Carpool Censorhip, Or Letting Kids Talk about the Election

Today I read about the ugly aftermath of the recent election that will bring the first African-American president to power in the United States. The Associated Press reports that the number of death threats against President-Elect Obama far exceeds the usual number that follow an election. In Snellville, Georgia, Denene Millner reported that a boy on the school bus told her 9-year-old daughter the day after the election: "I hope Obama gets assassinated." Second- and third-grade students on a school bus in Rexburg, Idaho, chanted "assassinate Obama," a district official said.

I've been thinking about these incidents because I've been increasingly upset about a directive I received from other parents the day after the election. I had driven nearly three hours to pick up my son and other 4th graders from a camp where they had been staying in Coloma, California, the town the originated the 1848 Gold Rush.

"There's to be no election talk. It's absolutely verboten," one mother told me in the bathroom as I prepared to pack up the car for the return three-hour trip. "They're absolutely obsessed with the election," she added, but then informed me that we weren't to tell them who won. "They can't handle it."

"Says who?" I thought to myself, furious that I was receiving this information from another parent rather than from my son's teacher directly. When I signed up to drive for this field trip, I certainly didn't sign away my first amendment rights at the car door, and I felt both foolish and resentful as I rushed to cover the morning papers I had placed on the front passenger seat.

Of course, the kids saw the headline that proclaimed Obama's electoral victory. And why shouldn't they see it? Why should I have to feel guilty that I had the morning's newspaper on the front seat of my car?

No one had informed me in advance that election talk was to be absolutely "verboten" in a private car, or asked me if I agreed to that policy before I agreed to spend six hours in my car, chauffeuring kids on the day after the election.

And of course, the kids were obsessed with the election. So was every American citizen and just about everyone else on the planet. Why shouldn't they be excited about one of the most historic elections the world had ever witnessed? And why should they be denied the right to know the outcome of that election? Or to discuss the election freely with one another?

I disagree absolutely that nine and ten year olds are not prepared to handled the discussion of an American election, especially one that changed history. Properly mediated by a responsible adult, there is no better occasion for children to exchange views, respectfully, civilly, but also openly and truthfully, with one another.

Yes, somebody's feelings may be hurt. But this is not about emotion but about teaching children how to back up emotion with fact and reason. All three recent presidential elections have been hotly contested and left hard feelings for those who lost, whether those feelings were warranted or not. The salient point is that the United States has successfully passed the reigns of power peacefully for over two hundred years, and where there have been questions of electoral misconduct, those questions have been referred to the courts, and the majority of Americans have accepted those court rulings, even if they disagreed with them.

I feel very strongly that we do a disservice to ourselves and to our children if we censor their discussion of a hotly contested election. If there was ever a "teachable" moment in history, this election was one, and not to address it openly and frankly, in my opinion, is an act of cowardice.

Yes, people are angry that Barack Obama won, but those children who chanted, "Assasinate Obama," will not become more reasonable or rational, if they are simply censored rather than engaged. This is the moment to ask those kids, "Why are you saying this? Why do think it's okay to encourage someone's death because you disagree with his policies or don't like the color of his skin?'

Racism will never go away if we simply force people to suppress rather than encourage them to express feelings and then engage them on a rational level.

I remember my own fourth-grade teacher, who is a man I still respect above all others. He spoke to my class after the resignation of Richard Nixon. We were a class of nearly all Republicans with one lone Democrat in our midst. "Don't believe everything your parents tell you," he said to us. "Learn how to think for yourselves."

I know that as a fourth-grader I was ready for this message of encouragement to think for myself. I am furious with myself for letting other parents intimidate me into stopping my own fourth-grader and the others in my care during that long car ride home from finding out just how much history had changed and expressing their views about it.

If you truly believe in free speech, you know that there's no such thing as too much speech. Keep talking and eventually you will find that the answer to hate is simply more speech and more speech and more speech.