{"id":4411,"date":"2011-06-27T09:53:34","date_gmt":"2011-06-27T13:53:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/?p=4411"},"modified":"2011-06-27T09:53:34","modified_gmt":"2011-06-27T13:53:34","slug":"saranac-lake-school-tackles-bigotry-clinton-county-legislators-not-so-much","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/2011\/06\/27\/saranac-lake-school-tackles-bigotry-clinton-county-legislators-not-so-much\/","title":{"rendered":"Saranac Lake school tackles bigotry. Clinton County legislators not so much."},"content":{"rendered":"

If you haven’t heard Chris Knight’s story <\/a>this morning, check it out.\u00a0 In a few short minutes, his story brings us into the darkness that still courses through the American psyche.<\/p>\n

For all our rhetoric about freedom and tolerance and respect for individuality, Knight found deep veins of hatred — against gays, against people of color — in one of the North Country’s best public schools.<\/p>\n

“I’ve hated myself and at times have wanted to go into the kitchen, grab a large butcher knife and just end it,” said Saranac Lake High School senior Aaron Burdeau, who is gay.\u00a0 “I’ve been bullied and teased to deep depression. I’ve been kicked when I’m down…”<\/p>\n

It goes without saying that the children who are giving voice to this hatred reflect the venom they hear and observe at home.\u00a0 Schools aren’t the source and can’t be expected to cure this problem.<\/p>\n

Which is one reason why I’m pleased that Saranac Lake’s district plans to include parents and the community in this discussion. It would be great to see the message of tolerance embraced taken up in our churches, our civic organizations.<\/p>\n

This is also why it’s so disappointing that Clinton County legislators didn’t publicly challenge one of their members, Sam Trombley, when he used their official forum last week to describe gay people as diseased, comparing them to male dogs.<\/p>\n

In the Plattsburgh Press-Republican<\/a>, a number of Trombley’s fellow lawmakers said they thought it was pointless to engage with him or challenge his ugly words.<\/p>\n

But Saranac Lake’s school district has shown how painful and destructive silence can be, and how ugly things can become when responsible people don’t speak their mind with a passion that equals that of the bigots among us.<\/p>\n

Through their efforts at building tolerance — still in its early stages — the Saranac Lake district has also shown that real focus and courage can bring healing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you haven’t heard Chris Knight’s story this morning, check it out.\u00a0 In a few […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4411"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4411"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4411\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4412,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4411\/revisions\/4412"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4411"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4411"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4411"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}