A Member of the Tolerance Crowd Slaps a Middle Schooler

Peter Prengaman

What kind of a person decides it’s okay to slap a middle schooler in the classroom — on a career day, no less? A stentorian hard-line Bible-thumping headmaster at a Christian school? Actually, no. In fact, the offender in the following case sides with those for whom love wins and pronouns matter, and who put “In This House, We Believe” signs in the front yard. In other words, a leftist.

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According to a press release from the city of Lake Oswego, Ore., on April 7, Ellen J. Sawo was arrested. Sawo had been in the middle of a presentation during a career day at Lakeridge Middle School. Perhaps some of the students were being rowdy, since middle schoolers are not the most civilized of people. So frustration on the part of a teacher or presenter is understandable. What is not understandable is why Sawo decided to shout profanities at them and then go so far as to slap one of the students. The student was not injured and Sawo left the school before the police arrived. They did catch up with her and she was allowed to cool her heels in the Clackamas County Jail. Not exactly what you would expect from one of the proponents of love and tolerance. But going by her Twitter feed, you would never know she had it in her to slap a child.

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Sawo’s bio describes her as the founder of a business development agency. It also says that says that she believes that New York is the center of the universe and that she loves hearing people’s stories over, “coffee, chai tea or cocktails.” Maybe she should have relaxed with a chai tea before slapping a middle schooler.

One might call the entire situation ironic. But in truth, there is nothing ironic about it. Two things are at work here. One is the hubris of leftists — the same hubris that allows them to excoriate conservatives and Christians for being heartless, intolerant, and violent while being perfectly comfortable with practically disemboweling someone over a pronoun. So long as they stand for the right things, it does not matter what they do.

Second, because leftists stand for the right things and are enraged over the right things, they are owed not only our attention but also our deference. As I said above, middle schoolers are not known for good behavior and should have settled down and shown some basic human respect. But if we are honest, the founder of a business development agency is not going to hold the attention of a group of kids who are on the edge of puberty, were probably checking their phones every five minutes, and have likely been raised to believe they are at the center of the universe. High schoolers, maybe. A smart college kid would have tuned in. But middle schoolers? They aren’t going to want to sit down with her over a chai tea or coffee. Forget about the cocktails.

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It isn’t that Sawo should not have been miffed that the kids were acting out. She had every right to be. But she should not have been so full of herself as to haul off and strike a kid, who was probably just counting down the minutes until he or she was dismissed to go to lunch or to go home. But the point is that someone so socially enlightened should have known that and not expected a group of adolescents to be as fascinated by her as she is. Maybe everyone should have started with their pronouns. That would have set the right tone.

 

 

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