Happy Early Thanksgiving

Last week my husband, Jim Blank, and I picked up the grandsons from school. I asked the youngest (first grader) if he had art that day. He said no, because they had their special exercise that afternoon. Their special exercise was the Sheep, Shepherd and Wolf drill. In other words, he participated in a shooter drill that is part of the elementary curriculum called A.L.I.C.E.

A - Alert … There is a wolf in the building.
L - We are in a Lockdown.
I - Inform … We must tell others the wolf is around.
C - Counter … If the wolf sees us we must ruin his day.
E - Evacuate … leave the building and run away.

So instead of painting and enjoying one of his favorite classes, art, he and his fellow first graders were shuttled to a “secret space" and told to hide and be quiet so that the wolf could not find them. Now some of you reading this may think, that is great, we have to train 6-year-olds to be safe. Really!

The entire GOP presidential campaign pounded people about things they should be afraid of that were simply not true. “You should be afraid of transgender people, who are playing volleyball with your 6th grade granddaughter,” they said. Not a thing. “You should be afraid of public school teachers because they are doing sex change operations in their classrooms.” Really! “You should be afraid of Haitian legal immigrants because they are eating pets in Ohio.” No. Voters were made to be afraid of things that are not real.

“We should be afraid of undocumented workers because they are taking our jobs and causing inflation.” Let’s talk about this point for a minute. The reason employers use undocumented workers is because they can pay them way less in order to keep costs down and I would assume profits up.

So, if all the brown undocumented workers are deported, who will all the restaurants, farmers, grocery stores, hotels, etc. hire? Will they hire all the young white men who have said the Democratic Party has left them behind? Or all the young white women who voted for Trump? Will they milk the cows, pick the crops, process produce, work in the kitchens, in hotel rooms, and do all the countless behind-the-scene jobs that undocumented workers do right here in Ozaukee County? Will they work for the same wages? Well, guess what, my friends… prices will not go down.

So let’s go back to the insanity that is not focusing on things that we should be afraid of. We have a right to be afraid of and not tolerate things like mass shootings in schools, malls, churches and movie theaters. NOT ONE OF THOSE MASS SHOOTINGS WERE DONE BY AN UNDOCUMENTED WORKER. I often wanted our candidates during the campaign to counter the charges of crimes committed by undocumented immigrants, with “can we say the names of all the schools, malls, concerts, temples and mosques where white men massacred our children and neighbors.”

Let’s instead be okay with our children hiding from the wolf.

We are not done, my friends. Join us in walking with Senator Elect Jodi Habush Sinykin in the Grafton Christmas Parade on Nov. 30.

Onward.

P.S. I highly recommend reading historian Heather Cox Richardson's "Letters from an American" newsletter on the topic of Trump’s pledge to eliminate the Department of Education.