but it clearly did in this instance. And KTB was super-proud about it! Her non-black daughter’s portrayal of Condoleeza Rice was the culmination of Dr. King’s dream, right? That’s what was said.

    My point, above, is that Condoleeza Rice, while black, is also detestable. Dr. King was a champion of racial and social justice, and a good parent would have made that clear to her/his child.

    KTB’s perverse representation of her daughter’s supposedly heartwarming portrayal of Condoleeza Rice would be and is utterly repugnant to anyone who knows the first thing about Dr. King or American history.

  • http://wordsmoker.com/help/members-3/rosaluxembourgeoise/ Rosa Luxembourgeoise

    @LG: I agree that by MLK’s standards, judging a man (or woman) by the content of their character and not by the color of their skin, will lead, where Condi Rice is concerned, to a most unfavorable conclusion. It is a very good point.

    Beyond that, though, I am afraid that you undermine your argument by hypothesizing that your parents would react in a way that is superior to that of the poster’s parenting. I do not know if you get that setting up your parents as victors in a hypothetical duel against a real-life proud parent is an unecessarily harsh tactic, and that your parents were not, in fact, confronted with this example, or that your hypothetical does not include your wanting to portray a person of color, but mostly that it seems kind of disproportionately mean to set it out in terms that could crudely be reformulated as “my parents would have been better than you are as a parent.”

  • http://wordsmoker.com/help/members-3/lawyergay/ lawyergay

    Rosa: I was just talking about what my parents would have done and did. I wasn’t talking about you as a mother.

  • http://wordsmoker.com/help/members-3/chillbearlatrigue/ Chillbear Latrigue

    @LG: Yeah, you’re sitting here trying to rip apart KTB’s parenting decisions to make a political point and I’m the jackass? I like to think that you’re better than name-calling, but occasionally you prove me wrong. I guess “jackass” is pretty mild compared to things that I’ve been called at work or in my earlier blogging career, but still.

    I’m actually more irritated for the way that you are going after KissTheBoys. Do you have any idea of the impact that society would feel if all parents were able to raise their kids with this kind of race neutral ideal? Now compare that with what it would mean if all kids knew “the real deal” about C. Rice. It’s a pretty abstract question, so I don’t think that you can answer, but KTB focused on the right lesson here.

    The point is that her third grade daughter has plenty of time to learn who the villains and heroes of history are. When I was a kid, I wrote papers on Nixon and Napoleon Bonaparte with my parents’ blessing. Yet somehow I still figured out that corrupt politics and warmongering dictatorships were wrong. I also liked Jimmy Carter as a kid and grew to detest him as an adult.

  • http://wordsmoker.com/help/members-3/rosaluxembourgeoise/ Rosa Luxembourgeoise

    LG: Um, I did not think that you were talking about me, (how did you come up with that?) but rather that you were unfavorably comparing KTB’s parenting with a hypothetical involving your parents. And you have further developed your point along this unfortunate line by stating that regarding Dr. King’s promotion of social justice, “a good parent would have made that clear to her/his child.” This implies that KTB is not a “good parent”, and that is unnecessary, I argue, to your argument, and in fact undermines it, because it is overkill, and could be construed by reasonable people as dickish.

  • http://wordsmoker.com/help/members-3/lawyergay/ lawyergay

    Rosa: I understand what you are saying, but I wasn’t talking about you.

  • http://wordsmoker.com/help/members-3/lawyergay/ lawyergay

    Chillbear and Rosa: Let’s get back to the point here, which is that KTB thinks her daughter’s encomium to Condoleeza Rice is a cause for celebration. I’m saying it’s not. And I’m also saying that a reasonable parent would have dealt with this situation–”Mom, I want to do a presentation about Condoleeza Rice because she is black and people like her”–in a better way.

    Both of you can think of me as monstrous or irrational or as someone who undermines his own argument, but that’s my argument. Take it or leave it.

    I’d be delighted to hear well-reasoned arguments to the contrary, but in the meantime, I would appreciate it if both of you would shut the fuck up.

  • http://wordsmoker.com/help/members-3/anonymous/ Because Sexus, Plexus and Nexus

    LG: How high a value did your parents place on civility?

  • http://wordsmoker.com/help/members-3/chillbearlatrigue/ Chillbear Latrigue

    @BC:

    “…in the meantime, I would appreciate it if both of you would shut the fuck up.”

    No, doubt the result of flawless parenting.

    @LG: What is there to debate? The liittle girl decided to pick C. Rice because she admired some of her achievements. The mother, KTB, decided to let her be an individual and decide for herself, rather then telling her nine-year-old, “That’s sweet that you admire a black woman, but this family doesn’t celebrate war criminals” You don’t agree with KTB’s decision. Rosa and I decided to come to the defense of a mother who we think has made the right move.

    If you want to debate how big of a villain Dr. Rice is, we can do it in another forum. To do it here, would be threadjacking. However, I doubt that it would change my mind about what KTB did here.

    You can be as offensive as you want, you are still playing Goldwater.

  • http://wordsmoker.com/help/members-3/lawyergay/ lawyergay

    It’s not playing “Goldwater” to teach a child that she shouldn’t lionize a war criminal. It’s being a good parent. It’s being a good citizen. It’s being a good mother/parent.

  • http://wordsmoker.com/help/members-3/chillbearlatrigue/ Chillbear Latrigue

    @LG: You are mixing up the issues. I’m telling you that in the living museum, you are going to play Goldwater for an attitude adjustment.

    I’m not saying that your actions here emulate Goldwater’s.

  • http://wordsmoker.com/help/members-3/lawyergay/ lawyergay

    Chillbear: Yawn.

  • http://wordsmoker.com/help/members-3/rosaluxembourgeoise/ Rosa Luxembourgeoise

    @CBL: Just to be clear, I thought that LG made a good point regarding the content of Condi Rice’s character, and did not express an opinion about the whether KTB “made the right move”.

    What I found more troubling– because LG’s argument is quite defensible, and my views about Condi, especially in light of revelations that she personally signed off on every instance of torture, are likely identical to his– was the unecessary rhetorical flourish that set “What Would Lawyergay’s Parents Do?” as the new categorical imperative. Not to put too fine a point on it, I found that it undermined the argument (which I thought unfortunate) and reflected poorly on LG’s “character.” But “shut the fuck up” sort of drives the point home.

  • http://wordsmoker.com/help/members-3/lawyergay/ lawyergay

    Rosa: You strike me as a good mother.

    Would you have allowed your child to portray Condoleeza Rice in front of her peers and teachers?

    Of course not.

  • http://wordsmoker.com/help/members-3/chillbearlatrigue/ Chillbear Latrigue

    @Rosa: My apologies. I do agree with your analysis, but that doesn’t require you to agree with mine.

    @LG:

    “Yawn.”

    Thieving bastard.

  • http://wordsmoker.com/help/members-3/whyamihere/ WhyamIhere?

    Good job KTB. I think it is important that you let her make her own decisions. I also think the entire “war criminal” issue here is not something to explain to or debate with a nine year old.

    My father and I actually had a discussion about this a few months ago. My oldest daughter’s best friend is black and my youngest daughter’s best friends are Asian. My father commented on how his parents would not have allowed that and he was glad that I did not have a problem with it and that my daughters did not seem to notice.

    @LG: Every minute of every day does not have to be spent trying to rid the world of every evil you perceive. There is good out there and it can be found in the most surprising places if you look. I leave you with the words of Oddball, “Why don’t you knock it off with them negative waves? Why don’t you dig how beautiful it is out here? Why don’t you say something righteous and hopeful for a change?”

  • http://wordsmoker.com/help/members-3/ninahagen/ Nina Hagen

    @Why…:Yes – she SHOULD make her own decisions. I don’t have kids but I teach and you can’t just go around telling people what you think is right. No one ever learns anything that way. Maybe someday, she will look on this as mortifying but right now, she is exercising her right to form an opinion (just because she is young, does not mean she should not be learning how to form one). She may be ashamed of this particular one later in life…or not. It’s called freedom of thought and speech. The LAST thing we should encourage in school-age children is to not do their research & to parrot what they are told by an authority figure. She may even – gasp – find her own way through this (I am also of the mind that she is a war criminal). As far as I go, as a teacher, I may think Saw, Sex in the City, Fight Club and Twilight suck ass but this is what is relevant to my students so I have to keep an open mind just like I tell them to when I show them black & white movies that are 100 years old.

    Fuck – all this because my Scrabble disc is too scratched up to play.

  • http://wordsmoker.com/help/members-3/lawyergay/ lawyergay

    WAIH: Despite how I’m sometimes portrayed here, I am not in fact some humorless zealot who delights in relentlessly busting everyone’s balls when they don’t agree with my vision of how things ought to work in this world.

    Some historical figures play such a clear-cut role in history that it’s truly irresponsible not to portray them as what they are. Condoleeza Rice is a war criminal who thought about deliberately and then ordered torture and who would be in the dock or in prison if it weren’t for the fecklessness of the Obama administration, Eric Holder, and our national passion for denial. And that’s just a sad fact.

    So please spare me your Hallmark card sentiment about ridding the world of evil. Condoleeza Rice perpetrated and represents a very specific type of evil, and God help you if you think it’s just my “negative waves” that brought this to your attention.

  • http://wordsmoker.com/help/members-3/chillbearlatrigue/ Chillbear Latrigue

    As far as I can tell, no one has said in this thread that Condoleezza Rice’s authorization of water-boarding is mitigated by other things that she achieved. However, it’s also not as though little KTB donned a Nazi uniform and dressed up as Adolf Eichmann. Rice has never been convicted of a crime, has never been charged with a crime and it is debatable whether what she did was a crime, although I believe that it was.* You are of course free to call her a war criminal, but you are convicting her without due process and it should be recognized that there are different degrees of war crimes.

    To your point, because I live in an area heavily populated by Cubans and I would never let my kid wear a Che Guevara shirt, but I see parents letting their 13-year-old wearing them all of the time down here. Like Che was some sort of peasant philosopher who never ordered a murder. Actually, I think it’s more of a fashion statement as perverse as that is.

    *FWIW, I had my mind changed during a debate on the other site.

  • http://wordsmoker.com/help/members-3/lawyergay/ lawyergay

    Chillbear: Condoleeza Rice became a war criminal when she sat in on the White House meetings in which torture was discussed.

    As a former assistant D.A. and current cop, can’t we both appreciate the criminality here? It’s just a matter of whether the head honchos are willing to go forward with an investigation/prosecution. There’s no “achievement” to be observed, except the fact that Condi has managed to escape criminal prosecution.

    P.S. Condi is a third-rate scholar and an affirmative action success story in the most despicable way imaginable.

  • http://wordsmoker.com/help/members-3/perverseus/ perverseus

    @KTB: I hope my daughter will grow up as open minded and as interested in education as yours. Well done.

    @LG: Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. was an adulterer, so he wasn’t perfect, either. And Condoleeza Rice has publicly lobbied to be the commissioner of the NFL, so she can’t be that bad.

  • http://wordsmoker.com/help/members-3/whyamihere/ WhyamIhere?

    @LG: Parents have to make important decisions about their children every day. Sometimes the decision is made to not fully explain the situation in order to protect the child. I believe this is one of those cases. I think that it is okay to shield a nine year old in the third grade from discussions of torture and waterboarding. It is unlikely that she can grasp the entire situation and, even if she can, does not need to be subjected to thoughts of people torturing one another. I read this post several times and the point of it was KTB’s daughter was not considering race as a factor in her decision.

    As far as this:

    Despite how I’m sometimes portrayed here, I am not in fact some humorless zealot who delights in relentlessly busting everyone’s balls when they don’t agree with my vision of how things ought to work in this world.

    That is almost exactly what I thought of you at first. I kept reading anyway and do not agree with it now. I do think there is a time and a place for everything and we clearly disagree on what this post is a time and place for discussing.

    You can rest assured that you didn’t bring problems with torture to my attention. And the “negative waves” line is from a movie. I was trying to end with some levity to not appear too harsh. Apparently I missed the mark.

  • http://wordsmoker.com/help/members-3/kisstheboys/ KissTheBoys

    @All- First let me apologize for the late response. I left for a conference on Friday morning and returned late last night. The count of comments at the time I left was around 5. Imagine my surprise to find out I had been given the Flame Thrower, so I came back to find out why.

    For all of those who defended me in my absence, especially Chillbear, thank you, but I would also go so far as to thank everyone, including Lawyergay, for their comments. We live in a country where freedom of speech is taken for granted. We are all entitled to our opinions, and to express them without repercussion.

    @Lawyergay

    Parenting is the hardest job ever. It is hard letting your children discover for themselves what is important. What is even more hard, is not imprinting them with your own point of view.

    Yes, Lawyergay, it would have been so easy for me to say, “you need to pick someone else for a plethora of reasons that I’m not going to explain to you right now”, but isn’t that what is wrong with the millenniums that are “coming” of age? Their helicopter parents, who believe everyone should get an award for participating, cutting their food for them until they are 16 in case they choke, and making every decision for their kid, have stymied an entire generation. The department that I run is entry level, and I see the results of this type of parenting every day.

    My own parents, like yours, discussed politics with me, however, they only explained the process of things. They wanted me to form my own opinions. I plan to do the same

    @All

    What my daughter saw in CR, I don’t know. Like most nine year olds, they tend to see the best of people instead of focusing in on the worst. What I do know, is my daughter is “socially” color blind. If it is my only claim to fame, as far as parenting goes, I’m fine with that. I will have accomplished helping fulfill Dr. King’s dream.