School board candidate should say what he thinks

The anti-trans agenda has come to South Glens Falls

Chris Music, candidate for the school board in South Glens Falls, promises to be transparent.

Not transphobic — he doesn’t mention that quality in the thoughts-and-feelings mashup he has posted online.

Yet his 1,300-word manifesto seems to have a subtext, and what it is becomes clearer when you look at the South Glens Falls CSD Concerned Parents Facebook page, administered by Music and featuring videos of Matt Walsh, attacking the rights of people who are LGBT.

I had never heard of Walsh, but he does have a Wikipedia page and a tightly cropped, very dark beard. (Chris Music, too, has a carefully controlled beard, although his is a “stubble beard” while Walsh’s, since it’s a little longer, is a “business beard.”)

“Why am I running?” is the title of Music’s essay. I’ve read it a few times, and that question is never answered.

He does say a lot along the way, however, some of it quite intriguing.

“I’m encouraged by my shortcomings and vices,” he says, but doesn’t explain which shortcomings and vices he means or how they have encouraged him.

“I am someone who doesn’t dwell on my accomplishments, nor get discouraged by my defeats,” he concludes a 274-word section about his professional and personal achievements.

“I don’t identify as anything other than a proud man,” he says. 

If you had to pick a single defining sentence from the essay, that would be the one.

Throughout these musings, Music seems to be circling around something he doesn’t like, without saying what it is.

“You may have noticed that feelings have been slowly taking over society for some time now. The school system has also adopted this philosophy and something that I feel is EXTREMLEY dangerous to our children, their future, and the future of this community and country.”

So feelings are dangerous in an upper-case way. But which ones?

I sent a couple of messages to Mr. Music, but he has not yet replied. So I have to rely on his public statement.

“The approach and agenda of this school system has morphed into an emotionally charged, illogical, and short-sighted approach to teaching our children; removing obstacles, avoiding accountability, watering down responsibility, and seemingly ignoring real education which has been replaced with a focus on social and emotional aspects of life that no one in this school district is qualified for, or competent enough to properly administer.”

Where did this emotionally charged and illogical approach occur? Were obstacles removed in algebra? Accountability avoided in social studies? 

Were students not memorizing dates of battles and numbers of casualties in World War II, but instead discussing the war’s “social and emotional aspects,” such as the movement of women into the workforce, the segregation of the armed forces and the shattering reality of the Holocaust?

Mr. Music’s manifesto does not always make sense.

“I’m not saying that we should be teaching stoicism or encourage them to be emotionless drones. I do, however, believe that children have the capacity and the innate desire to learn, and teachers have the capacity and desire to teach. It's no surprise that this dynamic is why public education exists.”

It is no surprise that he avoided anti-LGBT propaganda in his personal statement but puts it all over his Facebook page. This dynamic, which allows people to repost the offensive screeds of others without taking responsibility for them, is why Facebook exists.

But it’s difficult to make the case for change when you lack the courage to specify what is wrong.

“I promise to keep the community informed,” Music says, at the end of a long list of generic promises about how he would behave as a member of the school board.

So inform us.