INDIANOLA — Give me a minute to collect myself.
I’ve been rolling on the floor laughing after reading a quote from an attorney against spanking in schools. He was quoted in the Washington Post as saying, “It’s state-sponsored violence against students.”
A little more time, please.
OK, I’ve finally calmed down enough now from guffawing to write.
But now I’ve got another problem: A deep depression has settled over me as I’ve been hit with what an absurd world we live in.
Our American life is so privileged and disconnected from worrying about true state-sponsored violence that we mistake disciplining children for the real thing.
You know, the kind where girls in Afghanistan continue to face “death threats, acid attacks and bombings by Taliban militants,” according to an NPR report.
Or in Syria, where people have been killed by chemical weapons during the ongoing civil war there. (The Syrian government denies any involvement; someone else must have gotten ahold of its stockpile of chemical weapons and used them against the government’s enemies, I suppose.)
Or in Russia, where assassins gunned down an investigative journalist critical of officials in the Chechnya region.
I’ll accept those things as state-sponsored violence.
Not this (per a Washington Post story earlier this month):
“Xander Faber and his wife, Alana, were stunned the day their 5-year-old daughter told them that her twin brother had been spanked in front of their kindergarten class. According to the children, the boy had jumped around while singing with the class, and his teacher struck him until he cried.
“The Maryland couple reported the incident to administrators and thought their concerns were taken seriously. But a year later, saying they are frustrated by inaction, they have gone public about alleged corporal punishment in a National Blue Ribbon school in Prince George’s County.”
Oh, my! The teacher “struck him until he cried.” Those words could be used to describe just about every spanking since creation.
I can imagine the breaking news story now:
“A 2-year-old Indianola girl is alleging her father struck her until she cried today after she refused to clean up her books after finishing with them.
“Maggie Smith said her father, Charlie Smith, had lightly smacked her hand once, prompting the tears.
“When conducting an interview, a reporter did not notice any visible signs of injury to toddler, who by that time had stopped crying and was happily cooking in her play kitchen while occasionally taking a break to color. Her books were lined up on the shelf, although not perfectly neatly, as if they had been put there by a young child. …”
Thankfully, that would never be news in Mississippi. One of the things I appreciate about our state is that its reputation for being conservative — although often viewed in a negative light — means we don’t fall for a lot of the progressive foolishness that is widely accepted elsewhere in the country. Being old-fashioned sometimes brings a little wisdom, too.
