Tag Archives: Chicago Tribune Editorial Board

The Chicago Tribune Editorial Board called me an “Extremist Educator”: Time to Teach

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Brrriiinnnggg  (school bell ringing), class is in session. 

Good morning everyone, my name is Mr. Stieber (sounds like Bieber) and I will be your teacher today. 

Across the country attacks on free speech continue. After Charlie Kirk was murdered, I watched for two days and observed. I saw HBCU’s go on lockdown due to racist threats made against Black students. I saw how MAGA blamed liberals, and blamed the LGBTQIA+ community all falsely for Charlie Kirk’s death. I saw how groups like Libs of Tik Tok, Corey DeAngelis, and Laura Loomer targeted educators who said anything critical about Charlie Kirk. I watched and observed as this unfolded, then, I decided to speak up. I spoke up because my mom, a former educator, and the people who I have always admired throughout history, would want me to speak up. I spoke up as an educator, as a parent and in this case most importantly as a white male. I posted on social media that “America is founded on violence, no one should be killed, Charlie Kirk said horrible things about people and that White cis males are the biggest threat to our country.” I didn’t say this in school. I said this at home and posted it online. 

The part that really triggered the Chicago Tribune Editorial Board was, “White cis males are the biggest threat to our country”, they even pulled this quote for their article. As a white cis male myself who also studies and teaches history, I know it is people who look like me, White males, who have colonized, enslaved, Manifest Destined, Trail of Teared, Louisiana Purchased, Westward Expanded, Guadeloupe Hidalgo’ed, Chinese Excluded, Jim Crowed, Segregated, Interment Camped, Red Lined and Gentrified nearly every group of people in our country’s history. 

This white male violence isn’t past tense. I see how too many white males have responded on the police force through police brutality. I see how political violence is white male associated, how school shooters are overwhelmingly white males. It is so clear that the Trump administration ordered the DOJ to remove studies confirming this.

Now the Tribune Editorial Board instead of, you know, paying attention to history, has decided to use their anonymity to write a hit piece implying that I and other educators cannot separate our personal time from our professional time.  They suggest that if educators have political opinions that we can’t be a fair and impartial teachers. They even made a heap of false assumptions about what my classroom is like.

Okay Trib. Board, you called me an extremist, so I will do what a good teacher does and break this down for you. I’m “extremist” because for the last 19 years of my career I’ve worked to use my privilege and writings to speak up about school closings, lack of funding for our schools, police violence, losing students, housing students, and ways to improve our city for all. Extremist.

I’ve worked hard to get my master’s degree in urban education policy and to become a National Board Certified history teacher, which is the highest credential a teacher can achieve. Extremist. 

I give students a space to process, talk through and debate history. Extremist.

I’ve helped kids gain their voice through poetry. I’ve helped students feel safe and seen while helping them achieve their goals of college and life success. Extremist.

Honestly, this isn’t about me and no credential or story of student success matters because it goes against the narrative, because this attack has a goal to silence educators. You see throughout history during times of authoritarianism, educators are always attacked early, scared into silence, fired, and threatened into submission.  Why are they so concerned with us?  

Teaching is an incredibly personal profession. We work to get to know the students to make them feel safe and seen, so we can challenge them to learn more. So when we are threatened our entire identities are attacked, not just our profession. 

Spoiler – educators don’t live at school (like many of us thought when we were younger). We are people outside of school. We are part of the community, we are parents, we are members of congregations, and neighborhood clubs. We are respected by those who know us. As educators, we see how the world treats our students. We know that we aren’t just teaching our students in the classroom, we are teaching society about our students and their needs. We are morally compelled to advocate for our students while they are in our classroom,and as they grow into adult members of our society. 

Educators love our students which is why we will fight like hell to keep them safe from ICE, the National Guard, or any other threat that comes their way. We may be full of bad jokes, grey hair, and bald heads, but we are also full of a strong desire to keep kids safe, educated and protected so that we will put ourselves on the line for them.

Charlie Kirk had a list of educators and professors he wanted fired because they used their free speech to critique society and government. Many of these educators experienced threats from his followers.

Did the Tribune Editorial Board speak about this? No.

Did the Tribune Editorial Board write about how HBCU’s were being threatened or the terrible things Charlie Kirk said about Black people?

No.

Did the Tribune Editorial Board write about how Stephen Miller recited and essentially plagiarized a speech by the Nazi Joseph Goebbell at the Charlie Kirk memorial?

No.

In the last few weeks I was attacked by the followers of Libs of Tik Tok, The Morning Answer, and Corey DeAngelis. People were calling for me to be fired, when Alder Ray Lopez called for me to be fired, when people were searching for where I lived online, when people were calling my school and harassing our school clerks, when people said horrible things about my partner and children. Did the Tribune Editorial Board say anything about that? 

No, quite the opposite.  They encouraged those flames, doubling down on the attacks and labelling ME the extremist.  

The Tribune Editorial Board has the chance to use their power to explain what extremism really is and how dangerous it is. However, they want to attempt to make false equivalencies between actual white supremacist extremists and me, because I dared say white males are the biggest danger to our country. 

Thankfully, this educator and educators across this country will not be bullied into silence.

We will not be silent as our students, their families, our families and our own children’s classmates are threatened. 

We will speak up! And if that makes us extremist, then call me extremist number one, for fighting for our students. We will speak up and fight to protect our students and their families from being kidnapped by masked ICE agents, from being gunned down in the classroom, to having housing, so they are allowed to have a different opinion than the President. 

Karen Lewis through the Chicago Teachers Union taught me how to fight and Stacy Davis Gates continues to show me that fighting for our students, families and city is what truly makes an educator. Teach in the classroom for our students and fight like hell outside of it, to make this word better for them. If this is “extremist”, then an extremist educator is what I aspire to be. I want to be an extremist educator like Ida. B Wells, Mary McLeod Bethune, Audre Lourde, Howard Zinn, Fred Hampton and Sal Castro.

We are at the point in history right now where we can either be silent while bad things happen around us or speak up and advocate for change. If you speak up you will be attacked, but I know how I want my kids and grandkids to remember me one day, and it is not as a punk.

Instead of looking at what I’m saying and reflecting about the history of our country and our insane levels of violence, past and present, far too many white men are getting really, really white man enraged and angry that I, a fellow white man, dare say we have a problem. 

Extra credit before you go: Which Editorial Board wished for a hurricane like Katrina to wipe out Black Chicago, you guessed it!  This one! 

Thanks class for a great day, see you tomorrow!

The Education of Tribune Editorial Board Member Kristen McQueary

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Chicago Tribune Editorial Board Member, Kristen McQueary is back at again. Remember this past August, when she wrote a piece titled “In Chicago, wishing for a Hurricane Katrina”? She didn’t realize how terribly offensive and racist her piece was. (The Tribune apparently realized that, as they went back and changed her piece, including the title, which is why I provided an original PDF of the article.) Many people throughout the city expressed their outrage and actually tried to educate Ms. McQueary, as to why her piece was offensive. I wrote a piece titled why “Why Wishing for a Hurricane Katrina is the Equivalent of Putting on a Klan Hood” to help her understand. Now 7 months later, it seems the education the residents of Chicago tried to provide is not sinking in. Because she is back at it again with her piece, “Anti-Police Screed Goes Unchecked by CTU, Karen Lewis”. I tried to contact her, but Ms. McQueary, @StateHouseChick has blocked me on Twitter, and apparently does not like to be taught about her privilege and offensive comments.

So let us begin again, in the education of Tribune Editorial Board Member Kristen McQueary.

I pulled a few of her many quotes (I could’ve pulled many more) in her new piece, which most shows her need for an education. I will now direct the rest of this piece directly to you Kristen McQueary.

“Instead of focusing on improving education for Chicago kids, the union is the city’s latest command post for angst.”

Did you really just say that? You are saying Chicago’s teachers need to focus on improving education for the kids? Um, hello? Why do you think we were out in the streets on April 1st? We were trying to bring attention to the deplorable budget cuts that impact every student, parent, and person who works in schools in this city. Teachers are on the front lines daily. While you are downtown in your ivory tower. Many of us educators work and live in the communities that you hoped a hurricane would wipe out. When someone is shot in this city, who do you think is forced to counsel students and discuss their fears? Educators. Far too many counselors, social workers, and psychologists have been cut from the never ending budget cuts. So we educators have to help our students express their fears and pain. When Rahm closed 50 schools in 2013, we had to teach our students that they are not failures, just because CPS called their grammar schools failing and closed them. Every bad thing that happens in this city, we have to talk to our students about. So to state plainly or even imply for a second that teachers need to focus on improving education for our students, is one of the most offensive not to mention uneducated things you can say to or about educators.

“Chicago cops have been the target of some of that angst since November when the release of a video showing a white cop shooting a black teenager ignited protests over lack of accountability within the Chicago Police Department.”

Yes, as CPD should be. Chicago police killed Laquan McDonald by shooting him 16 times and then you know what happened to Officer Jason Van Dyke who shot Laquan? Jail? Nope, he got a job with the Fraternal Order of Police.  CPD operated a secret detention site in Homan Square where they would illegally detain and interrogate primarily Black citizens for years. The Guardian did a huge expose on it, in case you missed it. Dante Servin shot and killed unarmed Rekia Boyd in 2012, he was found not guilty and still has a job with CPD. Police officers instead of speaking up and out about the terrible things that have happened are staying quiet and covering up the abuses and murders by police. There is a lot of research out right now, as to the racist past and present of the Chicago Police. Read this report that just came out that says, “Chicago Police have no regards for the lives of minorities”.

Now Ms. McQueary, ask yourself this? Who do you think works with the people who are targeted by the police on a daily basis? That’s right, it is us, educators. We hear stories daily in our classrooms of police abuses against our students. As one of my favorite Chicago teacher’s Xian Barrett said to me, “There’s no way to create a safe, sharing classroom in CPS and NOT hear students’ fear and/or awful experiences with Chicago Police.”

Kristen, I honestly understand your struggle of not believing that police do terrible things to Black youth. Kristen like you I, I am white, and like you, because we are white we have the privilege of not having many negative interactions with the police. But all you need to do is listen to Black youth about their grievances with the police (well first you might want to try to not be racist, because otherwise no one will feel comfortable enough to even want to talk to you).

Kristen, I wrote a piece last week that explained how Black Lives Matter is educating Chicago’s teachers. Many teachers at first did not feel like the timing was right for Page’s comments, but then many of us, I know I did, really had to reflect on her comments.

As a Social Studies teacher I had to remember that even Dr. King was told that he was moving too fast, his ideas were not timed right, and to just wait. When he was locked in a Birmingham jail, a group of white religious leaders wrote a newspaper op-ed about asking him and the Civil Rights Movement to slow down. King’s response turned out to be one of the most important documents during the Civil Rights Movement, “Letters from a Birmingham Jail”.  Kristen you know how we white people love to quote King, but the idea of a movement like Black Lives Matter, Civil Rights, Women’s Rights or any other movement is to push thinking and force change. That is what Page’s comments at the rally are doing.

As you end your piece Kristen, you say, “The double standard is palpable”. I couldn’t agree with that last sentence more, for you, the double standard is palpable. You sit up in your Tribune ivory tower and write about things that you know nothing about, like education and how tragic events like a Hurricane would be good for Chicago.

But even worse, you write about things that you apparently have no desire to even learn about. That is the issue. You are just too comfortable. You refuse to challenge yourself and learn about your privilege. That is why people call you racist.

You have two choices, continue to be the fragile white person that is shocked when someone categorizes you as racist OR (this is the better option) you can really try to educate yourself. As I mentioned in my response to your Wishing for a Katrina piece in August, I suggested a starting point for you would be the Invisible Knapsack by Peggy McIntosh, which details and explains white privilege and how it benefits all white people all the time.  Read books by Lisa Delpit, Theresa Perry, Beverly Daniel-Tatum, Howard Zinn, Bell Hooks, Ta-Nehisi Coates and many more authors. Even better, actually listen and hear the messages of the Black Lives Matter movement — or in your case, any black person who would take the time to try to educate you.

As a white person to another white person, your whiteness is holding your writing back. You need to not ask why the CTU didn’t rebuke the “F*ck the Police” comment, instead you need to ask why that comment was said. Interview Page, or someone from the Black Youth Project 100. Educate yourself Kristen. Because your current lack of education is damaging your career as well as this city.