Michele Morrow is the Wrong Choice for NC Public Schools
Sept 30, 2024 , The Times News posted my letter to the editor, and for the record, that I wrote, though they supplied the unsavory title, “Morrow would be disaster in state office.”
To the editor:
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Michele Morrow is running for state superintendent of public instruction and wants to oversee the education of 1.3 million children yet refuses accountability for her calls for insurrection, “death to all traitors” and pay-per-view public executions of her political enemies. She tears down North Carolina public schools and mischaracterizes teachers and students as indoctrinators, groomers and criminals who must be surveilled, subdued, and removed. She threatens to refuse education to immigrant children. She is loyal to the plan that would create a “credentialing body to certify teachers who embrace patriotic values” that mimics oppressive regimes where “death to traitors” actually happens. And all in the name of God. There is a counterfeit version of Christianity that relies on power and conquest rather than service and love. The night before the Lord Jesus’ crucifixion he said, “Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another,” and by loving one another “everyone will know that you are my disciples.” This love blesses, it is courageous, meek and good. A christo-patriot who regularly calls for violence on one another is not doing God’s work. God bless America is a prayer, not a pass. We can acknowledge failure and where reform must take place. We can respond to bad actors in the system, and we can acknowledge where change must happen. But we cannot excuse violence and chaos as a means of repair. Ms. Morrow lacks the temperament, character, resolve to represent all North Carolina K-12 students, and respect of the office of N.C. Department of Public Instruction superintendent.
Why did I write this?
Because there are many like Michele who openly practice bigotry, racism and nativism while claiming the name of Christ and because Michele is a public figure who craves power over a system she clearly despises, and that will harm marginalized students and their families.
I am convinced our witness as Christians hinge on these very issues and I believe it’s time to speak out against christian nationalist bullies who mischaracterize the ways and words of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Onward and upward!
