Grits Are For Eating, Not Thinking

Is it just me, or has stupidity become fashionable among a lot of Americans? Have so many of us always been incapable of thinking our way out of a paper bag or is this something new? The persistence of people choosing to believe in misinformation and out right lies regarding the proposed health care reforms is bewildering enough, but WTF is it with the folks who have gone into hyper drive complaining about President Obama's plan to address schoolchildren about the importance of education?

The speech and some follow up classroom activities are scheduled for today (Tuesday) at noon. The President will make his speech at Wakefield High School in Northern Virginia. The speech will be broadcast to other schools via C-SPAN and the Internet, should they choose to participate. Some schools have elected not to participate and others have informed parents that they may have their children opt out of hearing the President's speech.

I don't know why I'm surprised, but the outcry against the president's proposed presentation to America's students left me momentarily speechless. Ronald Reagan and George H. Bush (GWB's dad) addressed the nation's school children without having to get prior parental clearance for the content of their speeches. However, it seems that the same grits-for-brains people, aka grits-brain, went into conniption fits because: "I don't think that government should be meddling in our children's lives;" "I don't think that socialism has any place in our schools;" and "Obama is trying to shove his socialist propaganda down our throats through our children;" (all comments read on the Internet). That last one gives me all sorts of interesting visual images.

The ever reliable YouTube has collected news broadcasts from around the nation in which parents express their concern that President Obama is attempting to brainwash their children. My favorite is a brief video in which one woman becomes tearful at the thought of her babies being exposed to the evil power of Obama. The video is at the end of this post.

The White House released the transcript of the speech yesterday (Monday). Let's see, the president plans to tell the students, there is "no excuse for talking back to your teacher, or cutting class, or dropping out of school. That's no excuse for not trying. Where you are right now doesn't have to determine where you'll end up. No one's written your destiny for you. Here in America, you write your own destiny. You make your own future."

He also mentions the importance of regular attendance, doing your homework, working hard, and washing your hands to avoid the flu. Radical stuff that may lead to more children staying in school and getting an education. Of course, a well educated populace might decrease the ranks of the grits-brain contingency, which explains their opposition to their children hearing the president's speech.

What I keep hearing from these folks goes something like this, "I have a right to my opinion. This is a free country. Mumble, mumble...First Amendment...Second Amendment...right to bare arms... (they tend to use the wrong term, substituting "bare" for "bear"). I concede that anyone is entitled to hold an opinion, no matter how stupid that opinion is. However, the rest of us are also entitled to express our opinion that your opinion is stupid.

All of these expressions of stupidity have led me to one conclusion, there are people in this country who have serious issues with having a black president. I've gone through all other possible explanations, and even serious grits-brain stupidity doesn't explain the utter idiocy that falls out of the mouths of these people. This actually gives me some comfort. President Obama won the election with solid support from a cross section of Americans, so I'm counting on that the "I am not a racist" grits-brain folks are a numerical minority who just happen to be very loud.

I suspect that these folks are motivated by fear. For generations they've believed that they were superior based on their status as white people. Then along comes this man that they label black, even though in reality he is just as much white as black. However, as they've pigeonholed him as black, then their superiority is a given. Except, this is one very intelligent man and that really throws a monkey wrench into everything that they've always believed about themselves. Unable to deal with this challenge to their reality, they have descended into a state of cognitive dissonance that has turned their brains to mush and voila, grits-brain.

The woman in this video is a perfect specimen of the grits-brain group.