RantFest 2022

What’s Wrong With Universal Love?

Apparently Everything

This is in response to a prompt by KP_the_writer’s call for a rant. While I could add my anger to the flaming cauldron of collective outrage over the elimination of abortion rights and trans rights (a.k.a. human rights), I chose to dedicate my keystrokes to a lesser matter, an incident which is a microcosm of what is wrong with our society. But rest assured my heart and mind are (mostly) focused on the larger injustices in our world.

This outrage takes place in a public middle school in a rich suburb of Milwaukee, Wisconsin (read “idyllic enclave populated predominantly by white overprivileged pricks”).

This picture is of a mural that was created by the Student Acceptance team, a gay-straight alliance for students at the public middle school (6th — 8th grade). The Student Acceptance team was formed by a group of kids wanting to support a fellow student who was emerging as non-binary and a couple of other students who were also queer. This was an extra-curricular organization under the direction of a teacher with the blessing of the school administration. So far nothing out of the ordinary in today’s world.

With regard to the mural, the students simply wanted to show support for all marginalized people, including people of color and people of different ethnicities (both very rare in the school). Most would consider this a worthy use of a blank wall in one of the corridors. (I think it is beautiful on so many levels ❤️)

The students spent a long time on the endeavor. Planning took months, with multiple vettings and compromises with the school principal and the district superintendent (among others). The significance of the stripes on the planets was openly discussed, and the mural was ultimately approved by school administration. The painting also took a couple of months, as the mural was several feet in diameter. A lot of work accomplished by a dozen or so 13–14 yr old students.

Ordinarily that would be the end of the story. A colorful display of “Love is Universal” that would occupy a portion of a hallway wall for years to come. Outside of the students and teachers, few would even know the artwork was there.

But not in this godforsaken town. All it took is a group of uptight pricks who parade as parents to walk down the corridor. Rich parents. Parents who voted for trump and still fuel that sonofabitch. Parents who immediately threatened the school board with lawsuits unless the vile artwork was destroyed, lest it threaten their precarious stranglehold on the world. In their eyes, the mural was akin to the school actively converting their children to an unholy lifestyle, promoting lustful things that will compromise their children’s ability to enter the heavenly kingdom. Standard bullshit ordinarily flung in legislatures throughout red states.

You are probably thinking that the school board were spineless weaklings incapable of standing up for what they believe in. And on that case you would be sorely wrong. These turds (a majority of the school board) were just as aghast in the audacity that their school administrators would not only allow, but encourage such heathen activity. Love is Universal? Why that is essentially instructing the children that they should have sex with everyone, right? Fear of kids identifying as attack helicopters and the usual trope. What happened to morals? What happened to good god-fearing straight Lutheran and Catholic children? What kind of devil’s cult have they been overseeing? (excuse me a sec while I vomit)

The school board decided, behind closed doors, that the wretched mess of paint was the devil incarnate, an abomination that must be destroyed immediately. Within an hour of the closed-door session, custodians, wielding virgin white paint, erased the sins of their children, who hopefully were not irreparably harmed from seeing such filth on the school wall. Not to deter from the city’s pristine image in the media, the school board’s official justification was that the mural was illegally put up, since the students did not obtain official school board permission (a consent process which no one in the administration had ever heard of before and the school board could not produce evidence of), legally making it nothing more than vandalism. A most unoriginal and transparent excuse for bigotry and hatred.

The students began the school year soon thereafter to see their work erased. Literally whitewashed. Adolescent children in that tender age of puberty and self-realization had the proverbial door slammed in their face by immature and insecure dolts masquerading as adults and ‘authority figures’. The children that may be queer knew instantly that they were not wanted, respected, nor loved by the school, or by the parents of many of their fellow students. The message is clear — “stay in the closet until you can leave this shitty town” — a stern lesson about the real-world.

Let me be clear: It is abhorrent to destroy art. It is even more repugnant to destroy art created by children. And to destroy art created by children that conveys a message of universal love is unfathomable. Mic drop.

Thankfully the destruction of the painting was met with immediate outcry from the community. An outpouring of love was realized. The school board excrements were pummeled with harsh national media attention, creating a PR nightmare. Donors came forth in droves and gave money for the students to recreate their mural, and art centers welcomed them with open arms, providing them space for future events and even establishing an inclusivity festival. Yard signs and other items were printed with the mural image and sold for donations (even though I do not live in this community I did obtain a yard sign and still proudly display it in my yard). Local businesses embraced the image and made sure it was proudly displayed throughout the city to show these indolent pricks the love that exists and will continue to persist beyond their influence.

To my knowledge, the Student Acceptance team is thriving, independent of the school, albeit now well funded. It appears the organization has moved on from this episode — hopefully I can soon let this go as well.

— CJ Nova ❤️

ps. I researched the two school board elections that happened after this incident. All members implicated in this matter were re-elected, by greater margins than before. Without a doubt the self-righteous pricks were not aberrations, but indeed reflective of the fearful, backward, and pretentious culture permeating this and so many other small communities.