by Aris Janigian

There are few occasions where the hypocrisy, ignorance, and hubris of the Social Justice people is concisely exposed. There are few occasions where they are confronted with historical facts that upend their agenda— which is a radical and psychologically violent realignment of society along race and gender lines.

Last Wednesday, just such an occasion arose. Here, you can read in detail what led to this occasion, but in brief, the Fresno Unified School Board, with the backing of the City Council, was pushing to name a new campus after a couple, Francine and Murray Farber, who had generously donated money and time to the school district. Others in the community felt that the campus should be named after Roger Tatarian, a native Fresnan and one of the most powerful journalists of the latter half of the 20th Century. Note, over its 100 years history, and in the naming of over 100 schools, Fresno Unified has never chosen to name a school for an Armenian-American, even while Armenians contributed immensely to the city.

A poll, conducted by the school board, revealed that the community overwhelmingly favored naming the campus after Tatarian. The school board ignored the results of its poll and named if after the Farbers.

Last Wednesday, author Mark Arax and I confronted the school board with an uncomfortable reality: J.C. Forkner, one of Fresno’s largest developers, for whom an elementary is named, was also an incontrovertible racist, with particular hatred towards Armenians. We proposed that his name be replaced with Tatarian.

Here is a youtube video capturing how our proposal was received