Virtue-signaling outside the classroom has a price inside

By Douglas Marolla

Editor’s note: The opinions expressed here are those of the authors. View more opinion on ScoonTV.

Unfortunately, and as usual, students pay the price.

One of the few things Reagan-era conservatives got right was pointing out that policies peddled by white liberals in the 60’s and 70’s were destructive to minority and poor communities. You had mostly white women pushing abortion, single parent households, and the most destructive of all -isms: Feminism. These people told women that they didn’t need a man. Then they told women that they could do anything a man could do. Nowadays, they’re telling women that they can be a man. It’s truly madness, and the destruction in their wake is growing.

Telling those things to college-educated suburban white women is one thing. Becky can revel in the craziness, get a nose ring, piss off her parents, dye her hair fuchsia, and then run back to the upper class ‘burbs (and her parents), ignore all of the foolishness, and get on with a regular life. It’s not so easy for people from rougher neighborhoods and backgrounds to get out from under intense liberal indoctrination. If you’ve set yourself back by practicing progressive nonsense or majoring in gender studies between the ages of 18 and 22, you enter the workforce years behind everyone else.

The current open border craze peddled by the white liberal establishment is today’s version of the above.

Becky and Karen virtue signal all day, and weep over the poor “migrants” coming through America’s southern border. They sob and demand that the migrants get everything they need: food, shelter, medical care, a cell phone, and a Netflix subscription. Only the necessities of course. Naturally, you will foot the bill.

There’s even a famous picture of 72%-white Yorktown Heights’ favorite daughter, AOC, weeping at a border fence, dressed in white, feeling all kinds of sadness for the migrant children. Remember when they decried kids in cages. I do. Keep in mind that you don’t see or hear about that anymore. What happened to the kids? What happened to the cages?

I can tell you what happened to the kids. They’re in the Bad Neighborhood schools.

Strangely, and I have no idea why, the United States seems to be the one country in the world where anyone can walk in, get free stuff, and live their best life. “Sanctuary City” mayors began bragging that they would accept migrants sight unseen and help them out – because that is the virtuous thing to do. The good, right, and correct liberals blasted anyone on social media who even suggested that having an open border and a welfare state was a bad idea.

Now that the Southern governors have figured out how to send migrants to the various sanctuary cities, the effects are rippling out, and hurting, you guessed it, minority and poor communities.

The influx has begun. Mt. Vernon, New York is right above the Bronx. We are having a huge influx of migrant children into the district. Notice they aren’t going up to Yorktown Heights (AOC), Briarcliff Manor (Clinton), or Mt. Kisco (Cuomo). These townships are all exceedingly wealthy NYC suburbs. They are coming to Mt. Vernon. We are a community of color, ravaged by clownish progressive policies, reeling from years of corruption and bad decision making. 

Because of scheduling shortsightedness and stupidity at the top, two great young English teachers were moved out of our building last month. We had to re-do many teacher and student schedules. The effect was this; I now have 36 students in first period 9th grade English / ESL class because I had eight new freshman English Honors students added to the roster. Normally, a class so large wouldn’t pose much of a problem – especially not by adding Honors students. They’re great. The new wrinkle is that now I have non-English speaking ESL students sitting next to honors students. Here’s an example: There are two nice young boys in the class, both 9th graders. One is an immigrant from Guatemala, the other is from the Dominican Republic. They work hard, cause no trouble, and are very quiet. Neither one knows a word of English.

A few desks over, I have two new freshmen girls, exceedingly bright, well-written and spoken, incredibly creative; both have wit and guile. They’re both slowed down considerably in class because I have three levels in the same room. I have Honors students, recently added, regular 9th graders, and migrant students as well. Remember how you’re a racist xenophobe bigot for simply asking a commonsense question about the viability of an open border?

The people yelling at you are sending their children to schools that don’t have to worry about open borders. They can posture without a price. I guarantee you that your standard-issue, Facebook-posting Becky’s Honors Program daughter isn’t sitting next to a Guatemalan immigrant who can’t speak English. If her daughter’s school has “migrants,” a big “if,” they’re in a separate class.

But our children are affected by the open border policy. The top students are slowed down, limited by teachers required to have a reasonably built plan that can work for all students. No child left behind, right? The migrant boy who speaks not a word of English is next to a girl whose older sister went to college on a full scholarship. She’s from that kind of family.

It isn’t the students’ fault, but they bear the brunt of liberal policy. The people who have been shouting you down online have no skin in the game. They feel good and look virtuous to all the other social justice warriors.

The 14-year-olds in first period freshman English have to deal with it. As always, they are the ones who lose. No more kids in cages. Now it’s kids in class – your child’s class.