by David Safier
A reasonable crowd showed up at the César Chávez March. One the one hand, the crowd could have been larger, but on the other hand, the number of youth there was encouraging and impressive.
The march began at a church near Pueblo High instead of the school itself, which had been the staging grounds in years past, because TUSD said, basically, you can’t talk about the Mexican American Studies controversy or badmouth TUSD on the school grounds. Tedski put it best when he noted that people say bad things about the city government all the time at protests held at city parks. That’s called free speech. Pueblo High School’s walls would not have come tumbling down like Jericho’s if a few Hispanic Joshuas blew there horns on the football field. The District would have withstood the blast. But when the first domino fell with the disbanding of Mexican American Studies, the next dominoes — the banning of books, the silencing of teachers’ voices in their classrooms and today’s prohibition of negative talk about the District — were sure to fall as well. One bad decision begets other bad decisions.
Even more embarassing for the District than a little badmouthing, people might have applauded Sean Arce, and since TUSD is planning to end his contract at the end of the school year, that could have been embarrassing. (More on Arce’s removal in another post.)
Here’s a pic of the march. You can see a few other pics below the fold.
Today’s César Chávez March