I left the South once myself, determined never to come back. Racism, for example, doesn’t magically disappear once you cross the Mason-Dixon line. Out-of-state companies looking to set up shop in a low-tax, low-regulation state will think twice before relocating to a place where their employees would not have the same rights that citizens of other states enjoy.īut here’s the other thing history bears out: Leaving in search of something better is no guarantee of finding what you seek. Smart red-state children will grow up and leave, this theory goes. Plenty of people have pointed out that red-state officials are shooting themselves in the foot as they merrily slash rights, ignore the unignorable realities of a heating planet, and attempt to create a Christian theocracy in a nation founded on a bedrock belief in the separation of church and state. “When the General Assembly convenes again next January any hope that Hillsdale will operate in Tennessee has been shattered,” the chairman of Tennessee’s House Education Administration Committee, a Republican, said last week.
Now, facing a ceaseless outcry from teachers in response to the video, pro-charter legislators are walking back their support. Republican legislators applauded when Mr. Bill Lee of Tennessee, who was present for the speech, has made no effort to denounce his friend on this point, and it looks like his complicity will cost him the 50 charter schools he invited Hillsdale to open here. Local media outlets love to cover protests, and in a lot of places down here what constitutes a “protest” is seven people and one clever sign.ĭon’t believe hardcore right-wingers can be moved by public outcry? Just consider what happened in Tennessee when video obtained by Phil Williams, the chief investigative reporter for NewsChannel 5, caught the president of ultraconservative Hillsdale College claiming that American teachers “are trained in the dumbest parts of the dumbest colleges in the country.” Maybe you could stand on some plazas and wave angry signs while you’re at it.
So y’all come on down and help us flood the Capitol and all these red statehouses with constituent concerns.