Although I live in the Philadelphia suburbs, our area is still kind of rural/conservative. Lots of overly religious people. Not at all diverse - very few people of color. Lately a bunch of the conservative parents have organized themselves into a group to oppose a state required "equity audit" because somehow they think this will lead to critical race theory in the curriculum which they interpret to be teaching every kid that white people are bad. The school board is also conservative and pretty much going along with it. So in response, the liberal parents began organizing and showing up at board meetings to demand attention to equity and racism in the schools. Alas, they (we) are very outnumbered. But we are trying.

Anyhow, the last board meeting was over 3 hours long and the conservatives showed up in droves to make public comments. Here are some of the highlights. Ugh ugh ugh.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6TeYZXBdYEU

(The video was put together by a high school kid so there's spelling errors in the captions.)

ETA - if you don't want to watch, the highlights are an older white woman claiming to be a "person of color" because her skin isn't the same shade as a white piece of paper. And a suburban white mom dwelling on how much racism she experienced growing up and how she was persecuted for the color of her skin but how she had friends of every color, even "mulatto." Yeah. It's bad.

To paraphrase Henry Kissinger in a very different context ...

Why are school board meetings often so hot and contentious? Because the stakes are usually so low.

quote:

Why are school board meetings often so hot and contentious? Because the stakes are usually so low.

Well, except not really. We're talking about how the education of children, who grow up to voters, leaders, etc.

So in that regard, the stakes are always high IMO, even if we're talking about one school district or whatever. Because this is being repeated across the country in similar, small school districts. Add them up, and an awful lot of kids are going to be impacted.

For a really enlightening look at schools and race/diversity listen to the podcast Nice White Parents.

quote:

Originally posted by dolmansaxlil:
For a really enlightening look at schools and race/diversity listen to the podcast Nice White Parents.

The school they focused on was a block from me in Brooklyn. I voted there.

How it started:

https://www.newyorker.com/news...critical-race-theory

With "people" like Tucker Carlson and Individual-1 egging them on, this is going to be gumming up school board meetings across the country for years.

...and a few miles south of Lisa, in Loudoun County, Virginia...

A Man Was Arrested After A School Board Meeting Erupted In Protests Against Critical Race Theory
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/a...-race-theory-protest
(Gotta love the first picture in that article!)

Of course, faux news's headline is different... it blares about how the public outcry was silenced by the school board. Thus, the right wing noise machine will keep inciting carp like this.

quote:

Originally posted by pianojuggler:
(Gotta love the first picture in that article!)

I can't unsee that.

MY EYES!!!

It's a school board meeting. I think anyone attending those meetings should be required to take a 10-question short answer test on key aspects of CRT before gaining admittance. I'd bet my house that most of them have no idea what it really is, only what their man Sean told them. The basic complaint that "schools want to teach white people to hate themselves" is pretty direct proof that they have no idea.