the progressive perspective
It will take many voices to bring about change in the gender-biased way the Fargo Public Schools dress code is applied and enforced. Please consider lending yours.
I believe dress-code enforcement in Fargo Public Schools is gender biased (see “The Alleged “Distractees” – Not Our Daughters & Sisters – Must Change“), and that the body shaming that comes with it is detrimental to my daughters, and their sisters as well as yours.
After many years of frustration, I decided to do something about it.
Each year, Fargo Public Schools (FPS) officials tell our daughters – sometimes explicitly, often implicitly – they will be a “distraction” to other students and teachers if they wear spaghetti-strap tops that are “too revealing,” pants that are “too tight” or skirts that are “too short.”
Each year, Fargo Public Schools (FPS) officials tell our daughters and their sisters – sometimes explicitly, often implicitly – they will be a “distraction” to other students and teachers if they wear spaghetti-strap tops that are “too revealing,” pants that are “too tight” or skirts that are “too short.”
The “too” statements are in quotation marks because they’re descriptors with relative meanings. “Too” whatever depends on who is passing judgment.
If girls wear any of these, or other undefined pieces of clothing, they “get coded.” Continue reading “The Alleged “Distractees” – Not Our Daughters and Sisters – Must Change”
I’m proud to announce “About Faces,” a new community project featuring images and stories of people who illustrate – we hope – the extraordinary in our ordinary, work-a-day lives.
Continue reading “FM Community Project Highlights “Extraordinary Ordinary” People”
This one’s for you, Brah…
In the fall of 2016 my daughter played volleyball for Fargo South. As often happens among road warriors who follow their kids all over state to watch them play, I became friends with another parent.
Dave’s a great guy, always friendly and quick to smile. We sat next to each other for home stands, took turns driving to out-of-town matches and ate way too many Subway sandwiches together.
What if it had gone down like this, instead?
“Three Somali-American women were recorded Tuesday, July 25, threatening a lone white woman in the Walmart parking lot on 13th Avenue South in Fargo because she parked too close to their car….
What if it had gone down like this, instead?
“Three Somali-American women were recorded Tuesday, July 25, threatening a lone white woman in the Walmart parking lot on 13th Avenue South in Fargo because she parked too close to their car.
“‘We’re gonna kill all of ya,’ one of the three Somali-Americans said to the woman, who recorded the encounter with her mobile phone from inside her car. ‘We’re gonna kill every one of you (expletive) Christians.’
No matter how you slice it, surgery is no fun. More to the point, it’s no fun no matter how they need to slice you.
Painful stuff. Recovery is no walk in the park, either. After nearly eight days in recovery at Sanford, I can say this with certainty.
I also can say the people who took care of me are diamonds, immigrants from across the United States and the world, each with a dazzling smile worth a million bucks.
Continue reading “INVALUABLE: That’s the Real Answer, Mr. Commissioner”
Snow is a given in the upper Midwest. We deal with it. Winter here brings one of the most satisfying opportunities to be a good neighbor. I learned it from my dad, and now I try to pass it – Why not go just 10 yards more?
There’s nothing like opening your garage door in the morning after a snowfall and seeing that your neighbors have already removed the snow from the sidewalks between their property line and your driveway. It’s a warm, friendly feeling.
