Speaker 1: Good morning, Peepsen, and welcome to f Daily with Meet
Speaker 1: your Girl Danielle Moody. Pre recording from the home Bunker. Folks,
Speaker 1: it is our holiday rest week here on wok F
Speaker 1: and as we wind down the last seven years, I'm
Speaker 1: revisiting some of the episodes that I think still bear
Speaker 1: true today as we are just weeks away from Donald
Speaker 1: Trump taking his second oath to uphold the Constitution, which
Speaker 1: we know that he is not going to. On top
Speaker 1: of Donald Trump's list, however, has been to defund the
Speaker 1: Department of Education, the Department of Education that brings curriculum
Speaker 1: to millions of children across this country. And so it
Speaker 1: was fitting that one of the last conversations that we
Speaker 1: revisit is that of the hateful indoctrination of White children
Speaker 1: with Randy Weingarten, who is the president of the American
Speaker 1: Federation of Teachers, who has visited wokay at a number
Speaker 1: of times over the years to give us a window
Speaker 1: into what is happening in America's public education system and
Speaker 1: what we need to pay attention to. And at a
Speaker 1: time when books are being banned and curriculums are being banned,
Speaker 1: and teachers are being fired, and libraries are being ransacked.
Speaker 1: Randy Weingarten talks about how we continue to perpetuate hateful
Speaker 1: stereotypes and white supremacy inside of our classrooms. Take a listen, folks.
Speaker 1: I am very happy to welcome back to wok Afi
Speaker 1: Daily the President of the American Federation of Teachers, Randy Weingarten,
Speaker 1: as we began another school year here in America. Randy,
Speaker 1: it was just the sixtieth anniversary of the March on Washington,
Speaker 1: and you wrote a piece reflecting on your speech and
Speaker 1: your time in Washington, d C. Honoring this really important
Speaker 1: march and day in our nation's history. Just give us
Speaker 1: an idea of your mood and your feelings while you
Speaker 1: were there. At the backdrop of it, you know, there
Speaker 1: was a shooting that took place in Jacksonville, Florida, at
Speaker 1: the hands of a white supremacist that took the lives
Speaker 1: of three black patrons and workers at a general store.
Speaker 2: It was so Look. First off, Daniel, I'm glad to
Speaker 2: be with you, and I'm glad that you do this podcast,
Speaker 2: and I'm glad that you call it what you call
Speaker 2: it in terms of taking back the word woke.
Speaker 1: Thank you.
Speaker 2: I'm a history teacher. I'm also you know, a union president.
Speaker 2: You think back to what happened in sixty three in
Speaker 2: the march and then the backlash after the march, and
Speaker 2: think about what happened after the Obama presidency and the
Speaker 2: backlash after that. Think about what happened after Brown versus
Speaker 2: Board and the backlash after that. I think that what
Speaker 2: we're seeing is that the enabling, the normalizing, and the
Speaker 2: enabling of hate, combined with ready access to guns, particularly
Speaker 2: to weapons of war, create a really dangerous situation, and
Speaker 2: calling it out is really important. Understanding what's going on
Speaker 2: is really important. But the but just like those kids
Speaker 2: in Jacksonville, how many years ago, after that Saturday of
Speaker 2: Fear that was created, you know, after they tried to
Speaker 2: integrate lunch counters and the KKK created that Saturday of
Speaker 2: Fear of the uh Anville fear or March or whatever
Speaker 2: it was called of the KKK uh and they still
Speaker 2: won the kids one they integrated lunch counters. This was
Speaker 2: a commemoration. This was a continuation, not a commemoration, because
Speaker 2: there's so much at stake right now and people are
Speaker 2: awakening to what is at stake. What happened in Jacksonville
Speaker 2: is a heenous crime of a white supremacist murderer, just
Speaker 2: like what happened in Buffalo was a heenous crime of
Speaker 2: a white supremacist murderer. What those supremacists want, what people
Speaker 2: who enable them want, is to bully and silence the
Speaker 2: rest of us who are fighting for freedom and dignity
Speaker 2: and basic humanity for all, particularly those who have been
Speaker 2: discribed against quality and freedom. So I would say that
Speaker 2: we have to hold the families as tight as we
Speaker 2: can in the morning of the deaths of those innocent
Speaker 2: souls and fight on and fight on and fight on
Speaker 2: all at the same time. And yes, that fight includes
Speaker 2: the fight for gun safety and getting assault weapons off
Speaker 2: the streets, which America has done before and can do
Speaker 2: again with courage. But that fight is also the fight
Speaker 2: for freedom and the fight against fear, the fight for
Speaker 2: aspiration and the fight against despair, the fight for solutions
Speaker 2: and the fight against smears, And we have to do
Speaker 2: both at the same time. And so I'm not I
Speaker 2: was devastating and horrible to hear what happened in Jacksonville
Speaker 2: as you're leaving the march, but it has to spur
Speaker 2: us on to more action and to not be silent.
Speaker 1: You know, I want to ask you, both as the
Speaker 1: president and AFT, but also as a former educator yourself,
Speaker 1: what does it mean right now to you and to
Speaker 1: teachers of history that telling the truth is a crime.
Speaker 1: What does it mean to librarians that they're having to
Speaker 1: remove books from shelves that teach children about empathy and
Speaker 1: truth and compassion. Can you explain because for those people
Speaker 1: who don't have kids in the school system, who are
Speaker 1: not as connected, but understand that public education connects us all,
Speaker 1: whether or not we have kids that are in the
Speaker 1: system in this moment or not, what it means to
Speaker 1: live in this place of oppression, silencing, and fear as
Speaker 1: a teacher, a librarian, an administrator in these states.
Speaker 2: So I think what I think you know the answer
Speaker 2: by the way in which you frame the question, which
Speaker 2: is that you know it's terrible, and people are and
Speaker 2: people take great umbrage at it, and it has had
Speaker 2: to a certain effect, the chilling effect that people like
Speaker 2: DeSantis and Abbot want. We see that in polling. But
Speaker 2: what it's not doing is it's not crushing the spirit
Speaker 2: of teachers and librarians. What it's starting to do is
Speaker 2: And this is spoiler alert because I feel pretty optimistic
Speaker 2: that we are going to win. What it's starting to
Speaker 2: do is it's creating activism in a way that we
Speaker 2: didn't have for a while, just like the red for
Speaker 2: ed movement around wages a few years ago and conditions.
Speaker 2: Teachers want what kids need and they know that this
Speaker 2: is impairing kids' education and hurting kids for the long run,
Speaker 2: and they take and they are really pissed about it.
Speaker 2: And the people who and and and it doesn't it
Speaker 2: crosses ideological grounds or or ideal or or ideological lines,
Speaker 2: I guess I should say so. In the Panhandle, for example,
Speaker 2: in Florida, the teachers that had to put tarps across
Speaker 2: the libraries, YEP. A lot of the teachers who teach
Speaker 2: in the Panhandle are Republicans, a lot of them probably
Speaker 2: voters for DeSantis. And they were like, what are you doing.
Speaker 2: This is my library in my classroom that I was
Speaker 2: using these books. I may have usedaw these books for
Speaker 2: five or ten years. All of a suddenly you're banning them.
Speaker 2: Why So, what we're seeing in terms of teachers and
Speaker 2: I think you're seeing this in terms of the mainstream
Speaker 2: as well is that more and more. It is a
Speaker 2: smaller and smaller but very well coordinated and we're very
Speaker 2: well funded group of people who are trying to ban
Speaker 2: books and erase history. And look, I'm not saying that
Speaker 2: they're not powerful. DeSantis is powerful, Abbit is powerful, Huckabee
Speaker 2: is powerful. They also have these, you know, legislators that
Speaker 2: they have now taken control of because of jeremandry. But
Speaker 2: if you look at at polling and you look at
Speaker 2: the reaction, most parents and most teachers hate this, and
Speaker 2: so it's actually activated a generation of people to fight it.
Speaker 2: And so that's why for us, we have handed out
Speaker 2: nine million books in the last few years. By July
Speaker 2: of twenty twenty four, it will be ten million. We're
Speaker 2: working with first book, we're working with others. So think
Speaker 2: about the power of a teacher's union working with its members,
Speaker 2: having these family events all throughout America trying to ban books.
Speaker 2: We are distributing books that have diverse titles that kids
Speaker 2: see themselves in and the other thing. And I'm sure
Speaker 2: that this has gotten me in the crosshairs of the
Speaker 2: right wing. I think this is what triggered them. Two
Speaker 2: years ago, we said to our members, if you teach
Speaker 2: honest history. If you teach history in an authentic way,
Speaker 2: with authentic sources, we're going to expand our our legal
Speaker 2: defense fund, and we're going to represent you, and we're
Speaker 2: going to make sure you are not alone. So you
Speaker 2: have a bunch of things that are now being used
Speaker 2: in terms of activating. You have unions creating community against
Speaker 2: banning books and against the erasure of children. You have
Speaker 2: now people like Moms Rising and Red Wine and Blue
Speaker 2: and lots of other new groups that have been created
Speaker 2: that have said enough, and you're starting to see this
Speaker 2: kind of activism together. The one thing I would say
Speaker 2: to teachers or to librarians who are alone is don't
Speaker 2: act alone. Let's create a community around you. Because the
Speaker 2: world is too divisive and it's too you know, and
Speaker 2: and there's a lot of haters. So let's create that
Speaker 2: community and the connectiveness around you, and let's fight this together.
Speaker 1: I want to switch gears for a moment to talk
Speaker 1: about the rise of COVID that we are seeing right.
Speaker 1: We're seeing lots of headlines about you know, COVID making resurgence,
Speaker 1: not to the extent that it did in prior years,
Speaker 1: but that it's still present. And I saw an article
Speaker 1: about a school that part of their I guess protocol
Speaker 1: now is to keep windows closed because of potential school shootings.
Speaker 2: Right, Okay, it's crazy right to.
Speaker 1: Keep windows closed. Kids don't get fresh air all day
Speaker 1: because we'd rather treat schools like prisons than deal with guns.
Speaker 1: And I wanted to get your thoughts on a how
Speaker 1: you think that schools will deal with you know, the
Speaker 1: the rise in COVID, given the I mean extraordinary backlash
Speaker 1: that we saw, I mean teachers being punched and school
Speaker 1: board meetings going absolutely insane. And this is you know,
Speaker 1: hearkening back to twenty twenty one, but this idea that
Speaker 1: part of protocol in safety is shutting windows in places
Speaker 1: that already lack quality ventilation. So I just wanted to
Speaker 1: get your thoughts on both of those pieces.
Speaker 2: Look, it's completely surreal because what's happening is instead of
Speaker 2: this is what its iss. Kids are not a priority.
Speaker 2: Guns are the priority. Kids are not a priority. So
Speaker 2: if it means that to maintain weapons of war culture
Speaker 2: and not take on that issue, that you're going to
Speaker 2: actually do the exact wrong thing. That helps not only
Speaker 2: kids learn, but what we've learned is that ventilation is
Speaker 2: probably the number one change you can make. Good ventilation
Speaker 2: for any kind of respiratory illness, for any of the
Speaker 2: climate issues that we've seen this summer, when schools are
Speaker 2: one hundred and five, workplaces one hundred and ten, all
Speaker 2: this you need air conditioning. So good ventilation really good
Speaker 2: in terms of respiratory illness, or really good in terms
Speaker 2: of climate issues and weather issues. And frankly for those
Speaker 2: of us who are asmatic or really good in terms
Speaker 2: of those kind of issues too. And a disparate proportion
Speaker 2: of our black and brown kids are asthmadic. So and
Speaker 2: I say that as an asthmatic, So you know, so
Speaker 2: the ventilation that starts with proper air circulation, and if
Speaker 2: you don't have good AC, you know, HVAC systems in
Speaker 2: the school, you've got to open windows and you to
Speaker 2: have a good fan. And so it just says that
Speaker 2: kids are not a priority these and then they turned
Speaker 2: kids and teachers into a pretzel to try to figure
Speaker 2: out how to deal with all of this. But that
Speaker 2: is the irony of that guns are more important, just
Speaker 2: like during COVID, bars and restaurants were more important than
Speaker 2: opening schools. I love when the extremists start telling me
Speaker 2: all about you know what happened in Europe. I mean
Speaker 2: we and I'm really glad Mehdi Hassan just did this.
Speaker 2: He debunked a lot of the myths. Kids got COVID,
Speaker 2: kids were vectors for COVID. There's lots of people who
Speaker 2: died from COVID. There's lots of kids who were orphan
Speaker 2: because their parents died or grandparents died because of COVID.
Speaker 2: But we from April twenty twenty, we're the first ones
Speaker 2: to put out a report that said we need to
Speaker 2: have schools reopened. They're really important, but we need the
Speaker 2: safety measures. You can't do one without the other. You
Speaker 2: need to do both.
Speaker 1: And to have.
Speaker 2: American government led by Trump that prioritized you know, bars
Speaker 2: and restaurants rather than schools, and then say, look at
Speaker 2: what happened in Europe. Well, Europe prioritized schools being opened,
Speaker 2: and we're and the problem, the dilemma right now is
Speaker 2: that because of all the conspiracy theories and all of
Speaker 2: the odjita that happened at the end of COVID, and
Speaker 2: you know, on mass and vaccines and all of this,
Speaker 2: we're not going to have an appropriate or proper public
Speaker 2: health system directing us or guiding us about what to do. So,
Speaker 2: this is what I would say to people, and this
Speaker 2: is what we're doing. Fight like hell to get good
Speaker 2: ventilation in a school. That is the number one thing
Speaker 2: that we can do. And let's make sure that we
Speaker 2: don't stigmatize people who wear masks or who need to
Speaker 2: wear masks. And let's do and try to figure out
Speaker 2: the other mitigating factors that we need, because COVID is
Speaker 2: still a respiratory illness, and we need to make sure
Speaker 2: both COVID rsv all of these respiratory illnesses. We need
Speaker 2: to make sure that we are giving people the best
Speaker 2: guidance for how to protect their health and safety, whether
Speaker 2: it be kids, whether it be teachers, whether it be
Speaker 2: kids families or teachers' families.
Speaker 1: Last question for you, Randy, is this. You know, schools
Speaker 1: like we started out at the top, have always been
Speaker 1: on the front lines for social justice in this country.
Speaker 1: It is they have always been a battleground and for
Speaker 1: people who want to get involved, for people who see
Speaker 1: their school boards being taken over, for people who see
Speaker 1: their teachers fleeing because they no longer want to teach.
Speaker 1: What can regular people who are not necessarily a part
Speaker 1: of AFT. What can they do to support their public schools,
Speaker 1: their communities, their administrators and teachers and students.
Speaker 2: So I would just say there's one there's one recommendation
Speaker 2: I would make, and I want to kind of link
Speaker 2: it to our new campaign, which is just get involved
Speaker 2: in whatever way you can get involved. You know, lots
Speaker 2: of schools have you know, some open something day night
Speaker 2: for community that welcomes community in. Be involved in a
Speaker 2: local school, do some tutoring, do some reading with kids,
Speaker 2: do something that gets involved in the of the community.
Speaker 2: Because the most important thing we can do right now
Speaker 2: is connection and community. That is the most important antidote
Speaker 2: to this hate and division and fear and crossing ideological
Speaker 2: lines and doing the things that really kind of lift
Speaker 2: up communities and lift up kids, and it becomes infectious
Speaker 2: that people then start talking to each other. It doesn't
Speaker 2: matter if they're Republican or Democrat or independent. Most people
Speaker 2: still in America want basic decency and basic humanity. So
Speaker 2: what we've tried to do, and this may sound counterproductive, counterintuitive,
Speaker 2: is that as okay, we're fighting the fights as they
Speaker 2: ban books, we're giving books out as I said before,
Speaker 2: we're fighting to make sure that people can teach honest history.
Speaker 2: But what we're also trying to do is deal with
Speaker 2: the issues of loneliness, learning losses, reading literacy, and bringing
Speaker 2: together really kind of lifting up solutions for the problems
Speaker 2: of families and kids have, for the problems that we
Speaker 2: see all the time, and really trying to lift this up.
Speaker 2: So this whole year we're doing a campaign, you know,
Speaker 2: and how do you deal with loneliness? Let's wrap services
Speaker 2: around schools, and let's together fight these social media companies
Speaker 2: who could in a day deal with and change the
Speaker 2: algorithm and change and they could actually emphasize children's health
Speaker 2: and safety as opposed to making money, and they'd still
Speaker 2: make a lot of money. So parents and teachers together
Speaker 2: are working on telling and pressuring social media companies to
Speaker 2: change their algorithms. We're working on wrapping services around school
Speaker 2: We're actually working to make experience or learning the norm
Speaker 2: career tech ed, giving kids lots of different options, particularly
Speaker 2: as this economy creates more and more new jobs. Why
Speaker 2: aren't we doing that? Stop with the testing, testing, testing,
Speaker 2: Let's actually work with our hands and make schooling fun.
Speaker 2: And then let's really help teachers, help kids how to
Speaker 2: learn to read, so kids have books that they want
Speaker 2: to read. But also what are the tools of the
Speaker 2: trade and doing things like that. So we're really trying
Speaker 2: to get into what are the solutions that transcend ideology.
Speaker 2: What are the things that we can do together as
Speaker 2: a community, because once we do that, these extremists they
Speaker 2: won't they will They only are effective when they can
Speaker 2: create anger and fear.
Speaker 1: Yep.
Speaker 2: And so let's create love and engagement around schools dealing
Speaker 2: with the issues that people really care about.
Speaker 1: I tell you, Randy, every time that I speak to you,
Speaker 1: I say that you're doing the Lord's work and I
Speaker 1: appreciate your leadership and your voice every time that we
Speaker 1: have the opportunity to speak. Thank you for making it
Speaker 1: time to join wok F.
Speaker 2: I'm back at you. Thank you.
Speaker 1: That is it for me today, dear friends on wok
Speaker 1: F as always power to the people and to all
Speaker 1: the people. Power yet woke and stay woke as fuck.