What Fresno sups get wrong
“Fresno-area superintendents urge students to end anti-ICE walkouts, stay in school,” (fresnobee.com, Feb. 10)
Thousands of parents received an open letter co-signed by Fresno County Superintendents addressing recent student walkouts in response to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement activity. The letter emphasizes that while students are entitled to free speech and expression, they should exercise these rights in ways deemed appropriate by the school system. The language is couched in safety and academic success.
The superintendents are wrong. The point of protest is to be heard, and activists themselves determine that. A glaring silence in the superintendents’ letter is the egregious ICE activity precipitating student walkouts — there’s not a word about families and communities being torn apart.
The purpose of civil disobedience is to challenge systems that are unjust, when ordinary channels have failed. Fresno County’s students seem to recognize that we make the road by walking — or, in this case, by walking out.
Dave Low
Fresno
Fear is justified
“Fresno supervisor: ICE is not a danger to our community,” (fresnobee.com, Jan. 6)
People are seeing masked, nameless federal agents armed for the battlefield, tear-gassing, pepper-spraying and shooting to death unarmed, fleeing protestors who are exercising their First Amendment rights. The deployment of troops on U.S. soil is scary. It invites protest.
It demands diligent, judicious use of force and the ultimate level of accountability.
Chris Reynolds
Sacramento
Truly heinous acts
“Fresno supervisor: ICE is not a danger to our community,” (fresnobee.com, Jan. 6)
Targeting cities, raiding Home Depots, construction sites, courthouses, churches and school drop-off zones is indefensible. The separation of families, inhumane detention camps and the fatal shootings of American civilians by government agents are heinous acts.
Bruce K. Morse
Sacramento
Inappropriate display
“Clovis will display ‘In God We Trust’ in council chamber with private funding,” (fresnobee.com, Feb. 11)
I am disappointed that the Clovis City Council decided to follow Fresno and other cities in adopting and displaying the motto “In God We Trust.”
As a retired teacher at a diverse Clovis Unified high school and former advisor for an interfaith club, displaying this motto in council chambers risks establishing a watered-down “civil religion.” It effectively makes God into a tool for society and government — potentially at the expense of agnostic or atheist citizens.
Kimbrough Leslie
Clovis