Totalitarians, t-shirts, and tirades, oh my!

You might not expect a homeschooling Facebook group to be a hot spot of political controversy, especially one which is comprised of classical Christian educators. After all, these are moms and dads who are supposed to stand for truth, no matter the consequences. Parents who are trying to model godly behavior to their children. Home-educators who teach and value the Trivium: grammar, logic, and rhetoric.

Honestly, it’s actually not that rare to find homeschooling parents hashing it out. I mean, homeschooling itself is contentious in some circles, much less its many different styles and flavors. Even on the closed social-media group for Classical Conversations – a supplemental homeschool program whose motto is “To know God and to make Him known” – one must expect disagreement and diversity of thought.

After all, CC has communities (local co-ops) in all 50 states, as well as in more than 20 countries worldwide. So, just what was it about a benign t-shirt that caused such an online brouhaha a while back? It’s a little inside baseball, so let me explain.

CC’s curriculum features a timeline from Creation to modern times. There’s a 13-minute song which parents and students memorize every “school year,” ultimately giving them quick and easy access to 168 key points and people throughout human history.

About halfway through the timeline comes “Songhai in Africa,” which many young kids mistakenly think says “Some guy in Africa.” It’s a longtime joke for those of us who’ve done CC for years.

Our finding humor in childhood innocence is taking nothing away from the once-powerful Western African empire, located in present-day Niger. It’s no slight at their accomplishments, flourishing gold trade, profitable commerce, independence from Mali conquerors in the 14th century, or eventual expansion over the kingdoms of Mali and Ghana in the 15th century.

It’s just an elementary goof that we lighthearted moms see as cute and funny. It’s also part of the “conversations” which CC fosters. When your kid gets something wrong, that’s your opportunity as an educator to explain that “It doesn’t say ‘some guy,’ silly! It’s Songhai. Let me tell you what I know about them, and then we can find out some more about this old empire together.” It’s the dialectic stage.

Yet, it triggered some tightly wound parents into a tailspin. “The shirt is super offensive and I’m bummed to see so many people who are laughing it off,” complained one mom.

Some called it “insensitive” and “offensive,” while others said it was representative of “white privilege,” and a few actually pegged it as “racist.” It was a totalitarian tirade. How dare you joke about Africans? You know they’re black people, right?

Seriously, grrrrrls. Get a grip. Next thing you know, some self-sainted virtue-signalers will inform us that we white folks won’t even be able to even utter the word “Africa,” much less discuss its history and modern-day politics.

In an effort to counter the inanity of these left-leaning, perpetual-panties-in-a-wad Christian homeschooling moms, I reached out to the t-shirt designers at Pepper and Persephone – a small online business which sells Christian and CC-themed original merchandise. Here’s what I wrote:

“Dear ladies, I heard what happened to you all on a CC thread regarding the “Some guy in Africa” shirt. Please, please, please do not cave to the ultra-sensitive, always-offended, ever-uptight moms who don’t know how to laugh and apparently have consumed waaaaaaaay too much PC Kool-Aid. As a 7-year CC mom, Essentials tutor, and educator to three memory-master sons, I can tell you that that shirt was spot on! So simple. So inside baseball. So quirky. Soooo cute! It would surely be a big hit at our community and beyond, if you would simply not bend to the speech police. Self-censorship only emboldens their ceaseless meddling.”

“Won’t you please reconsider marketing this creative tee, which I think could be a win for y’all monetarily and win for freedom of expression, common sense, and good ol’ humor in the process? I promise to buy 3 myself if you take this stand against the patronizing nonsense constantly being dished out by the self-proclaimed keepers of ‘acceptable opinion’ and will also promote the product on my blog and through our CC community FB page. What say you two creative mamas? Up for some fun?!”

They kindly replied: “Thank you for reaching out and your kind comments about our design. We are currently talking through what to do with our design and what would be the best way to move forward. Thankfully the concerns raised have mostly been kind and thoughtful and we are thankful for the opportunity to have open and logical conversations about hard topics. We’ll let you know as soon as we have a final decision.”

Okay, fair enough, but I’m unsure as to why this was such a hard topic. It doesn’t have to be. Someone being needlessly offended and your choosing to ignore their lunacy is pretty easy, in my opinion. Repelling social-justice claptrap and the ever-changing rules of cultural Marxism, and upholding truth should be obvious, not super-complicated.

In P&P’s final response, they said: “We took a few days, talked it through, and did our due diligence to understand the concerns before we made a decision and we decided that it is best to put our creative efforts towards other designs at this time. Thank you for your enthusiasm, concern and understanding as we have tried to navigate this in way we thought best and in a way that promotes truth, goodness, and beauty.”

Of course these seemingly nice women have a right to run their venture as they see fit. As a consumer, a free-speech advocate, a lifelong learner, a home-educator, a champion of the classical method, a proponent of ceaseless inquiry, and most importantly, a Christian, I too have a right to speak my mind and hold businesses to account. To hold their feet to the fire when they acquiesce to the aggrieved-minority sham.

Here’s another t-shirt, one I bought at a CC practicum back in 2014 (pardon the stains). It encompasses the high bar which CC places upon writing and speaking clearly. The art of effective communication, persuasion, and civil debate.

So when people use fabricated, deceitful, and conversation-killing ad hominems to censor, that’s a serious problem. And giving in to the patronizing PC bullies only satiates their selfish do-gooder desires and tightens the noose on public discourse. Control rhetoric, control people.

They’re not interested in altruism, no matter how much they quote Matthew 18. They simply seek to advertise their faux virtue and carve out for themselves a safe space in this corrupt world. It has nothing to do with Christian unity; it’s all about secular conformity. Reacting to the flesh, rather than submitting to the Holy Spirit.

You may have had your own “Some guy in Africa” experience. Some seemingly minor infraction you just want to ignore or bend to because it would be easier.

But you know deep down that it feeds into the same malevolent endeavors of those who want to ban Huckleberry Finn from suggestive children’s reading lists, rename the Laura Ingalls Wilder Book Award, change Confederate-hero named schools, buildings, and streets, and add PC “context” to historic monuments. You know it’s caving to the world, but you just don’t want the hassle.

You grasp that it furthers the nihilistic goals of the progressives, drip by drip, outrage by outrage, capitulation by capitulation. That it’s the boiling-frog fable unfolding in real time. It slowly but surely envelops your life.

So, I get why P&P made the decision they did. Simply being called a racist these days can get you fired from a job, kicked out of your church, and cast to the periphery of “polite society.”

And perhaps they thought shelving the shirt was the loving thing to do. But bold Christians touting the Trivium are the very people who should be repelling PC, not participating in it, even if by default.

If we can’t defend a silly and humorous t-shirt, how are we to stand against the other more sinister manifestations of political correctness, like gender fluidity, critical race theory, democratic socialism, the attack on the nuclear family, the “coexist” equating of all religions, the normalization of pedophilia, the celebration of perpetual warfare, etc.

Is our armor of God really that loose? Can it really not repel the onslaught of totalitarian thugs?

Leftists wouldn’t be allowed to shame tradition, diminish civility, unravel our culture, destroy freedom of conscience, and disregard human nature if we normal, nice people didn’t let them get away with it. Stop making concessions.

The t-shirt controversy is simply indicative of the greater culture war, which common-sense folks are losing. So stop being so nice, y’all.

Carrying the cross isn’t supposed to be easy, and it certainly won’t make you popular or fashionable. Speaking truth is love, no matter what the evangeleftists claim. Ignore the mockers and pick up that cross.

Interesting that the P&P ladies mentioned “Truth, beauty, and goodness” and also sell gear featuring that specific expression. It’s a powerful one known as the transcendentals and has roots back to ancient Greek philosophy.

But these words are also vital doctrines within Christian theology, as they’re considered objective properties of God’s splendor and are used by man to glorify Him. Each is a divine absolute, contingent upon the other. The depths of our human passions that should all be offered up to God.

In “The Abolition of Man,” C.S. Lewis refers to the over-sentimentality of culture. Simply put, we cannot properly educate without the transcendentals. Not that people should trivialize emotions, but we must “inculcate just sentiments” as a “right defense against false sentiments.” Without these absolutes, consequences can be dire.

This is from where “We can do better and be better mamas” spawns. This anti-t-shirt parent commented with these careful words to convince people into conformity.

But I say we take her words and utilize them to lead by lionhearted and uncompromising example to our sons and daughters that speaking the truth is vital. That it is a balm to the madness. That resisting progressivism is not futile. That sticking up for dissenters will build solidarity. That embracing rhetoric can be revolutionary, but only if we’re only willing to expose the man behind the curtain.

As Psalm 3 says, “I will not fear, though tens of thousands assail me on every side … because the Lord sustains me.” Let’s raise children with chests. Fruitful and functioning Christians, who stand with vim and vigor for authentic virtue and against the wickedness of this world.

Sometimes I feel like I’m living in Oz. It’s an inverted land in which up is down, and left is right, and wrong is right.

But if we are ever to make it back home – to a dwelling where our desires conform to truth and our souls to reality, to a truly good place where we can still laugh and peacefully endure discord while fighting for harmony – we need to stop political correctness dead in its tracks. Oh my, what beauty to behold.

Note: Thanks to my friends at Libertopia for letting me use the on-point Chicken Little image.