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amarillo ysa fights censorship
Every day school seems to become more and more a tool of Capitalist repression, more and more a means for the supression of free thinking minds (as well as anyone deemed dangerous to the Christian right-wing and it's stranglehold over education), more and more a tool for taking away what little freedoms we have left, such as freedom of speech, freedom of the
press, and freedom of peaceful assembly and petition. Our freedoms our slipping away from us as easily as sand through a funnel, with the hole at the bottom widening, we seem to not only be losing our freedoms, but losing them at a greater rate as time progresses. Here we intend to cover the above issues as definitively as we can as to what happened just recently at St. Andrew's Episcopal School. We will document the insane regulations and new wave of neo-fascism that seems to be overtaking our "free-minded" school.
As starts almost everything else in the world, this did too. Unformed theory looking for something, something to call a home, to have a basic foundation and root in, just to have a place to be put into action. This unformed theory that grew out of a basically well-rounded knowledge of social injustice in the world, seeking both sides of the story, not only Rush Limbaugh's, but the other side too was what our friends and ourselves had
inside of us. Our minds were filled with outrage at the wrongs in society which we witnessed each day, just walking down the street.
After months of studying both sides of the story, we believed that we should eliminate, as Steinbeck called it, "man's inhumanity to man:" Capitalism. This is why our small rag-tag group of 3 men, the same number which Jim Cannon started out
with when forming the first Trotskyist group in the U.S., decided to take action and to devote the rest of our air-breathing lives to fight it.
The greatest path that we had all come to the conclusion with was YSA. Once the school had found out about our "new-found" beliefs, they decided to use subtle action to "convert" us to the rightest of the right-wing. With every push farther to the right, we just shoved harder back to the left. So, the school decided to stop using teachers' subtle comments in class regarding our belief structure and use direct action.
This is the point which we go into dubious battle with the administration of St. Andrew's Episcopal school of Amarillo, Texas. The very first and main encounter with the administration of our "free-spirited" school happened as follows.
Sam Blackburn's account:
I had just eaten lunch and was attending my sixth period class, Social Studies, when an announcement came over the P.A. system. "Can you please send Sam Blackburn down to the office, thank you." Knowing that I had done absolutely nothing wrong, I was not scared the least bit. I entered the office with a little bit of anxiety in my gut, not knowing what to expect, bad new or good. My principal, Mrs. Connie Wooton was standing in the middle of the room. "Take a seat, Sam, oh, and don't worry, you're not in trouble." She pointed to a chair pushed into a round table. She said that she had recieved some complaints from parents that she was not allowed to
name, but she would tell me what they were complaining about.
"They said that their children have been exposed to some of your ideas that I personally do not believe are compatible in a Christian school." I specifically asked her what beliefs those were. She replied by saying that parents had told her that i was "recruiting kids to a socialistic atheist" point of view. I asked her why she thought that I was "recruiting" kids to my point of view, and I was answered with a firm, brisk, "now you're just trying to be argumentative." After about thirty minutes of well-proven points on my side and about forty more of these kind of comments from her, she decided to just set down some rules for me.
Her first rule was that I would not be allowed to bring any more "Socialistic-type literature" to school. Friends, comrades, let me explain to you what books exactly I had been bringing to
school. For instance, "The History of American Trotskyism" by Jim Cannon, "America's Road to Socialism," also by Cannon, and "Companero: The Life and Death of Che Guevara." For those of you who have read even one of these books, you can understand why this sort of logic is totally irrational and bizarre.
I then debated her on this subject for about twenty minutes, me finally emerging as the winner. When all ends met ends, the final rules were these:
1.From then on, I was not allowed to discuss philosophy, political issues, or current books I was reading, even with my closest of friends.
2.However, I am allowed to bring my books to school, but I am not allowed to tell anyone about them, and if anyone asks me, I just tell them to go away.
3.I was no longer allowed to ask questions in "Religion" (Christianity) class that had never been answered before. (Pardon me for interrupting, but is it just me, or was the last time I checked, is a question not asked to get an answer?)
At the very end when I was getting up, she said "Now Sam, remember, this isn't punishment." In this way she was right, this is not punishment, but a lower form of totalitarianism!
Andy Whinery's account:
When I first heard about the insane restrictions that had been placed upon my comrade, I thought "They have taken, as George Orwell called it, 'thought control', too far."
I have heard people say that in a private school, any restrictions that the administration deems necessary may be put on the student body. This to a certain extent could be agreeable in the form of rules about small, unimportant matters such as wearing uniforms, tucking in shirts, and other things like this that may pester the students but don't annoy them enough to make a big deal about it. However, when restrictions are put upon one's politics and freedom of speech, the line of justice has trampled upon. No historical documents or any other amendments or laws in the U. S. have ever stated that the church can trample the Bill of Rights along with basic human rights.
By trying to supress our beliefs, the administration has only widened the gap between our two opposing camps. We may not even have caused them any "trouble" in the first place had they not trampled upon our rights to our own opinions. The reason that I see for the restrictions upon Sam are that the administration believes that all communists are "devils" lacking ethics and morals. Since Sam and I are both outspoken communists and have asked questions in religion class that the teacher couldn't answer we were assumed to be "dangerous" and needed to be silenced.
Now comrades, I can assure you that none of these questions were aimed at defacing Christianity or being prejudice toward that faith. They were aimed instead at our quest for kowledge and the seeking of truth, using Thomas Paine's method of reason as the most formidable weapon against all types of errors. Now that you have heard the untwisted details of the story, on who's side do you stand? We must rise up and defeat injustices like these to better our society for all!
Why? This is what you may be asking. Why impose these absurd restrictions on pupils? We'll tell you why. Because the private school which we attend is owned and run by the few and elite members of the petty-bourgeoisie. They have realized the that if they can keep revolutionary thought out of schools, then there can be no revolutionary movement in the future. But are they ever wrong. For it is a truly impossible feat to force out thought, because it exists in the strongest place in the entire unvierse, the mind. We must not give in to the thought control imposed by our fascist school administrators nation-wide, and remember, if this can happen in 7th and 8th grade, it can happen anywhere.
So students of America, take this message from us. They can take away your books, your rights, your liberty, and your justice, but they will never cease your mind, for it is the most important weapon you have in this battle for an end to class antagonism.
This article was written by members of the Amarillo chapter of Youth for Socialist Action.
