Not that long ago, we discovered that someone we knew through church was running for the local school board. Based on what we knew of her, that seemed odd, but it was much worse than odd.
There were other things that we learned in quick succession.
- She was running in association with two other people. All of them shared a platform with a specific, harmful focus. I will get into that later.
- There was a similar group running together with the same platform in the neighboring school district. That was kind of a weird coincidence.
- There is a Trump booster traveling the country trying to help people get elected to local office.
So, not a coincidence.
In the interest of complete accuracy, I do not know that this particular person has had contact with these particular candidates, but it turns out that there is at least one similar candidate in a North Portland district, and apparently some in Salem. There is organization going on.
There is a lot to unravel here, and some of it can be confusing. One of my big concerns is that I will put out all of this information, a reader will agree with me, but then get confused about which candidates.
I am going to try and use as much clarity as possible, with specifics, and there are going to be multiple posts about this topic.
For today, I am going to work backward on the three bullet points, filling in blanks.
The Trump booster working on taking over school boards is named Scott Presler. He often uses the hash tag #ThePersistence, which I am sure was chosen for how it sounds compared to "resistance".
It seems to me that this movement is trying to fill a role under Biden's presidency that the Tea Party filled under Obama's presidency; not the party, but not opposite.
They will gladly attack other Republicans for not being "good" enough; Presler tweeted about plans to visit Wyoming to unseat Liz Cheney. This is based on her not conceding that the election was still stolen, making Biden lawfully the president.
This is interesting, because that puts Presler himself firmly in Trump's camp, but there is a lot about his materials that seems to be an attempt to distance from Trumpism.
Presler is gay, with long hair (I saw a reference to it being "Fabio-like", but it's not). The pictures he highlights have him with people of color, especially Black people. There are multiple pictures of the same girl.
That would seem like an attempt to be conciliatory with lifelong conservatives who felt like the rampant bigotry of the last few years was too much, but if they won't distance from Trump, they can't be that far from the bigotry.
Therefore, it is not too shocking that one of the key campaign points is a complete intolerance of Critical Race Theory, which they believe is unpatriotic and gives white kids bad self-esteem.
Now, CRT is a poorly understood concept -- especially among those who have leaned conservative -- so tomorrow's post is going to be about that. However, being against it was a key Trump issue, as was not making any real efforts to fight the Coronavirus. Another key plank in the platforms is that schools must be open all the time.
There is a lot to go over with the platform, and that will be other posts. Those are the two things to look for though. If you are wondering about a candidate, and if they are affiliated with this movement, ask how they feel about Critical Race Theory. Ask about if they support virtual school as we enter a 4th wave.
Many of the candidates are people of color. You might expect them to be against racism, especially in this time of increasing violence (largely Trump-inspired) against Asian-Americans and continuing violence by law enforcement against Black people. They are people you know, and probably think of as nice.
They will make our schools worse, especially for students of color, and gay kids and trans kids.
It is good that there are some pretty easy guidelines, because I do not doubt that this is going on in hundreds of elections. I only know the candidates in two.
So for Hillsboro School District, these are the candidates that will be working hard to increase racism and decrease scientific response to disease. The have their own web site, and seem more organized than the Beaverton group. They apparently had more turnover coming up with their candidates, but they have one for each open position.
They are not on my ballot, but I would not vote for a single one of them:
https://communitiesforsensibleschools.org/our-candidates/
On to Beaverton School District.
The first candidate I become aware of was Saraly Dougall: https://www.facebook.com/SaralynDougallbsdz4
Although they do not have one unified page, posts reiterate that she is running with Jeanette Schade, https://www.facebook.com/JeanetteSchade4BeavertonSchools/ , and Fuhua Xu, https://www.facebook.com/Fuhua-Xu-4-Beaverton-School-Board-Zone-2-101950785342857.
I am sure they can all be perfectly pleasant in personal conversations, but their policies are destructive, and also super self-righteous.
A lot of people don't pay much attention to local elections. A lot of people will see a name from church and assume that is a good choice, they have a shot. And also, a lot of people are comfortable with racism as long as certain parts are said quietly.
My great aggravation and fear is that fellow Mormons are going to lead these racist candidates to a sweeping victory. If you need to teach your children white supremacy; stick to home schooling. (And if that's not why you home school, great, but don't miss the point here.)
(And if you think calling them "racist" is an insult or attack on their character, rather than a reflection of systemic, structural issues and how people relate to them, that is why we need Critical Race Theory!)
So please, voters in the Beaverton School District, vote for Susan Greenberg, Karen Pėrez-Da Silva, and Sunita Garg.
https://www.susanforbeavertonschools.com/
https://karenperezdasilva.com/
https://www.sunitaforbeavertonschools.com
"Funny" story about the fourth seat: the racist group does not have a candidate for Zone 5, but Saralynn recently endorsed incumbent LeeAnn Larsen, because they think she will be more likely to work with them.
LeeAnn Larsen -- about whom I do not know a single bad thing, and I am sure is fine -- is a white woman with blonde hair. Her opponent, Ugonna Enyinnaya, is Black. I wonder what reasoning they used; probably just a coincidence.
Sigh.
The election deadline is May 18th. We received ballots Saturday and the voter's pamphlet a bit before that.
This is important, and I don't think it's getting a lot of publicity. Think about it, share, and please don't move our schools backward.
Related posts:
https://preparedspork.blogspot.com/2021/05/fighting-white-supremacy-local-elections.html
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment