Boobies!
CLIFF, N.M. (AP) — Cliff High School students studying World War I history saw a few seconds of pornography during viewing of a video about the 1919 Treaty of Versailles. A History Channel program apparently had been recorded over a porn tape.
A substitute teacher who was overseeing the class told school officials he was shocked by the porn and that he had received the tape from a friend. The videotape apparently was shown at least twice in the classroom without incident.
Superintendent Dick Pool won’t disclose if any action was taken against the teacher.
Several parents spoke at a school board meeting Thursday. Parent Francesca Estevez said Cliff, located in rural southwestern New Mexico, is “very cohesive” and the videotape “was not acceptable by community standards.”
Pool apologized to parents.
The saddest part of this story is that the Cliff NM school is still using VHS.
Ok, I understand that parents have a right to say they don’t want their kids to see material they feel is inappropriate and no amount of me railing against our fear of nipples is going to change that. And I get that it’s not my place to tell them they are wrong (beyond my freedom to express any opinion I desire), and I even get that no reasonable thinking individual would see this accident as something that should be anticipated (a porn tape used to record a history program to show in schools), but I’m not really moved by this incident as much as the overall track record.
We are way too easily offended as a people. If we hear or see something that doesn’t appeal to us, it’s not enough to just not like it; we have to personally affected by it, personally affronted by it. It has to negatively and significantly diminish the quality of our life and we respond with an outrage that previously was reserved the truly heinous. It’s gotten to the point now that people that are the target of said outrage manage it the way you would a petulent toddler. Because we get so worked up over the smallest things, when we’re worked up over big things, it doesn’t have the impact it should. If we react to genocide the same way we react to McDonald’s forgetting to hold the pickles, who’s going to take us seriously. And frankly we get more upset over the pickles than we do over whatever podunk African dictator is killing his constituents. It’s gotten so bad that a certain former governor cum Vice Presidential candidate turned Faux News contributor has made an entire career over being offended.
Being truly offended should spur you to take action to change the actions of those who have offended you. It should be positive change that benefits the greater good. You should be offended by racism, homophobia, dog fighting, and yes even pornography. But you shouldn’t be offended over an accident. Was the teacher dumb? Yes. Why would anyone use a used VHS when this type of thing has happened over and over again? But was his act malicious? No, I don’t suspect it was. And since it wasn’t, what’s to be offended over? You can take offense to the existence of porn in general, but in that case your offense shouldn’t be directed at the teacher, but at San Fernando.
