One persistent theme on the TV show South Park is that, with the obvious exception of Eric Cartman, the kids got more sense than the grown folks do. The kids are often bumfuzzled by their parents’ illogic, panic, and outrage. Well, as the comedian Earthquake says, “These ain’t jokes.”
I see evidence of this in my history classes every day. Initially, students look puzzled when I proclaim, with all due grandiosity, “I am the enemy of the people, a woke Marxist who hates America!” Without actually naming names, of course, I explain that’s what Huckster Charlatan, the Yale hillbilly, and Whiny McHairplugs say about educators. Then throughout the semester, we tease each other about how gullible they are and how menacing I am.
What students don’t find one bit funny are hysterical parents, neighbors, and politicians who think the purpose of studying history is to cultivate national pride, even if that means deliberately fabricating or hiding the truth. Students are repulsed by the very North Korean idea that there is only one “true” national story, period, and if you don’t subscribe to it, you’re un-American. They detest book bans and see charges of “woke indoctrination” for what they are: projections and accusations that are actually aspirations.
So, to all you tiki-torch-and-pitchfork-wielding “parents’ rights” crusaders, if you think that I am so charismatic and your kids so soft headed that they’re gonna walk off the stage with a diploma in one hand and the Communist Manifesto in the other, you should know something: your kids are laughing at you.
I’m Taylor Atkins and that’s my perspective.
