Bee readers react to Destiny Church story, Prop. 28, Biden’s support of Latino community
Arts funding
“California Prop. 28 would dedicate funds for arts education. Here’s our recommendation,” (sacbee.com, Sept. 29)
The McClatchy California editorial boards’ thoughtful endorsement of Proposition 28 recognizes that it is essential to ensure that all students have equitable access to arts education. Just 20% of schoolchildren in California receive comprehensive arts education. We need to do better.
The social-emotional and academic benefits of public arts education speak for themselves.
Arts education has to be an essential part of public education. Our public
education system is fostering unequal access to the arts for too many students without
resources. We all need to work purposefully and passionately toward building sustained, fair access to arts education for all students.
Allison Cagley and Gerry Kamilos
Executive director and president, Friends of Sacramento Arts
FDR’s legacy
“Ken Burns Holocaust documentary explores U.S. responsibility,” (sacbee.com, Sept. 26)
Melinda Henneberger notes that because of “antisemitism and immigrant fever” in the U.S. after World War I, “new immigration quotas” were established that “made no exception for refugees.” True — but that didn’t mean President Franklin D. Roosevelt was helpless to admit Jews fleeing from the Nazis.
The quota for immigrants from Germany was filled in only one of Roosevelt’s 12 years as president. In most of those years, it was less than 25% filled. More than 190,000 quota places that could have saved lives were never used. The Roosevelt administration suppressed Jewish refugee immigration far below what the law permitted by piling on extra requirements to discourage and disqualify visa applicants.
The president who presented himself as a champion of “the forgotten man” chose to turn away from one of history’s most compelling moral challenges.
Rafael Medoff
Director, David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies
Defense of Biden
“Bee readers react to Rocklin race, Measure A, Hurricane Ian,” (sacbee.com, Oct. 2)
Jill Biden is not Joe Biden. Jill has no position in her husband’s administration. Further, she never compared us all to “breakfast tacos” — a scurrilous and sloppy misreading of a silly gaffe, designed to inflame the easily misled.
Our president has always been 100% by the side of America’s Hispanic community and has supported our efforts and struggles for equal rights and dignity — most notably and recently when he bucked Gov. Gavin Newsom to strongly push for the signing of the farmworker unionization bill. The implication that Biden’s lack of sincerity seeks to deliberately divide us at a time when neo-fascist interests rise only serves to incite fear.
Aaron Marquez
Sacramento
Empty gesture
“Sacramento nighttime manager aims to make city safer,” (sacbee.com, Oct. 4)
The job description for Sacramento’s “night time economy manager” might contain this requirement: Create a safe environment for downtown visitors because the city is unable to do so. The article doesn’t say what process leaders undertook to add or fund this position but states that an “exact plan is still in the works, long on vision, but short on specific details,” which might serve as the city’s motto these days.
The mayor is quoted as saying that “part of the job might be changing perceptions.” An analysis of the noise ordinance and approval processes for nighttime businesses will also be undertaken, but as the new manager noted, “if you move next to a club, you’ve moved next to a club.” The real goal is to “expand revenue,” with little mention of a plan to address the real problems: crime and violence.
Translation: We don’t know what we’re doing but hope this myopic gesture helps.
Bill Motmans
Sacramento
Schools for all
“Rocklin’s Destiny Church advances religion’s role in politics,” (sacbee.com, Oct. 2)
When activists push to inject religion into public education, it raises important questions.
Public schools belong to all of us. Will the activists working to add Christian perspectives to public education in Placer County give equal weight to the perspectives of Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists and atheists? In light of Destiny Church’s condemnation of the LGBTQ community, will these activists commit to supporting and protecting LGBTQ students?
Parents who wish to educate their children with Christian values have every right to send their children to private school. When that is no longer good enough, and Christian activists like Tanner DiBella urge their followers to vote in school board elections “for things that are biblical,” the rest of us have a right to be suspicious.
Let’s hope Placer County voters get it.
Allan Hirsch
Rocklin
Fascism in Placer
“Rocklin’s Destiny Church advances religion’s role in politics,” (sacbee.com, Oct. 2)
Once I got beyond Pastor Greg Fairrington’s stunning claim that he doesn’t see things as “political” but rather as “biblical” — which should trouble anyone who treasures our constitutional freedom of and from religion — I started to see the rank hypocrisy. If he doesn’t see things as political, why associate with the American Council, which has a political action committee pushing extremist school board candidates and dipping their toes into book bans in Rocklin.
Why did the Placer County registrar hold poll worker training at his church site? Why did he use his Fourth of July “Celebrate America” events to make political statements?
Even more troubling is Tanner DiBella’s statement that our government is promoting evil while restraining good and that it is the church’s responsibility to “take that over” and impose its biblical worldview.
It’s been said that American fascism will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.
Barbara Smith
Auburn