Last September, as schools started up after the summer break, some teachers at P.S. 220 in Queens, New York wore matching Tshirts to school, even though the teachers’ union urged them not to. You can probably see why the union said don’t do it.
Photo Credit: NYPD Facebook
Eric Garner was killed by the police in July. The Tshirts were a message. They were an ugly message.
Tensions between unions for city teachers and police officers are heating up over a United Federation of Teachers directive telling school employees not to wear T-shirts to work backing the NYPD.
At issue is an online message circulated earlier this week to UFT members cautioning them against a grassroots members’ plan by some to show the sartorial support for police on the first day of school — and that violators could be reported to the schools chancellor.
So the point of the Tshirt is to say “it’s fine to kill people in the process of arresting them for selling untaxed cigarettes, oh and by the way we don’t see race.”
The warning infuriated Patrick Lynch of the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association, already angry at UFT boss Michael Mulgrew for backing the Rev. Al Sharpton’s anti-police-brutality rally held Aug. 23 in the aftermath of the chokehold death of Eric Garner in July.
Angry why? Are the cops supposed to be completely beyond questioning?
In his own statement, Mulgrew said that while he encourages his members “to express their opinions,” Department of Education regulations “require school personnel to avoid distracting clothes and openly political statements when in school.”
Sound familiar?
Note that Mulgrew wasn’t telling teachers to wear “question the police” Tshirts.
At any rate, that photo creeps me out. P.S. 220 must be a horrible place to work.
I don’t see races either. In the picture, I mean. No races there. OK, one race…
There is only one man in that picture.
What’s up with that?
What does the school teach, Fascism 101?
Just like MDs, teachers come with a built-in aura of wisdom that is really not justified. They spend a great deal of time learning about their own field, which often means they have spent less time than the average person thinking about other areas of life. My sister is a high school music teacher, and a good one, but I nearly choked on my dinner when she casually opined that she thought Sarah Palin would make a good president. This was not long after that interview where Palin could not identify a single newspaper or news magazine that she reads on a regular basis.
But I was assured by my right wing friends that this was a ‘gotcha’ question. True story. Had she answered she would have been pilloried for reading ‘x’ newspaper / magazine. Instead, she was pilloried for not reading any newspaper or magazine.
At issue is an online message circulated earlier this week to UFT members cautioning them against a grassroots members’ plan by some to show the sartorial support for police on the first day of school — and that violators could be reported to the schools chancellor.
So the union executive is against grassroots initiatives by rank and file members?
And then this:
The warning infuriated Patrick Lynch of the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association, already angry at UFT boss Michael Mulgrew for backing the Rev. Al Sharpton’s anti-police-brutality rally held Aug. 23 in the aftermath of the chokehold death of Eric Garner in July.
I am unionized, and I can’t stand my union. I pay them $1,000s every year, and instead of looking after the interests of rank and file members ( ie some DECENT wage increases and better benefits), they prefer to make pious pronouncements about…oh…idunno.. global warming and the Israeli/Palestine conflict.They’ll discuss everything and anything except that which concerns us ordinary members most. They are absolutely USELESS.
Please tell me why a teacher’s union executive should spend time endorsing Al Sharpton’s warped views and rabble-rousing? What does Al Sharpton’s race baiting have to do with teaching, teachers, school budgets and course curriculum? In what capacity, exactly, is The Rev. Al a pedagogical tool?
As is the case with my union executive, the UFT’s executive is probably chock full of vulgar marxists parasiting off of the outrageously high union dues paid by members and defending every “truth-to-power crackpot” that’s got a bone to pick with “THE MAN”
I’ll betchta dollars to doughnuts that Mr Mulgrew is as arrogant and as condescending as they come.
Ahh, right-wing “logic”. If you read such-and-such a newspaper, you must agree with everything in it unquestioningly. So total ignorance is the best choice.
Decker – your comment is thoroughly beside the point. Even if you’re right about the union, that shirt and that photo in that context are hateful.
Well, I’m in a union, and it’s fantastic. We get better health care than just about anybody else I know, have job protections that keep us from getting entirely screwed over (depending on the details of said screwing), and someone to go to whenever there is a workplace dispute. Maybe if you don’t like the way your union operates, you should run for union rep and try to change that.
What those teachers did was bad and they should feel bad. And should also all get letters in their personnel files.
Decker, what are you even doing in a union? Shouldn’t you be working 80 hours a week at $2.50 an hour like a real capitalist? I bet you even follow safety regulations and take sick days, you poser.
Teachers get respect? In the US? I was unaware.
Please tell me why a teacher’s union executive should spend time endorsing Al Sharpton’s warped views and rabble-rousing?
First, a teacher’s union represents teachers, and that could mean representing teachers’ concern for the welfare of their students…like, maybe, that twelve-year-old kid who got shot by cops for no good reason at all?
Second, please tell us which of Sharpton’s current views you consider “warped.”
Third, what’s wrong with “rabble-rousing?” Do you make a meaningful distinction between that and mobilizing people to collectively confront serious social problems?
Fourth, what if unionized teachers decided to join a protest initiated by students, against, say, bogus reich-wing “educational” propaganda in the curriculum? Would you have a problem with that too?
Just like MDs, teachers come with a built-in aura of wisdom that is really not justified.
Well, they need SOMETHING to protect them from relentless and vicious attacks by reich-wing ideologues and know-nothings — which is even less justifiable than giving teachers the benefit of the doubt.
Also, I’d be a bit less hasty to blame the teachers for this photo-op. US teachers have very few friends these days, so if they get a little slack by sucking up to the NYPD, I really can’t blame them for it. Also, if another loony comes into their school armed to the teeth, they’ll need the NYPD to respond pretty fast, otherwise some of them could end up dead. So again, I don’t blame them for making nice with the cops.