United Christian Leadership Ministry and the Take It Down Group will rally outside of the County Office Building, 39 West Main Street, at 10 a.m. on Tuesday.
The groups want city and county officials to remove a panel of the Dentzel Carousel at Ontario Beach Park. The panel is a pickaninny caricature of two black children, and many local residents say that it’s offensive. The carousel was installed at the park in 1905.
The carousel is owned by the city, but the county operates it under a long-term agreement. County officials have said that they will leave the panel in place, but with an interpretive sign. United Christian Leadership Ministry has requested a meeting with County Executive Maggie Brooks to discuss the issue, but Brooks reportedly hasn’t responded.
“Brooks’ obstinacy means that she is complicit with the ideology that produced this kind of demeaning imagery,” says the Rev. Lewis Stewart, president of United Christian, in an e-mail announcing Tuesday’s rally. “She is an elected government official and as such should not engage in the devaluation of people of color by maintaining this demeaning and humiliating art form. It must come down.” BY JEREMY MOULE
Rochester schools Superintendent Bolgen Vargas will hold “The State of Our Schools: An Update to the Community,” at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, August 25, at Edison Career and Technology High School, 655 Colfax Street.
The Rochester Community Task Force on School Climate has extended the deadline for the public to comment a proposed new Code of Conduct policy for city schools until Saturday, September 19. A draft version of policy is available for review and comments can be made at www.rcsdk12.org/codeofconduct. Comments can also be e-mailed to ctf@racf.org.
FR=EE, Race and Education Action and Change Work Group, and United Christian Leadership Ministry of Western New York will hold a forum for Rochester school board candidates at 6:30 p.m. on Wednesday, August 26, at Inner Faith Gospel Tabernacle Church, 32 York Street. BY TIM LOUIS MACALUSO
This article appears in Aug 19-25, 2015.
I view that small panel as an opportunity. Lets do what has been asked, recommended and or demanded. Lets take that small panel and wipe out the supposed offensive material. But lets replace that with something even more offensive, even more tragic,….lets replace that with a message that points to the disastrous graduation rate in the RCSD. Lets clearly indicate the statistics associated with the RCSD “accomplishment”. It will direct attention to the RCSD failure, the attendance failure, in short, the educational crisis that is destroying this city. Rampant poverty, dependency, crime, teenage pregnancy, etc. That should be the UNITED CHRISTIAN LEADERSHIP mission. And I can tell you it will take much more than a few brush strokes with 25 cents worth of paint. Why isn’t that being tackled? Because its difficult, it’s challenging and it appears to be insurmountable. It’s so easy to organize a rally for the “paint over” of one panel.
Why not tackle the graduation rate? I’ll tel you why,…it’s to tough and there doesn’t appear to be the guts to face it nor the fortitude to solve it.
Sheesh, what about chickens? That’s an offensive caricature of roosters, too. Or let’s just scrub all depictions of blacks from all art-it might be “offensive.” Or let’s make some equivalent matching-sized replacement parts painted to be “white” children and carefully put them over the black parts and everyone can now say how cute it is.
United “Christian” Leadership Ministry needs to stop “majoring on the minors” and focus on the reality of slavery of blacks (and others) by Muslims that is happening TODAY and the slaughter of black Christians all over north Africa. THAT is important, THIS is PETTY. Put your energy into something that is IMPORTANT and will make a positive difference in the lives of those suffering and dying NOW.
REMOVE IT NOW. After all, this is the reason blacks are failing at school, economically depressed and shooting each other.
Or… the libs can stop fanning the flames and making EVERYTHING offensive. What’s next?
For a moment I thought I was alone on this, out of line or off base. Turns out there are two additional individuals and a flurry of ‘likes” who see the issues of the day, those life altering, those “do it now” issues, like I do. Thanks for speaking up and shedding a little light on the fact that there are more important things in life that need to be addressed. If the UNITED CHRISTIAN “LEADERSHIP” is looking for a list of items that need some attention,…..just ask.