What to Know
The way a Republican representative responded to a fourth grader’s essay about electric vehicles has sparked a ton of backlash online. A mom in North Carolina recently took to social media to share that her 10-year-old son and his classmates were asked to write a persuasive essay about a topic of their choice, then send it to a relevant, influential person. Her son chose to write about electric vehicles, then sent his work to Congresswoman Virginia Foxx.
Most people would probably expect a letter to a child working on a school assignment and showing interest in issues affecting the world to be kind and encouraging, regardless of how the person who received the letter felt about the child’s argument. But Foxx’s letter was neither of those things — instead, she shared some “evidence” against the argument the child made in his essay, and also accused his school of teaching “propaganda” and “indoctrinating” him. Remember: he’s in fourth grade and is 10 years old.
The mom posted about this experience on social media.
She has since made her account private, but before doing so, the post got a ton of attention on Instagram and sparked outrage among people who couldn’t believe that the Republican representative would actually write back to an elementary school student like that.
In her post, the mom made it clear that the envelope said “fourth grade” on it and the essay was very “clearly” written by a child, per People. In Foxx’s response to the student, she thanked him for reaching out and explained her own viewpoints, but then also warned that he and his classmates would be “responsible” for future “economic failure and bankruptcy.” Yes, really.
Toward the end of the letter, Foxx wrote, “Have attached an article to this correspondence for your benefit, entitled ‘2038,’ which explains how little time the United States has left before the interest payments on the national debt surpass our total discretionary spending. This is an urgent crisis, and we must act before it is too late to turn away from this dangerous path that we are on, which will lead inevitably to economic failure and bankruptcy. 2038 is only 12 years away and YOU and your classmates will be responsible for that debt.”
Foxx also urged the fourth grader to talk to his teacher about “propaganda.”
She didn’t just imply that he’s not getting a good education. She outright said that’s probably the case — in her letter to the child. Yikes. “Incidentally, please ask your teacher to explain propaganda to you,” she continued. “While I will never be able to know, my guess is that your teachers will not give you a good educational experience and help you learn to think as they are too interested in indoctrinating you. How sad.” Um, what? This is how she writes to a fourth grader who is interested in electric vehicles?
The child, Christian, explained his viewpoint when speaking to FOX 8. “We should have a $5,000 tax rebate,” he said. “For electric cars, because they’re better than normal cars. They’re better for the environment. They pay less. And there’s no gas.”
In her original post, Christian’s mom noted that he was “proud of his essay.” She added, “He researched, cited facts, and made good arguments in his essay — an essay that had nothing to do with politics.” And, besides, can you imagine being a fourth grader who was proud of an essay they wrote for school and receiving this kind of response from an adult?
People on social media were also disgusted by Foxx’s response.
NC Representative being absolutely reprehensible to a 10 year old student, and insults NC teachers at the same time
by u/EnoughAlreadyForever in NorthCarolina
On Reddit, people called her response “vile” and “disgusting.” Someone wrote, “wow that’s really disrespectful, especially towards teachers and a kid just asking questions.”
And people’s expectations aren’t even that high. They just couldn’t understand why anyone would think this was an appropriate way to respond to a kid’s persuasive essay. “I wrote a letter to my district representative at a similar age and while the response was completely non-committal, it was also fairly neutral,” one person pointed out. “In what universe does this read as ‘Yeah, this is the sort of thing I want to say to a 10 year old who may actually be passionate about this topic’?”
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