The story of the Florida charter school principal who apparently lost her job over a sixth grade class viewing Michelangelo’s statue of David is the stuff that late night monologues and sarcastic social media posts are made of. In reality, the story shows yet again how much our so-called elites are out of touch with the real America.
In case you missed it, Hope Carrasquilla, principal at Tallahassee Classical School, had failed to notify parents that an image of the statue would be shown to the sixth grade as part of a segment on Renaissance art. Carrasquilla may have had some prior scrapes with the school board -- that part isn’t entirely clear -- but the lack of parental notice regarding the David was apparently the last straw. She was told to quit or be fired, and so she quit.
You can see the talk show hosts leering at the foolish, benighted folks down in Tallahassee who have some kind of a problem letting their children view great art. Why, they can’t tell the difference between a masterpiece and a piece of pornography! What unsophisticated dolts!
Carrasquilla will rapidly become a punchline and a target of the raucous laughter of the studio audience, who will naturally agree with the host’s position that parents who won’t let their kids see a 500-year-old statue are too stupid for words.
Not so fast.
FLORIDA PRINCIPAL FORCED TO RESIGN AFTER SHOWING STUDENTS ‘DAVID’ STATUE
The law of the land is that communities get to decide for themselves what’s appropriate and what isn’t. The school board that requested Carrasquilla’s resignation gets to choose what their sixth graders see, not late night talk show hosts or inflamed left-wing Twitterers laughing at conservative parents.
Maybe you agree with the school board that parents are entitled to notification if 11-year-olds are going to see a precisely carved representation of the male human figure, genitalia included. Maybe you don’t. But that’s exactly the point.
In our federalist society, communities make their own decisions, especially about matters affecting children. That’s a basic American freedom. Parents get to send their children to charter schools so they have more of a say over what goes on in the classroom. That’s a basic American freedom, too.
This is not a debate over whether the statue is pornographic or obscene. It’s neither. If you want to be precise, pornography is derived from two ancient Greek words -- puerne, meaning prostitute, and graphein, meaning, to write. So strictly speaking, pornography is writing about sexuality that’s essentially bought and paid for.
Obscenity also comes from ancient Greek. Ob is a prefix meaning off, and skene means stage. Anything you wouldn’t put on a stage for audiences to witness is obscene.
Clearly the David is neither. It’s one of the most important works of art in Western culture, a statue that has been admired and celebrated for more than 500 years.
So the issue isn’t about whether a backwards-facing school board in Tallahassee is incapable of recognizing great art when they see it. Of course they can.
The issue is about whether parents get to set their own standards for what their children see and when they see it without being laughed at by our cultural elites.
Naturally, liberal news outlets tied the story to Florida Governor and likely Presidential candidate Ron DeSantis and a law he passed to limit classroom discussions of gender identity. These include, among many others, CBS News, the Miami Herald, and even Britain’s The Guardian. Of course, one thing has nothing to do with the other, but any chance to pillory DeSantis can’t be ignored.
The elites have every right to scoff, because that’s what they do best, and that’s pretty much all they do. Meanwhile, here in the real world, conservative parents struggle with the challenge of raising children in a veritable sewer of inappropriate online images, online bullying, and a host of other issues that seem not to trouble our so-called elites.
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Short-handing the David as "porn" trivializes the real issue -- that not every parent wants his or her sixth-grader to look at male genitalia in class, no matter how eminent the setting. If you want to teach Renaissance art, you can find literally thousands of images that won’t be embarrassing, confusing, or inappropriate for 11-year-olds.
And if you don’t like the school board’s decision, you have the right to remove your children from that school and send them somewhere else.
The people who find it easiest to laugh at parents are the ones who have no idea just how hard it is to raise emotionally healthy children in today’s troubled world. And those on the left who are parents might remember that not everyone has to agree with the coolest or the wokest opinion.
America means freedom to choose what’s best for our children, not having some clever late night talk show host or Twitter troll telling us how we should live our lives.
