How the right exploits kids for political purposes

Last Friday, I moderated an issues forum for Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. during the Congressional Black Caucus's annual legislative conference. At the beginning of the program, an adorable group of grade school students with matching uniforms walked to the front of the room in the Washington Convention Center and performed three songs about President Obama.

The audience loved it. Parents and adults whipped out their cell phones and video cameras to capture the moment. For once, it seemed that America's black youth were being inspired about their government and their own futures.

It was a beautiful moment.

The next day I received a phone call and a text message from an old friend, a law school classmate, who told me that she was being approached by reporters because of a video of school children singing about Obama that she had posted on her YouTube page months ago.

Earlier this year, my friend, Charisse Carney-Nunes, was invited to Bernice Young Elementary School in New Jersey. Charisse, an award-winning children's book author, went to the school to talk about her books, including her recent book, I Am Barack Obama.

Right-wing commentator Michelle Malkin saw the video and went into overdrive, writing not one, not two, but three different blog entries about the video in two days, accusing Charisse of proselytizing innocent young kids with political speech.

Conservatives rushed to condemn this "indoctrination" from Fox News to Rush Limbaugh. One critic even compared the New Jersey school kids to "Hitler youth." Really? The same crowd of people who want to put the Ten Commandments in the classroom and force prayer in public schools do not want young kids in America to sing a simple song about the nation's first black president.

By the end of the week, Charisse was forced to put out a statement explaining that she "did not write, create, teach or lead the song about President Obama in the video." She said the song was presented to her by a teacher and students, and she lamented "that an event put together with sincere intentions to encourage literacy while celebrating the contributions of African Americans to our great nation has been become political fodder."

Let's be clear. This is not about school kids. This is about the conservative agenda to undermine the legitimacy of Barack Obama's presidency. Put this story in the category of the birthers, the deathers, the town brawlers, the tea baggers and the school boycotters who did not want the President of the United States speaking to their children in a classroom assembly.

If school kids were singing about Ronald Reagan or George Bush, this wouldn't even be a story. In fact, as a former public school teacher myself, I seem to recall instances when school kids did sing songs about previous presidents, and no one complained about the threat to the republic.

But for some reason, today's shool children are expected to completely ignore the historic nature of America's first black president. And the millions of black and Latino and white children who are inspired by President Obama are supposed to shut up.

No, this is not a "controversy" about education. This is an example of how the right-wing cleverly manipulates the media with their feigned outrage about anything Obama. Even more troubling, this controversy demonstrates how the right is willing to undermine democracy itself to achieve its political aims.

When the U.S. Supreme Court stopped the vote counting in Florida in 2000 and effectively installed George Bush as president after he lost the popular vote, Republicans complained that Democrats should "get over it" and "move on," for the good of the country of course. The media bought into it and, despite some resistance among the left, Democrats vowed to seek their revenge at the ballot box.

The media did not validate critics who might have credibly challenged the legitimacy of a president who had did not win the majority of the votes in the election. Not a single
senator or representative ever yelled that President Bush was a liar during a speech to Congress or challenged his right to speak to school kids in Florida on September 11. But today we live in a different environment, made more hostile almost entirely by the vitriol from the right.

Fox News will tell you that 'something is going on in America' and will cite the thousands of attendees at town halls and protests as proof. But a few thousand bitter, angry people at a protest do not get to overrule 70 million voters in an election.

The fact is we had an election last November, and 69 million people voted for Barack Obama to be our president. A strong and clear majority of American voters made their choice. But a small, vocal and angry minority are attempting to thwart the will of the people with their tea bag-dropping, death panel-fabricating, birth certificate-denying, town hall-yelling, "you lie" shouting tactics.

And the sad part now is that they're hiding behind the kids to do it. That's the worst of cynical politics, even for the right wing.