In response to the insightful and biting Shrubtown cartoon and subsequent letter [“Our students are not cartoons” https://www.oakpark.com/2024/06/18/our-students-are-not-cartoons], over the past several years many comics, satirists and humorists became timid for reasons that are well documented and understood.
Organized social media mobs are real. By saying the “wrong” thing, you could ruin your career, lose “friends,” and worse. That pullback from such artists was clearly detrimental to public discourse and has negatively impacted society overall. That somewhat dark period seems to be ending as comics, satirists and humorists are back. Thank goodness.
Mr. Stopeck, using intellect and wit, did exactly what brilliant cartoonists do. They make us think. They make us pause. They make us chuckle. They make us a little uncomfortable. They make us want to discuss and get engaged in issues that we care about. In sharp contrast, District 97 leaders took the un-nuanced low road in their response. D97 leaders, in describing a cartoon, and Mr. Stopeck personally, used such phrases as “xenophobic stereotypes” and “he dehumanizes immigrants and our students.”
D97, you are simply missing the point.
The cartoon was a critique on the school culture, environment and resulting “system” that the adult leaders have created. I don’t believe Mr. Stopeck or our community is placing blame on students. It took brave teachers to speak up and alert the community to the real challenges that are now playing out in our schools in hopes of helping, not blaming, our students.
And yet D97’s response is to somehow try to silence Mr. Stopeck and suggest our schools have been a beacon of community collaboration all along and that the district is simply increasing “clarity” and “aligning systems.” Rather than owning policy failures and laying out serious course corrections, the letter resorts to browbeating and empty edu-speak.
In the WJ letter, our school leaders, reaching out for support that they now understand is somewhat fading, “invite everyone … to visit our website, which includes a gallery of photos from this year that captures our amazing students as they learn, grow, and are joyful together.” While I am certain there are many wonderful things occurring in our schools every day, the teachers’ description of the day-to-day school culture was less joyful and more concerning. Community members are simply going to trust hours and hours of teacher and parent public comments over a gallery of carefully curated photos for a sense of the truth.
Leaders owning up to their actions without misdirection and victimhood — now that would be both funny and newsworthy in a weird 2024 kind of way. I can see another cartoon coming. I can’t wait because humor is a sign of a healthy and enlightened society. We all should be able to — I submit we must — interject humor into serious issues with the goal of spurring discussion and finding better solutions.
Maybe our middle-schoolers should take classes on the historical role of satirists and the benefits of true debate. That is, if there is any time left after the walkouts, lockdowns, peace circles and class interruptions. Too soon? Or just a little uncomfortable?
Ross Lissuzzo, a proud graduate of Hawthorne Junior High, now known as Percy Julian Middle School, is a resident of River Forest.