Thursday, October 28, 2010
Worthy of Acknowledgement
In an MSNBC article "ARK. school official accused of Anti-gay screed" by Jill Zeman Bleed, Clint McCance, a member of the Miland school board used a Facebook post to protest people wearing purple to show support for bullied gay and lesbian youth. His post stated "The only way im wearing it for them is if they all commit suicide. I can't believe the people of this world have gotten this stupid. We are honoring the fact that they sinned and killed thereselves because of their sin". The school district has made it clear that he was not speaking as a member of the district but as a free citizen. When I looked at this article I thought a lot of things. First, is this man serious? Secondly, what on earth is the public relations department for this school district going to have to do to fix this and third, this is an event that is definately news worthy and will be reported on. For something to be news worthy it must meet seven different criteria including timeliness, proximity, conflict, impact, prominence, currency and uniqueness. The statement made was done so in a period of time that was crucial to the success of this awareness event and because of this it creates and uproar. The news article even states that by Wednesday afternoon only one week later 23,000 member had joined the group on Facebook to fire McCance. The families and members of the community and society believe that his remarks should be shared with others. The impacts of his remarks have also shown that men like McCance have not helped but harmed the students who have been victims of bullying. This story as well has a lot of power to it in terms of equal rights and gay and lesbian rights and his statement has made it a startling response to a topic that is now frequently supported. This man clearly has veiws that are not publically supported by the American people and therefore this story has become newsworthy.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I had just heard about this in one of my classes earlier today. I cannot believe that this man said those things, especially due to the fact that he is a member of the school board. People in positions like that are the ones we expect to make things better by helping to prevent bullying in school. Now, this man has become a bully. I think McCance is ignorant and close minded, and I certainly hope that the school district does something to reprimand Clint’s mistake. Even though, as American citizens, we have the freedom of speech, Clint’s words are sure to make a mark on everyone who has been affected by bullying.
ReplyDelete