My brother sent me a couple of good pieces from the Post on how Trump’s rhetoric is trickling down into schools. The longer story is a lengthy and well-researched rundown of how students bully other students using Trump’s rhetoric:
Two kindergartners in Utah told a Latino boy that President Trump would send him back to Mexico, and teenagers in Maine sneered “Ban Muslims” at a classmate wearing a hijab. In Tennessee, a group of middle-schoolers linked arms, imitating the president’s proposed border wall as they refused to let nonwhite students pass. In Ohio, another group of middle-schoolers surrounded a mixed-race sixth-grader and, as she confided to her mother, told the girl: “This is Trump country.”
Since Trump’s rise to the nation’s highest office, his inflammatory language — often condemned as racist and xenophobic — has seeped into schools across America. Many bullies now target other children differently than they used to, with kids as young as 6 mimicking the president’s insults and the cruel way he delivers them
It’s not just students, of course. That story includes many examples of teachers who single out minority students for bad treatment. Today’s Post has another story about a teacher in Chicago who singled out minority students who did not stand during the national anthem and told them “Go back to your country.” That teacher was fired. Some of the other MAGA hat teachers are still on the job.
Open thread.