"Silence white supremacy!"/"Get him out" — that was the chant at a meeting of the Madison school board ad hoc committee on police officers in schools.

Here's the video, with David Blaska attempting to speak and getting shouted down by the crowd:



Blaska — a local conservative politico — blogged about his experience here:

Room 103 of the Doyle administration bldg was packed with the usual suspects, a term I used in my remarks.... They sprayed the F-bomb liberally and insulted the committee members at will. They brandished the usual posters, including “Expel Cops, Not Kids.”...

Committee chairman Dean Loumos (whom I was seated behind) shouted into my ear (to be heard above the cacophony) if I would be willing to stop right there. Given the pandemonium, I did so. Still had 17 seconds left of the allotted three minutes, but Blaska is public spirited.

Then Dean Loumos did the unforgivable. He apologized to the disrupters! Dean Loumos said he did not know Blaska would use “coded language.”

What coded language? The protestors were black, white, hispanic, and east Asian. Very few are parents. All but a handful are very young, very loud, and very obnoxious....

What else is new? Madison school board leadership race-shamed Karen Vieth for complaining about the dysfunction in her school. So why shouldn’t school board member Loumos do the same when a citizen and parent speaks in favor of keeping the police?!...

There's a second Blaska post here, with the video that I've embedded.

Blaska maintains a calm demeanor throughout the disturbing intimidation, but you can see that his hands shake (something commented on by the videographer, DuersttheWuerst), and I can only imagine how scary it must be to publicly express opinions in a small room that is packed with people denouncing you. The committee members do nothing to push back the intimidation or to protect Blaska's right to speak to the group.

Blaska called attention to the Madison teacher, Karen Vieth, who quit because of the terrible situation at one middle school. Here's my post from last week where I linked to her detailed and disturbing blog post.

"I am leaving this district, because I cannot serve the children I love in the current climate."

"I have never seen a building as deeply in crisis as Sherman Middle School, yet my cries for help went unanswered for three years. I saw 'Band Aid' fixes and many more promises. I saw a principal being given chance after chance and three years of her being coddled and coached with no substantive change. The problems being ignored by our district are of great magnitude. I cannot understand the purpose or priorities of any organization that allows this level of incompetence, particularly one that is supposed to serve children. We have a principal who is not visible in the halls or classrooms. There are many days when our building has been in crisis or there are special events and she has arrived late, left early, or not been present at all. It is clear that she is not aware of what is going on at Sherman — either that or she does not care to be a part of it. Staff and students alike notice this indifference. Without a visible leader, our environment has become unpredictable and chaotic...."

Writes Karen Vieth in a long blog post titled "Closing the Door on the Madison Metropolitan School District," which is the subject of an article by Chris Rickert in The Wisconsin State Journal, "Ex-teacher blog post a 'public shaming' of black principal, Madison school leaders say."

In response to Vieth’s blog post, district Superintendent Jennifer Cheatham and the School Board’s president and vice president sent an email Tuesday to Sherman parents... “We have grave concerns regarding the type of personal, public shaming of a principal, in this case a principal of color, that has taken place in recent days.” Vieth’s original blog post does not disclose Foreman’s race... In a statement Wednesday, Cheatham said the Tuesday message referenced Foreman’s race “because we think it is important.”

“There is a history in our community, and our school district, of not sufficiently welcoming, supporting, and providing grace to staff and principals of color,” she said. “This is not about deflecting criticism. We have to do better as a community.”

Interesting phrase, "providing grace." Is that like providing cover?

ADDED: David Blaska writes:

Ms. Vieth describes student fighting, swearing, teachers injured breaking up fights, do-nothing restorative justice, and nap time in Room 120 — all since adoption four years ago of the school district’s legalistic and impenetrable Behavior Education Plan (BEP). A Rubik’s cube of political correctness.... It was adopted in subservience to the Left’s obsession with implicit bias and racial equity. Too many children of color were suspended (or not enough whites. Take your pick)....

ALSO: To my ear, "grace" has a whiff of racism about it, and not just because four-fifths of the word is "race." It feels oleaginous and patronizing and quasi-religious.