David’s Journal

What gets me about the story of High School District 214 School Board member Leslie Pinney is not that she is using her position of power to opine about her sense of morality, and to attempt to enforce these right-of-mainstream sensibilities onto the students of this northwest suburban Chicago school district.

Leslie Pinney wants to ban books at the district she helps to oversee. She isn’t the first school board member in the history of school boards to try and do this.

Some of the titles she cites as being “littered with lewd language and graphic sexual references inappropriate for teens” have been cited before. They will be cited again. Reasonable parents, teachers, and school board members will argue that these books are actually quite beneficial, and ultimately the overall mores of the community will prevail.

What is most striking about this story is the second paragraph of the Daily Herald article that brought this story to my attention.

Leslie Pinney, who compares some of these titles to pornography, hasn’t actually read a single book on her list.

Why?

“I don’t know if I would want to,” she told the Daily Herald reporter.

I had Monday morning off, so I drove Susie to her job in Central San Rafael. About six blocks away from her office, I noticed small groups of Latinos walking in the opposite direction.

They were waving American flags, signs, the whole array of rally paraphernalia. Four people in one group, six in another, a pair in a third… no sense of organization, other than the fact they were walking west as I drove east. Unaware of any planned demonstrations in San Rafael, I equated this display to my past experiences of San Rafaelian demonstrations.

Twice now, I have witnessed demonstrations for peace on the streets of Central San Rafael. In a politically monotonous region in which everyone hates Bush et al. with unrepentant reverence, these demonstrations have been exclusively held by a miniscule group of elderly former radicals, confined to the sidewalks while the BMW/Prius-driving, latte-sipping Marinites drive by. They politely honk their horn in solidarity or something, using a rhythm that denotes support. Like “Hooray for you, standing out there in the rain, advocating for the cause I hold so dearly to my heart, but can’t fight for, because I am too busy paying my Marin-sized mortgage.”

It wasn’t rainy this day. It was 75º and sunny, in fact. I dropped off Susie at her office. Then, I had a very specific goal in mind. Go home, do laundry, straighten the house a bit. That was my plan for the day. Eager for something to punctuate that, I decided that it was time for a donut.

The donut shop was a block away, and as I started to walk, I thought to myself how glad I was that this particular business was owned by Asian immigrants, not Latino immigrants (especially as I walked past the Latino-owned businesses in this section of town and saw that they were proudly advertising the fact that they would not be open this day).

I picked up a donut, dropped a tip in the bucket, and started to stroll towards the sirens I began to hear. For now, in addition to the hodgepodge of sign-displaying, flag-waving groups that were populating the streets, I heard sirens and saw the San Rafael police, parking enforcers and Marin County sheriffs begin to head westward as well.

Heading north on Lincoln, I turned west onto Fourth Street. And there, right before me, in the center of Fourth Street, was the beginning of the parade.
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