Paul Ryan was pointedly snubbed by a group of students from South Orange Middle School in South Orange New Jersey, in Washington for a field trip Thursday, who refused to have their picture taken with the Speaker of the House. Sounds small, doesn’t it? But judging from one of the kid’s statement, his mother’s opinion, and the social media blowback, we have Exhibit “A” of grass roots resistance here.
Approximately half of the class of 150 students stood across the street while the rest of the students were photographed smiling and fist-bumping with Ryan. One of the students, Matthew Malespina, 13, said this in an interview with the Washington Post today:
“I don’t want to be associated with a man who puts his party before his country,” Matthew said. “I don’t like to take a picture with somebody that I can’t associate with. Let’s say somebody is not nice to me at school, for example. I wouldn’t take a picture with them, probably.”
Matthew's mother, Elissa Malespina, said:
“I’m proud of him, and I’m proud of the other students that chose to exercise their constitutional rights and did so in a respectful manner,” she said.
She also said that although there's not been a lot of fuss over this in South Orange, that via social media she has learned that in other parts of the country this political statement on the part of the middle schoolers has been vitriolic, if you can believe that.
“Our community has been supportive of what has happened,” she said. “Outside our area, people have said that they should shoot the parents.”
The people who were saying via social media that the parents should be shot were also accusing the parents of indoctrinating their children, according to the WaPo article. Mrs. Malespina's response to that was to say that while discussions of politics were present in the household, indoctrination was not -- and she said, "Teenagers, honestly, do they listen to their parents anyway?”
And she's right. The kids are thinking and behaving this way on their own. This is the second incident in the past week where young people have made a silent yet eloquent protest against the Trump administration, the first being last Saturday at the Notre Dame graduation, where some students walked out when Mike Pence appeared at the podium -- yet the Trumpites are talking about shooting people. And we should take heed of that.
The comment has been made many times in many places that we have two Americas now. One of those Americas is defined by fear. That's plain as day. If somebody's children have a viewpoint that differs with the radical fringe of konservative Amerikka, then the children are being indoctrinated and the parents should be shot. Always the violent solution. The reporter annoys you, bodyslam the bastard. If two men try to defend young women from a hate speech rant, just stab 'em to death.
We live in a world of stark contrast, of silent protest by young people and of violence by people old enough to know better. A statement was made this past week by the students at Notre Dame University who took a stance, the members of the graduating class who walked out on Mike Pence, and the even younger people, the middle schoolers who refused to be photographed with Paul Ryan. These demonstrations are mute but they speak volumes. The question here is, are you listening, GOP? Because the resistance of tomorrow is forming today. Violence is not the answer, but what these "kids" are doing, is.
www.washingtonpost.com/...