revised May 26, 4:15 p.m.
Beware of writing about where you live. Smartmom has learned first hand the perils of being a local columnist. Case in point: her article in the Brooklyn Papers, “Ratner Money Can’t Buy Parents Love,” which angered many in the PS 321 community.
Needless to say, it wasn’t the first time Smartmom ruffled some Park Slope feathers. She already lost a friend because of one of her articles. And another friend is still angry about something she wrote. Teen Spirit has asked that Smartmom not write about him—too much. And the Oh So Feisty One would like a name change.
This time, Smartmom knew that she’d pissed off members of the PTA the minute she walked into the Parent’s office, when she got some really dirty looks and tepid hellos
Now, Smartmom feels like the philosopher, Hannah Arendt, who was called a self-hating Jew, after she wrote, “Eichmann in Jerusalem.”
For those who missed it, Smartmom’s article was about the PS 321 fundraising auction at the Brooklyn Museum and Forest City Ratner’s $7,500. contribution.
Oy, it’s been quite a week. One person called Smartmom “sleazy” because she is part of the PTA and she attended the auction. Ouch. Another person wrote to say that members of the auction committee, who worked so hard to organize the event, feel insulted and hurt.
The question she was exploring in the article was this: What do you do when a generous and controversial benefactor comes along?
Do you take the money or not?
For practical reasons, you probably take the money. Why? Because the public schools are under-funded, overcrowded, and in desperate need of cash.
Every public school PTA in New York City works its butt off to raise money to pay for pencils, art supplies, paper, and other very basic supplies. Above and beyond that, the PTA at PS 321 makes possible all sorts of enrichments that enhance our children’s lives.
So we need (and appreciate) all the money we can get. But it’s still a relevant moral question.
No one can deny that Ratner is a controversial figure in Brooklyn. Smartmom would have been remiss had she NOT mentioned that he was underwriting the event or that his name was in big letters on the program. Some in the school were incensed about his contribution. Others were more practical: Just take the Money.
In truth, Smartmom was not sitting in judgment about the school’s decision to take the money. Not by a long shot. She is far more interested in the way these issues play out in a school with a politically savvy parent body.
Some thought Smartmom put a negative light on the fact that the event was held at the Brooklyn Museum. Was she accusing them of being (gasp) pretentious or elitist? Not really. In Smartmom’s opinion, the museum’s Beaux Arts Court, which comes with a rental price tag of $6,500. is a splendid space for the school to come together as a community. But without underwriting, the PTA would have to charge $125. per ticket, which is much too much to charge public school parents. One PTA member said they could scale back and have the party in the Picnic House in Prospect Park like the old days, but that space only holds 200 people.
Even the PTA debated whether to accept the Ratner funding. Prior to the event, there was a meeting with the principal and other members of the fund raising committee. The final decision was made by the principal, who said: we have to take the money, we can not discriminate.
And that’s the mandate of school chancellor Joel Klein, who told the Department of Education that school principals must go after corporate money. This is a terrible state of affairs and a powerful topic for an article. But it was not the story Smartmom was writing.
Smartmom’s story was simply (nothing is ever simple she learned big time) about the school auction and a large donation by a very controversial Brooklyn figure. In the column Smartmom pondered if Ratner is an influence peddler or just a good friend of PS 321. She thinks he is probably a little of both. And that’s what makes the world go round.
If he’d wanted to make things easy for the PTA, he could have made an anonymous donation. But he obviously wants the recognition—that’s only human—and the publicity for his company (that’s showbiz).
As a people-pleaser, you can imagine how much Smartmom hates being snubbed on Seventh Avenue. But she’s getting used to it and is growing quite a thick skin.
And to the people who think Smartmom was ‘sitting in judgement’ of the PTA, a group she is actively involved with, Smartmom counters with this famous quote by Hannah Arendt from 1964:
“The heat caused by my ‘sitting in judgment’ has proved how uncomfortable most of us are when confronted with moral issues… and I admit that I am the most uncomfortable myself.”
With her eyes and ears open, Smartmom tries to write in an honest, and mostly loving way, about the community she is so passionately a part of.
Smartmom now knows that that can be a dicey thing to do.
