Just fanning flames

So now the latest attempt to change our culture has shown up in a yearbook issued at Bigelow School in Perry County. Two pages were devoted to a “timeline” of political news items that have no place in a yearbook that should hold special memories of students’ achievements and activities. The book should be only about them and not the U.S. Capitol riot, police killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Daunte Wright, the deadly pandemic, or the global movement for racial justice. None of this is appropriate to insert in a book of happy memories. It’s not a book to use as a political platform or opinions.

The uproar is over the removal of those two pages after public backlash. Now comes in the Student Press Law Center from Washington, D.C., to demand that the yearbook be reprinted and the school issue an apology because the pages weren’t just removed, they were “ripped” from the yearbooks.

The yearbook adviser/teacher resigned after the backlash, as she should have. She had no problem allowing these controversial subjects to fill up two pages, saying they outlined important world events. The claim that students are graduating with a deficit of civic knowledge should be addressed in a classroom or by teachers, not by using a yearbook as a civics book on current events. Totally inappropriate. Looking at a normal yearbook should make one smile and not be reading or looking at somebody’s political agenda.

The fire is raging and outsiders are fanning the flames. Somebody stand up and put out the fire.

JOCEIL WOODS Searcy