Growing up, Linda only had two different sandwiches in her brown paper lunch bag. One was PBJ. The other was plain salami. No mustard, cheese, mayo... just plain salami on Wonder Bread. For some reason, she only liked the sandwich if it was smashed flat. When no one was looking, she would sit on the baggie and smoosh it flat as a pancake. When she got to high school and there was a cafeteria, she still chose the PBJ, except it was even better because it was a triple-decker. (She stopped sitting on it by then.) You may be wondering why this is relevant on my blog. Well, Linda read a story this morning about PBJ's. A grade school principal told a newspaper reporter that PBJ sandwiches might be "racially and culturally offensive." Quote: “What about Somali or Hispanic students who might not eat sandwiches? Another way would be to say: Americans eat peanut butter and jelly, do you have anything like that? Maybe they eat torta or pita.” It's so hard to imagine how anyone, from any country, could be offended by seeing a PBJ sandwich listed on the schools cafeteria menu. Maybe I'm wrong though. Parents in the school district where we lived complained that teachers decorated their classrooms with the colors red and green around Christmas, even though no mention of the word "Christmas" was mentioned. Red and Green were banned from the classroom.
The same newspaper reported that a special drum corps at the no PBJ school was set up for only black and Latino boys. Parents complained that it discriminated against girls, whites and Asians, but the school has stood its ground.
P.S. There was way more to the story than just PBJ's being offensive. It's all part of a cultural and sensitivity training the teachers must go through.
