Klein, Pearce, and letters

Last week, State Sen. Lori Klein uttered one of the most bigoted speeches in the history of the Arizona Legislature, which is saying something.  As near as I can tell, the only bit of nativist stereotyping and propaganda that she didn't trot out was "headless bodies in the desert."

Here's the video, courtesy blogger Three Sonorans of the Tucson Citizen -





Apparently, the phenomenon purportedly witnessed by the author of Klein's letter (because she read it, I'm calling it "Klein's" even though copies of the letter that were released to the media show that it was addressed directly to Senate President Russell Pearce, who has a documented history with bigoted missives) isn't confined to public school classrooms in the West Valley.

In the aftermath of Klein's speech, an anonymous reader sent me the following, recounting his/her (it's anonymous, remember?  :) ) own eerily similar, yet different, experience* -

Dear Senator Pearce,

I am compelled to write to you about a recent event that occurred to me.

I currently work as a substitute teacher in private schools in the East Valley area of Scottsdale, Mesa and Chandler.  I was called upon to teach history and language arts for 8th grade at a Scottsdale private school. The number of students I had in each class ranged from 8 to 18 children, which were almost all White Republican and a couple of Athletic Scholarship/Quota children.   The day started out as usual turning on the television listening and watching the announcements on Fox News and saying the Pledge of Allegiance.  During the Pledge of Allegiance I notice the vast majority of students refusing to stand and say the pledge to the Flag of the United States of America.

I asked the students why they refused to say the Pledge of Allegiance and they responded by saying, “we are Arizonans and the U.S. government won't keep Brown People off of our properties and the properties in the same time zone as our properties.”  They finally rose and recited the tea party pledge when one of the students stood in front of the class holding the morning's issue of the Wall Street Journal over his head.

The teacher’s instructions were for the students to read a few pages and answer the questions regarding Mark Twain in their history textbook and to finish their final drafts to you, Senator Russell Pearce, thanking you for your position on Illegal Immigration rights. Their teacher apparently had showed them a video with you and Lou Dobbs.

Most of the students came unprepared for class, yelling that Twain was a commie pinko radical RINO, and their parents objected to all course material pertaining to him.  They texted messages to their nannies, demanding their chauffeurs come to the school to smack me around for even thinking that Twain was worthy of study.  They then held an informal debate over who was the greatest American writer of all time, settling on a choice of two - Ayn Rand and William L. Pierce.

The students’ final drafts to you that I read were basically the same. Most of them stated they were in the country only until their parents could send them to boarding schools overseas, poor and middle class Americans are lazy, and that they deserve everything that their parents and grandparents earned.

I mentioned that I and my wife are "middle class" and we both work, so how could we be lazy?  The students retorted that meant that in addition to being lazy, we were also stupid - we should have inherited wealth like any real American.

I asked them to stop texting in class, that it was impolite to ignore the teacher.  Their response was to advise me to learn to like it, because in a few years, I would be working for them.

When it came to completing the Mark Twain assignment only 2 students (the Quota students, naturally) completed it out of all my classes. Most of the students refused to open the book, tore the pages out of the book, or threw the textbooks at me. I thought are these the students we are trying to educate with STO tax credits?  I have found that substitute teaching in these areas most of the spoiled students do not want to be educated but rather grow up to be banksters and cross-burners. They hate America and are determined to turn our democratic republic into a feudal aristocracy.  Removing the brats from our schools would reduce our class sizes and the students who wanted to learn would have a better chance to do so and become productive citizens.

I urge you to make efforts to stop this destruction of American society.

When the citizens of a country are forced to kiss the brats' rear ends, adopt their customs, and forced to support them, are we not a conquered  nation?  I do not want to see our state and nation turned into something out of the Dark Ages. Thank you for standing up to this intellectual and spiritual virus.  You may contact me by phone, e-mail, or mail.


Thank you, again.

Sincerely,

 * - Not really.  This is just satire.  No such letter was sent to me.  Not all Hispanic children are gang members or wannabes.  Not all children of Republicans are spoiled arrogant snots. 

This was made up just to make a point - The letter to Pearce has no place in public discourse, and Senators Klein and Pearce should apologize for spouting that hate-filled drivel, and pledge to never utilize a taxpayer-funded platform to so spout ever again.


BTW - I don't have any direct evidence that the original letter wasn't genuinely sent to Pearce/Klein by an outside writer, but any teacher who writes that poorly, well, the college that awarded him/her a degree should have its accreditation revoked.  This whole thing reeks of a plant.