photo by Boyd Loving
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, summer protests have left many parents and taxpayers stunned and concerned with what exactly is being taught in the Ridgewood public school system . The recent , “Ridgewood for Black Liberation” parades in the Village have left many in awe of the total ignorance of the protesters .
North Jersey media is reporting that a group called “Ridgewood for Black Liberation” has demanded that Ridgewood School district officials remove what they view as a Eurocentric curriculum. They also called for increased Black leadership and staff and for “anti-racism training”, in which participants acknowledge racist beliefs and structures and work to undo them.
She told the record ,”We need to change the way that we teach and talk about race and actually teach the real history of United States,” said Emily Rizzo, an organizer with Ridgewood for Black Liberation, calling for schools to” confront “our white supremacist history.”
Ms. Rizzo instead of mouthing empty Marxist bromides and before we ship everyone off reeducation camps and a “holiday in Cambodia” we have a few thoughts . If you don’t get the reference ask your Cambodian friends about something called the “killing fields”.
It is clear from this summer’s cause de jur “Ridgewood for Black Liberation” parades ,you and your contemporaries clearly do not have a clue as to the “real history” of the United States. While hashtag activism and selfies make good Instagram posts the world and history are far more complicated .
As for the groups “anti-racist tactics”, they have been a miserable failure . When two “non white” Ridgewood board of education members were being attacked by a mob of misinformed residents, appearing to movitived by nothing more than racism because they felt these board members didn’t know their place and asked too many accounting questions of the Superintendent of Schools your group was nowhere to be found?
When one of these board members is castigated over and over for not having children in the Ridgewood School system ,while a white board member has never been asked that question as long as I can remember and the blog has been here almost 15 years , your group again, does nothing?
When a black candidate for congress in Paterson just 5.9 miles away ,and city that is full of people your group claims to be defending , founded by Alexander Hamilton one of our founding fathers , and often referred to by his critics as “that mulato banker” needed volunteers to help clean up some very neglected parks your group was nowhere to be found?
Ms. Rizzo if you want to discover history you and your colleagues have to read books , reading is fundamental to learning. History is not so simple or pretty you can not just “google” your way thru it. Teachers can only give you so much , but reading goes on forever. Reading gives you perspective, something sorely lacking in the post book generation. We used to say as soon as you open your mouth people can tell if you ever read a book or not . Nowadays 5 minutes on Facebook and you know sadly most people have not. My suggestion would be to start with the book ,”April 1865″ by Jay Winik ,it’s a fast read about the last month of the civil war and shows how a sharply divided people tried to come together and solve and in some cases failed to solve the issues of their time.
The schools aren’t teaching this crap…
Radical Parents = Radical Kids
If these entitled brats care so much they should first volunteer for Social Services or one of the many local organizations that need help. Protests look good on social media for a day or two but don’t really accomplish anything.
Entitled brats is right
These kids are radicals until they “have to” go to work. And then they begin complaining about how much taxes are deducted from their paychecks.
It’s a small part of their education. Will help teach critical thinking skills.
A diversity quota for administration and faculty is more alarming
Hope to see you all at the pro-police, military, and Trump rally this Saturday, October 17th from 11am to 2 pm starting at Village Hall.
Show your support for this great country, and this great village!!!!
TRUMP 2020!!!
Trump 2020. How did that work out for you?
LOLLLLLLLLL
Screw the protestors.
What kind of cigar is that?
Camacho , from The Tobacco Shop of Ridgewood , Connecticut wrapper
Uhhhh, the schools are teaching people to make infurmed, responsible decisions and to be upstanding members of society, ie. not the racist, bigoted demographic that posts on the Ridgewood Blog.
ingles?
That’s the first good comment you’ve posted in months James
“The schools aren’t teaching this crap…”
You are delusional or in denial if you honestly believe this.
It’s a disease for rich white kids taught by their guilt-stricken boomer parents. What they are asking for is to tax hardworking NJ residents, a huge % of whom are immigrants or children of immigrants. And give to unions and “non-profits” ran by rich white people. It’s a political scam with 1 remedy: get that racial theory garbage out of your heads! Race doesn’t define how well people do this day and age! Not in NJ/NY. Hard work, intelligence and discipline define that.
Why was my comment deleted?
Needed a quick pick me up so I went to utube and watched the liberal meltdown on election night when Trump won the election. I LOVE seeing adults cry over total nonsense. Children are starving and dying from cancer, and these snowflakes are shedding tears for one of the most corrupt politician in history. I don’t recall seeing any one crying when Obama won and started destroying our beautiful country.
TRUMP 2020!!!
KEEP AMERICA GREAT!!!
I’ll repeat: you can’t speak ill of Ridgewood’s excellent education system when you don’t know how to write grammatically correct English
I am a product the Ridgewood School system , so I guess you are saying the quality of that education was not very good ?
“I’ll repeat: you can’t speak ill of Ridgewood’s excellent education system when you don’t know how to write grammatically correct English”
=
…a weak argument.
Ad Hominum is no way to go through life, Joe.
Plus, James is like rubber and you’re like glue.
So there’s that, too.
From time to time I come across this blog. I find it so interesting that people who live in places like Ridgewood and Greenwich claim to speak on behalf of folks who live a world away – not in miles but in practicality. I applaud the person here who suggested reading. These are complex issues and require one to really understand history and data to come to any reasonable conclusion. I also agree that the education system is broken. In short, the liberalism has created a distorted view and poisoned the well of young minds. It pushes a singular view point instead of encouraging students to seek out knowledge from different sources. I find it interesting that folks on the Democratic side either do not know, or forget, the party’s own history. This is the party that created “Jim Crow”. It is the party of segregation. It is the party of Fascism. Read the history folks. These are simple facts. The Nuremburg laws where created in the late 1930’s, not out of thin air, but modelled after the segregationist laws of the US deep south. FDR was a huge fan of Moussolini – and the list goes on.
Young people are capable of incredible things, but I fear we have set them up for failure by not teaching them to think and learn for themselves. I do not believe we live in a fundamentally racist nation. We have overcome that. We do, however, have pockets of issues that need to be fixed. And, the solutions to those only come out of understanding data. But, no one is looking to data. They spew a mindless ideology that does nothing to help the very people they claim to represent. If you look a the data, you will see that Democratic policies are a massive failure for minorities. And, in many cases people are coming to see this. The history of Democrats and African Americans is one that was a “deal with the devil” and resulted in a pattern of poverty and lack of opportunity that is indeed systemic. But, some are coming to realize that the way out is via conservative policies that reward work, dignity and fair play. There are policies to give people a start in life and also reward activities that put them on a path to self-reliance. But this also requires community leaders to support the same narrative and not to self-deal at the expense of the very people they claim to represent. This is where work needs to be done.
Maybe you should ask the School Board to insist that they begin teaching punctuation. Or hire a proofreader. Punctuation ALWAYS goes inside quotation marks (except in the UK which practices the opposite). So it should be “yes,” instead of “yes”.
“North Jersey media is reporting that a group called “Ridgewood for Black Liberation” has demanded that Ridgewood School district officials remove what they view as a Eurocentric curriculum.” If the demand being made is to remove Eurocentric curriculum, then there must be a suggestion submitted to remove and replace the curriculum with something else. Maybe the new curriculum could be Asiacentric, Afrocentric, Indigenous Peoplescentric? Get where I’m going with this one?