They're Coming

This article (click here) is worthy of discussion because of the situation itself and its implication for the future in Pickens County.

I am sure many saw the WYFF4, The State or New York Times news stories where Pickens Elementary school had a character building event, dividing into boy and girl groups. A lecturer from Clemson University read a Facebook post on the event that evening and complained the respective retreats weren’t gender neutral and were harmful to the girls. TV news came a-knocking, and the school district apologized, saying the school wrongly “reinforced some gender stereotypes."

The lecturer lacked standing. She was not a teacher at the school nor anywhere in the school district. She is a lecturer in industrial engineering, not a professional in early childhood education. While she has a child in the school district somewhere, not in Pickens Elementary, so she didn’t attend the event nor had any firsthand knowledge of it.

How did she pass as a credible source, igniting this story in the first place? Well, she was touting a point of view they wanted to push — gender neutrality.

By the way parents and children at Pickens Elementary had no complaints about the event, and the ones that later commented on Facebook about it, all had positive things to say. They were left out of the story.

Ten years ago when there was still a journalistic standard on TV, such a complaint would have never gotten off the ground. Today, however, it is all about ratings and playing up gender issues does that in size, so it made it to TV.

To me the story here is how our news media today is no longer about news that impacts lives or for the common good, but about stirring up drama or making a political point. Gosh, how much journalism has fallen.

Boys are different than girls so male role models lecturing to boys and female role models to girls sometimes is appropriate.

By the way the entire administration at the school who put together the event are women and more than 90% of the employees in the school are women. Most of elementary schools are like that. Nothing wrong with that either. Little children in their formidable years and now with more coming from broken homes, need nurturing as well as academics. Guess what, I don’t do that well. Neither does he or that guy over there. She does and her too. Boys are not girls and girls are not boys.

WYFF4 how about giving the school credit for teaching about character and leadership, two things the media has been trying to grind out of our culture for a few decades now? That didn't fit the narrative either.

Before Phil Bowers, Judy Edwards, Brian Swords, Herb Cooper and Dr. Merck shut down Holly Springs Elementary, it had the best test scores in the county. The principal there is now the principal at Pickens Elementary. She is excellent. My two daughters also went to Holly Springs. I'm confident the event was solid educationally. A double A+ on that score.

99.999999% of parents whose kids are not at Pickens Elementary do not care what goes on at Pickens Elementary, especially something as trivial as this. But this lecturer did. Why? I think she had a political point to make relating to the national movement of gender neutrality -- that is, why is this school treating boys and girls differently in this day and age?

This was an activist-media tag team to make a one-sided political point within the national movement of gender neutrality, looking to embarrass the school and smack down our conservative way of doing things in Pickens County.

By the way, the Clemson lecturer was also on Facebook urging others to call or email the district office, made a video about it, and if you think this stuff makes it to TV, The State and New York Times on its own… likely, it was fed to the reporters.

When a school is falsely accused and this publicly, the superintendent (Dr. Danny Merck), chairman of the board (Brian Swords) and the trustee from that area (Shannon Haskett) have the responsibility to speak up.

First, they should have pushed back on the mis-information and spin coming from the other side by stating the facts in an accurate light.

Second, defend the school, the value of character building programs and our conservative approach. Unfortunately, all three “leaders” were MIA.

Those that run our county, for the most part do it through relationships -- friends, family ties, the institutions and jobs they control and the pressure they and put on situations and people.

This Clemson lecturer and the media that used this gender issue to hit Pickens Elementary over the head, are not friends with, relatives of, or tied to the school district. As a result the leadership of the district and board were inept at dealing with them. So when the lecturer was making her claims and media turned up the lights, the district and board leadership ran and hid, while the school district's communications director gave read an apology and they all prayed the thing would just blow over.

It has blown over, sure, but our side retreated on the issue. Such a traditional character program like this one will never occur in the district again. That's how the liberals do it. They have their causes, focus in on a situation, recruit the liberal media to run wing-man and then turn up the lights. Our "leaders" retreat because they lack knowledge, courage and can't handle the public conflict. Our morals, values and beliefs are falling one by one. This has been going on all over the country for decades now. The difference is it is starting to happen here too.

If our leaders had the skill to drill down on this issue, articulate the rest of the story like I did above and had the courage to get on TV and shout just as loud, they would have and told this lecturer and WYFF4 to go pound sand. Our leaders would have supported the school, its principal and the event, and it would continue as is.

The radical left is out to sanitize the country of traditional morals and values. The Bible Belt is the last holdout. They are coming, beit lecturers from higher education, Drag Queens at the library or activists who call the Bible hate speech.

Whenever they strike like this, our county leaders must get out in front with all the facts and defend our conservative morals, values and principles. If not, the next 20 years are going to be painful to watch as we lose one cultural battle after another and wake up not recognizing the county we all knew and loved.