Pippi Just Called Us Racists

While S.C. Sen. Robert Ford has made it quite clear that he is “not pussyfooting” around in his support of parental choice, the inevitable attack piece from the crumbling media empire over at La Socialista (a.k.a. The State newspaper) is still into pussyfooting.

In fact, it pussyfoots pretty close to calling everybody involved in the parental choice movement racists in a column that appeared yesterday.

Sort of like the paper’s new editorial page editor Pippi Wrongstockings once called all of us “cancers.”

Anyway, from Pippi’s latest anti-parent rant:

” … his legislation doesn’t help poor kids because the people who are bankrolling the defund-the-public-schools campaign don’t want to help poor kids.”

Really?

Then why on earth does Ford’s bill create a tax credit for individuals and companies that are willing to invest in scholarships for low-income parents?

Seriously, how does that not explicity help poor children – who, incidentally, are being failed by the tens of thousands each year in our current system?

Pippi’s assault also refers to all school choice supporters – well, other than Sen. Ford, obviously – as “suburban Republicans.”

We resent that.

We don’t live in the suburbs. And we’re not Republicans. We’re fiscal conservative social libertarians.

We’re also products of South Carolina’s public schools (ten out of twelve years, anyway).

And unlike Cindi – who assumes a black leader can’t think for himself on this issue – we don’t have a racist bone in our bodies.

We are every bit as invested in the future of a poor, black student from Williamsburg County as we are a poor, white student from Pickens County. Or for that matter a middle class kid in Richland County whose parents are “suburban Republicans,” but who realize that even our best schools are falling further behind the rest of the country.

Why do we not differentiate between these children? Because they all represent our state’s future.

And when one fails, we all fail – and taxpayers have to spend millions cleaning up the mess.

So c’mon Pippi.

Come right out and say it.

Stop playing.

Stop “pussyfooting.”

Stop pretending to be above the “race issue” while you gingerly slap a big ole fat race card down on the table and basically say that we don’t give a damn about poor black kids.

And stop trying to have it both ways – stop saying that parental choice is bad because nobody will benefit from it but then preaching fiscal armageddon for public schools because you say that so many people will benefit from it.

How does that logic work, exactly?

Seriously, put your big government crack pipe down for a minute and stop defending a system that is already conclusively failing our state’s children – something you don’t need elaborate right-wing conspiracy theories to prove.

Here’s the straight dope – the only racists in this debate are the people who have relegated these poor kids to failure for decades now.

Not the people trying to give them a way out of the hole.