Speaker 1: Welcome to another episode of Internet Hate Machine. I am
Speaker 1: joined as always by my producers Sophie. Sophie, thank you
Speaker 1: for being here today. Happy to be here and happy
Speaker 1: to have our guests. That is here. I am happy
Speaker 1: to have our guest to someone who I realized I know,
Speaker 1: I guess I'm I would call myself voice familiar with,
Speaker 1: and that is James Stout, investigative journalist, historian, also educator. James,
Speaker 1: thank you for joining us. Yeah, thank you. It's nice
Speaker 1: to be face familiar as well. So we were just
Speaker 1: talking about this, James. You are a sometimes teacher, sometimes educator. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's right. And so I'm currently adjunct faculty, which means
Speaker 1: i have no job security, which is great. Uh in
Speaker 1: San Diego Community College. It's a good thing that's happening
Speaker 1: to academia, which is overall a great industry that has
Speaker 1: no issues. But yeah, yeah, so I've taught you see
Speaker 1: San Diego. I've taught National University, UM, I like community
Speaker 1: Colley stuff, Moore, Um, that's way do you now, and
Speaker 1: to a little bit of high school and some little kids.
Speaker 1: I've done diabetes education stuff for I have to say
Speaker 1: I am also a former educator when you were talking
Speaker 1: about adjunct ing. I adjuncted all over the DC Maryland,
Speaker 1: Virginia area for many years. I taught full time at
Speaker 1: Howard University here in d C. I also I really
Speaker 1: enjoyed Community College. I thought that was I mean, I
Speaker 1: like Coward a lot too. That's kind of my my
Speaker 1: teaching home for the longest amount of time. But community
Speaker 1: college is really great. But when I was there, I
Speaker 1: also had the I guess i'll say lack of job stability.
Speaker 1: Lack of it was a it was a It was
Speaker 1: a pretty precarious time in my life. I remember I
Speaker 1: was like driving all over d C in Virginia, and
Speaker 1: I was making like twelve dollars a semester or something.
Speaker 1: And I remember very distinctly having at all staff faculty
Speaker 1: meeting with like full professors and like full time full
Speaker 1: time lecturers and stuff. And at the end of these
Speaker 1: meetings they would always give the adjunctors the bagels, and
Speaker 1: I wanted, I wanted to be offended, like, but then
Speaker 1: I would always be like, why I'm going to take
Speaker 1: the bagels? Yeah, right, it's uh, I will say. In
Speaker 1: San Diego, we have a really good union, the a
Speaker 1: f T, and we get paid better than any other
Speaker 1: I junk faculty, I know, so maybe everyone should join
Speaker 1: a union and stand up to their bosses. But yeah,
Speaker 1: freeway faculty. This struggle is struggle. It's real. So as educators,
Speaker 1: I guess I would say the state of education broadly
Speaker 1: is something that I really really care a lot about,
Speaker 1: Like it's something I think a lot about. I think
Speaker 1: it's really related to the well being of our nation
Speaker 1: and sort of like where we're going as a people.
Speaker 1: And that's kind of why it pains me to talk
Speaker 1: about what we're gonna be talking about today, which is
Speaker 1: critical race theory, or more specifically, the completely manufactured panic
Speaker 1: around critical race theory. So if you don't know what
Speaker 1: critical race theory is, don't feel bad. I think most people,
Speaker 1: even the people who are engaged in the loudest conversations
Speaker 1: about critical race theory, probably do not know what it
Speaker 1: is and have probably not even ever encountered it. So
Speaker 1: here's a definition of critical race theory from the Legal
Speaker 1: Defense Fund. They say, critical race theory, or CRT, is
Speaker 1: an academic and legal framework that denotes that systemic racism
Speaker 1: is part of American society, from education to housing, to
Speaker 1: employment to healthcare, which I don't know, seems like a
Speaker 1: kind of obvious statement to make in a country like America,
Speaker 1: But they go on. Critical race theory recognizes that racism
Speaker 1: is more than the result of individual bias and prejudice.
Speaker 1: It is embedded in laws, policies, and institutions that upholds
Speaker 1: and reproduce racial inequalities. According to CRT, societal issues like
Speaker 1: Black Americans higher mortality rate outside exposure to police violence
Speaker 1: and the school to prison pipeline, denial of affordable housing,
Speaker 1: and rates of death in black women and childbirth are
Speaker 1: not unrelated anomalies. So basically, it's this academic and legal
Speaker 1: framework that posits that racism is part of our society
Speaker 1: and that it's replicated in our institutions. It's not just
Speaker 1: individual like racist mean white people's like white meanings. It
Speaker 1: is institutional. I think it's also important to remember that
Speaker 1: the panic around CRT is completely manufactured and disingenuous. How
Speaker 1: do we know that, Well, the originator of the attack
Speaker 1: has said so pretty plainly, Christopher Rufo, senior fellow at
Speaker 1: the Manhattan Institute, And I would say all around like
Speaker 1: right wing, grifter, ship head, Yeah, whatever whatever choice word
Speaker 1: you want. To use to explain him. Basically, he is
Speaker 1: the person who brought us this like panic around a
Speaker 1: relatively obscure academic theory and having that academic theory being
Speaker 1: negatively conflated with anything even tangently related to race. This
Speaker 1: is an intentional strategy, Rufo says, Peo will eventually turn
Speaker 1: critical race theory taxic as we put all of the
Speaker 1: various cutural insanity. It is under that brand category. The
Speaker 1: goal is to have the public read something crazy in
Speaker 1: the newspaper and immediately think critical race theory. And I
Speaker 1: have to say I'm sad that he has been I
Speaker 1: would say, like pretty successful. The list of things I
Speaker 1: have seen people uninformed people on television call critical race theory.
Speaker 1: It would it's like things where saying I don't even
Speaker 1: know what that means, or like you know, this is
Speaker 1: just another critical race theory and then insert something that
Speaker 1: has nothing to do with the critical race theory. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's just like a boogeyman. For like, I don't want
Speaker 1: to investigate my privilege or exchance or standpoint at all. Exactly.
Speaker 1: So we know that panic around CRT is harmful for
Speaker 1: all kinds of reasons. But today I want to focus
Speaker 1: on the real human cost of what happens when you
Speaker 1: call anything even tangentially related to race CRT and then
Speaker 1: whip up an intentional panic around it. And the story
Speaker 1: that I want to get into today is the story
Speaker 1: of Cecilia Lewis, because she really is someone who is,
Speaker 1: by all accounts like a very accomplished educator who got
Speaker 1: caught up in this CRT panic when really she had
Speaker 1: nothing to do with it. And her story is a
Speaker 1: good reminder of the fact that, you know, when we
Speaker 1: talk about these whipped up outrage like moral outrages, it's
Speaker 1: not just ideological people. There are real people who get
Speaker 1: caught him across fire and it has a real damaging
Speaker 1: impact on their actual lives. Yeah, yeah, sad, Yeah. And
Speaker 1: if anyone's familiar with this story, it's it's it's terrible.
Speaker 1: I'm not so I'm excited. It's some terrible ship. So
Speaker 1: first of all, I have to give a very very
Speaker 1: big shout out to Nicole car investigative reporter at pro
Speaker 1: Publica who wrote a really media expose on Cecilia Lewis's story. Honestly,
Speaker 1: it sounds like Cecilia Lewis was not someone who was
Speaker 1: super interested in telling her story publicly, Like I think
Speaker 1: that she just wanted it to lay low and have
Speaker 1: all of this go away and did not want was
Speaker 1: not someone who was interested in being caught up in
Speaker 1: this kind of a public thing. But shout out to
Speaker 1: Nicole who really did a very meaty piece on what happened,
Speaker 1: but includes some like very very compelling, thoughtful interviews with Cecilian.
Speaker 1: So who is Cecilia Lewis. Cecilia Lewis is an educator
Speaker 1: who was living in Maryland. Her husband's job was being
Speaker 1: relocated to Georgia, and so she was like, Oh, I
Speaker 1: need to find a job in Georgia. They were preparing
Speaker 1: to move from Maryland to Georgia when she got a
Speaker 1: new job at the Cherokee County School District in Georgia,
Speaker 1: where she was going to be the county's first administrator.
Speaker 1: Focused on diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives commonly known as
Speaker 1: d e I. If you ever worked, like most people
Speaker 1: probably know what d e I is or have come
Speaker 1: into contact with some aspect of it, you don't know
Speaker 1: what it is. It's basically initiatives that focus on things
Speaker 1: like implicit bias, able is um gender discrimination, and generally
Speaker 1: just tries to make everyone feel welcome and included in
Speaker 1: a space. So nothing to areas you know, if you
Speaker 1: if you had to take your employee, you know, harassment
Speaker 1: training or gender biased training, things like that. Folks are
Speaker 1: probably pretty familiar with it. It is a pretty common
Speaker 1: standard thing in a lot of our lives. Cecilia also
Speaker 1: focuses on what is known as social emotional learning, which
Speaker 1: I'm gonna kind of like boil this concept down. It's
Speaker 1: basically just the idea of being empathetic to the emotional
Speaker 1: and social realities of a goal in the classroom. So
Speaker 1: saying things like, oh, sometimes students can feel anxious taking
Speaker 1: a test, or it's good for everyone to work together
Speaker 1: to accomplish our goals. Uh, those would be examples of
Speaker 1: social emotional learning. So yeah, this whole stuff is remarkable.
Speaker 1: And just thinking about, like with the social emotional learning,
Speaker 1: how like maybe this all kicked off. Do you remember
Speaker 1: when people were really mad about like content warnings in teaching. No,
Speaker 1: it's just very It's very strange to me because like
Speaker 1: a large number of the people that teach veterans right,
Speaker 1: just it's it's how poor people can go to niversity
Speaker 1: in this country and that that's not great, that's that's
Speaker 1: not a good idea, but but it is, it is
Speaker 1: what it is, And like it seems to me that
Speaker 1: if you're one of those people who very much enjoys
Speaker 1: respecting veterans, then maybe you should also not be trying
Speaker 1: to retroduce into things that might um like, I have
Speaker 1: a lot of students who might have PTSD right and
Speaker 1: they'll have an accommodation letter for that, and if they
Speaker 1: have a thing that might be difficult for them or
Speaker 1: hard for them to hear about, talk about whatever, then
Speaker 1: then seems to me that the kind thing to do,
Speaker 1: respectful thing to do is to be, like we've talked
Speaker 1: about if you don't talk about this, absolutely fine, you know,
Speaker 1: you can go and we'll come back later and it'll
Speaker 1: be great. But apparently that that became like a site
Speaker 1: of the culture wars, and of course these people are
Speaker 1: always hypocritical, like that's that's kind of the point. But yeah,
Speaker 1: it's just ridiculous. Yeah, we love respecting veterans until we
Speaker 1: have to do the things like like the smallest thing
Speaker 1: and not even do it just like except that this
Speaker 1: is a practice being done to help support veterans absolutely
Speaker 1: not no, no, no no, no, I can't have that. It
Speaker 1: can't be can be doing something just nice to everyone,
Speaker 1: Like maybe we can only do it for veterans because
Speaker 1: they've earned their right to to not be like traumatized
Speaker 1: further in the classroom. But yeah, it's very strange that
Speaker 1: these things suddenly became a site of the cultural when
Speaker 1: it's just being nice to your students. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: that's that's something that when I was doing the research
Speaker 1: for this episode, I kept being struck by, Which is
Speaker 1: the things that these quote parents groups or concerned parents
Speaker 1: and air quotes say they are against are such basic
Speaker 1: tenets of like having respect for others, Like you don't
Speaker 1: want your you don't want your child being taught about
Speaker 1: having respect for others, or like basic empathy or you know,
Speaker 1: the things that the things that they would list as
Speaker 1: their grievances about the ways that our schools are being
Speaker 1: used to like indoctrinate their kids into wokeness or whatever
Speaker 1: are such basic common principles and I can't I can't
Speaker 1: imagine that they would have that, like someone would make
Speaker 1: a big issue about their kids learning about it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a very strange terrain to like to like make
Speaker 1: your stand in the culture wars. You know, I mean
Speaker 1: that as we recalled this, the culture wars are like
Speaker 1: really focused on gas ovens. So I guess we're just
Speaker 1: like we're doing weird ship. Now wait what yeah, I
Speaker 1: don't know. Some it's some Texas representative was posted today
Speaker 1: that you could take his gas oven from his cold
Speaker 1: dead hands, which like like if they're going to focus
Speaker 1: on gas ovens and not like harass like trance people
Speaker 1: or children and fine, like like I can't wait for
Speaker 1: them to and then make a stand at their bath
Speaker 1: and beyond like whatever, whatever, whatever's coming next. But if
Speaker 1: no more induction heat only, it's woke. It's the new
Speaker 1: woke oven. We should use coal. It's funny that you
Speaker 1: say that, though I did just recently learn that the
Speaker 1: reason why, and I'm sure people are going to disagree
Speaker 1: with this, and I'm not an expert, but that the
Speaker 1: reason why we think of gas as better than electric
Speaker 1: is just because of propaganda from the like the like
Speaker 1: petroleum ministry and natural gas industry. I had no idea.
Speaker 1: So basically my whole life I have I've never had
Speaker 1: a gas stove, and I've always been like, oh, it
Speaker 1: would be so great to have one. Come to find out,
Speaker 1: elect electric is just as good, if not better. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's fine. You've been gasolate, and the phrase I've
Speaker 1: been gasolate and the phrase, um, now you're cooking with
Speaker 1: gas that was a a manufactured phrase by the gas
Speaker 1: fun fact. I just learned that that is fascinating. It's
Speaker 1: great to see these people have adopted marketing is their
Speaker 1: entire identity, the thing that's never happened before. So back
Speaker 1: to Cecilia Lewis. Basically, you know, if you think back
Speaker 1: to when the entire world was having this sort of
Speaker 1: like reckoning around race and racial justice. In the wake
Speaker 1: of that climate, the Cherokee County School District was like,
Speaker 1: we should have our first ever d e I administrator,
Speaker 1: and that was one of the part of the reason
Speaker 1: why Cecilia was hired. But as we know that climate
Speaker 1: so came with this backlash from folks who probably felt like, oh, my,
Speaker 1: I feel challenged. My I'm starting to feel a little
Speaker 1: bit threatened in the fact that I am on the
Speaker 1: top of the of you know, the social hierarchy. So
Speaker 1: as we know that came with backlash, and I think
Speaker 1: that what happened to Cecilia is part of that backlash.
Speaker 1: Cecilia was excited to start her new job and by
Speaker 1: all accounts was like a talented, accomplished educator. But she
Speaker 1: gets an email from the administrator at her new school
Speaker 1: district asking her if she has ever heard of CRT
Speaker 1: and this was kind of before the CRT panic had
Speaker 1: really taken root, and Cecilia was like, I don't, I
Speaker 1: don't know what that is. I've never really heard of that. Now,
Speaker 1: the fact that she was such an accomplished teacher with
Speaker 1: like a master's degree, had been in the field for
Speaker 1: a while, and that she had never even heard of
Speaker 1: it really goes to show you how wild of a
Speaker 1: claim it is that she was somehow also planning on
Speaker 1: incorporating this this academic theory into her into her work
Speaker 1: at the school. She said she had never even heard
Speaker 1: of the concept. Right, So before she even starts at
Speaker 1: the school, district, parents start using a private Facebook group
Speaker 1: for Cherokee County School District Parents to dig into her background.
Speaker 1: Um One person posted that Cecilia's quote critical race theory
Speaker 1: background was a threat to the kids and encouraged everybody
Speaker 1: to send an email to the school board complaining, but
Speaker 1: again Cecilia say she didn't even know what this was. Basically,
Speaker 1: what they are saying is, this is a black woman
Speaker 1: who has the word diversity in her title, right Like,
Speaker 1: It's like very clear that this is Cecilia was not
Speaker 1: somebody who had had any history of teaching CRT. She
Speaker 1: says that she had never even heard of it. It
Speaker 1: does not show up in any public posts or statements
Speaker 1: that she has ever made in the history of her
Speaker 1: being alive at this point. And yet these parents are
Speaker 1: convinced that she has a background in critical race theory
Speaker 1: just for no reason other than her being a black woman.
Speaker 1: That's so odd, like, and it's not something that anyone
Speaker 1: ever will be teaching to like anyone unless you're like
Speaker 1: precocious and extremely smart, You're not engaging with like critical
Speaker 1: theory in school, and not until you get like upper
Speaker 1: level university classes, right exactly. I mean, the whole the
Speaker 1: whole thing is a farce, right and so um And
Speaker 1: I think this really shows to me how so much
Speaker 1: of the reporting around critical race theory was bad in
Speaker 1: so many ways, But probably the way that was the
Speaker 1: most infuriating to me and the most harmful in my opinion,
Speaker 1: is the way that it really allowed grifters to raise
Speaker 1: their personal profiles by getting up in school board meetings
Speaker 1: and screaming about critical race theory, you know. And I
Speaker 1: think that I would watch news reports, like local news
Speaker 1: reports where parents were being called, you know, concerned parents,
Speaker 1: or parents concerned about school transparency, or parents a parent
Speaker 1: who started a local grass rood organization, but they would
Speaker 1: never talk about the way that those organizations were funded,
Speaker 1: coordinated and propped up by right wing think tanks for instance,
Speaker 1: or you know, they just would let these people go
Speaker 1: on tell vision, spewing nonsense and getting engagement on it
Speaker 1: without ever asking any kind of critical questions about why
Speaker 1: that was. And I think that I don't know, I
Speaker 1: think that when we allow for grifters to just have
Speaker 1: the stage, all of us lose out right. And so
Speaker 1: these are people who realize that if they showed up
Speaker 1: to their local school board meetings and gave like a
Speaker 1: fiery speech, they might end up on Fox News. They
Speaker 1: might end up being a contributor to Fox News. They
Speaker 1: might be able to parlay this and a run for
Speaker 1: public office, which more on that later, um. And I
Speaker 1: think that these people are just like Charlatan's who use
Speaker 1: these kinds of issues to personally enrich themselves and the
Speaker 1: way that the way that local media especially allows them
Speaker 1: to do that, I think it's criminal. Yeah, it's yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's ridiculous, kind of credulous or even like this
Speaker 1: both sidesing of things right that you don't actually need
Speaker 1: to give the side who are lying about stuff at time.
Speaker 1: And they did a coup here by the way they
Speaker 1: cooed the school board really yeah, like I forget exactly
Speaker 1: what's happening. There was like a protest and then the
Speaker 1: school board basically left and I think people were like
Speaker 1: interrupting a shouting touch and and the school board and
Speaker 1: decided to leave for their for their own safety, I think.
Speaker 1: And then these people installed themselves as the school board.
Speaker 1: They like went out there and did like a that's right,
Speaker 1: that's right, like we're the school board now, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: Which it's not how school boys work? Is that how
Speaker 1: anything works? Like yeah, and you're so right about this
Speaker 1: kind of really bad both sides that we see because
Speaker 1: something that so I live in d C and one
Speaker 1: of the hotbeds of anti critical race theory nonsense, was
Speaker 1: loudon County, which is in northern Virginia, pretty close to
Speaker 1: d C. And so I would watch on my local
Speaker 1: news how this issue was being framed by local like
Speaker 1: local media, and I know that we you know, I
Speaker 1: don't want to rag on local media too much because
Speaker 1: I know that they're very under resource, and so I
Speaker 1: can I can understand why you would flap together both
Speaker 1: sides package and just like air it. And it's fine
Speaker 1: because you know, when you just have to get something out.
Speaker 1: I told I can understand that, but just what a
Speaker 1: disservice it did. And I think it's interesting how whenever
Speaker 1: local media would highlight parents on the issue, almost always,
Speaker 1: by default, those parents were white and had a problem
Speaker 1: with inclusion in the classroom, And so where were black
Speaker 1: parents who were like this is kind of scary. People
Speaker 1: are showing up at school board meetings foaming at the mouth,
Speaker 1: and it's it's concerning to me who we centered as
Speaker 1: concerned parents in that whole conversation. Yeah, yeah, it's fascinating,
Speaker 1: and yeah, it's you have to think about the impact
Speaker 1: your reporting. Like yet, like you said, people have to
Speaker 1: get stuff out, and I understand that, and I've had
Speaker 1: to get stuff out myself. But like maybe we have
Speaker 1: a little bit too much news, and this is what
Speaker 1: happens when when we don't take any kind of editorial stance,
Speaker 1: and yeah, we'd like act like a fucking golden retrieve
Speaker 1: with just being like, oh look look at these people
Speaker 1: and retrievers already. I don't know, I just feel like
Speaker 1: sometimes like we report things like with like these little
Speaker 1: dogs that are just like, oh look someone's shouting, let's
Speaker 1: give them a microphone as supposed to being like huh,
Speaker 1: example I like to use for local media, it's like
Speaker 1: cops withs fentanyl. I love goal media here, like about
Speaker 1: a year ago, did this insane story on like this
Speaker 1: cop who would like contact overdose, which isn't a thing
Speaker 1: that you can do, and yeah, just being like, oh look,
Speaker 1: it's a great story, it's an exciting video. Put it out,
Speaker 1: put it out, put it out, and not just be
Speaker 1: like her. But what if it's not true? Why don't
Speaker 1: we contact a single medical doctor or just Google? Can
Speaker 1: you contact overdose fentanyl? Because like the American College of
Speaker 1: Medical Toxicology is extremely clear. But yeah, instead, you know,
Speaker 1: I guess you get some clicks or something. I don't know.
Speaker 1: It's disappointing. There are great local reporters too. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't want to read a local reporting. The fentanyl
Speaker 1: thing is something that burns me up. I will go
Speaker 1: I always go off on a complete hand. Yet I
Speaker 1: saw one recently where the headline suggested that a police
Speaker 1: officer was doing a traffic stop the fent atyl blew up.
Speaker 1: There was a gust of wind, and they say that
Speaker 1: the fent atyl like blew up her nose and that
Speaker 1: she that like she had an overdose that way, it's
Speaker 1: like the amount of anti Just just think about it
Speaker 1: for one second, if that's something that you think that
Speaker 1: makes sense. Like she opened the car door, there was
Speaker 1: a gust of wind, wouldn't you know it it blew
Speaker 1: right up her nose. Yeah, it's mad, it's and it
Speaker 1: really hurts people, right like, because if you see someone overdosing,
Speaker 1: you should go and try and help them. And if
Speaker 1: you have knock and you can very very easily help them.
Speaker 1: And there aren't many downsides using knock at but if
Speaker 1: you think that by being within twenty of them, you're
Speaker 1: going to overdose yourself, and you might not do that,
Speaker 1: and that that person might not make it and like
Speaker 1: it's really damaging. It's not just like silly and funny,
Speaker 1: and it's unfortunate for these dec ops, but like it's
Speaker 1: it's unfortunate that someone's told them a lie to the
Speaker 1: degree that they're they're having these sort of psychosomatic problems, right,
Speaker 1: Like totally it's not very nice for them, I'm sure.
Speaker 1: And it's also I think that your point is such
Speaker 1: a good one that it's incredibly stigmatizing for people who
Speaker 1: do use substances. I think the idea that like you
Speaker 1: can't even touch them or you'll get it, like it
Speaker 1: it's it's incredibly like dehumanizing, and I think it I
Speaker 1: think it is a myth that normalizes this kind of stigmatizing,
Speaker 1: dehumanizing understanding of people who use substances that we should
Speaker 1: really be all working to dismantle because it makes us
Speaker 1: all less safe. It's harmful to all of us. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And like we did this with HIV right as well.
Speaker 1: Essentially like ignored evidence that suggests you can't get HIV
Speaker 1: from using the same fucking lift as someone elevator for
Speaker 1: those of us who in America, but or chair or
Speaker 1: something did did did that helps? Did they made me laugh? Yeah?
Speaker 1: It stigmatized people and actually I make I make my
Speaker 1: students switch of a film about that particular thing. Um,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, we've gone way off topic. Thing O defense
Speaker 1: a all thing will always will always take me off topic.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about some of these professional ass haters
Speaker 1: who whipped up a fury around Cecilia Lewis. Like, these
Speaker 1: people are like haters of the sucking year in my book. So,
Speaker 1: before Cecilia Lewis had ever moved to Georgia or even
Speaker 1: started her job there, Ronda Thomas, the founder of the
Speaker 1: nonprofit Truth in Education, was really on the on the
Speaker 1: case of keeping Cecilia out. So the website for her organization,
Speaker 1: Truth and Education, has a long list of things that
Speaker 1: they oppose in schools. They're trying to protect kids from
Speaker 1: social emotional learning, critical race theory, radical gender ideology, obscene
Speaker 1: and inappropriate books, comprehensive sex education, diversity, equity and inclusion,
Speaker 1: and many other destructive practice is ruining our schools. Side
Speaker 1: note this must also include proof reading because look at
Speaker 1: this screenshot that was on their website. Are obscene materials
Speaker 1: in your s c O O L Library? So I
Speaker 1: can tell you, I can tell you who's not in
Speaker 1: the fucking library. Whoever wrote that on the website, it's
Speaker 1: cool that way, are they in your school library? Magnificent stuff.
Speaker 1: So here's a little bit of Ronda explaining why she
Speaker 1: does what she does in her own words. And in
Speaker 1: the past four years, I've been involved in educating legislators
Speaker 1: and parents on the comprehensive sex ad that's in our schools,
Speaker 1: the critical race theory once it came on the scene, uh,
Speaker 1: and also the social emotional learning. So I felt really
Speaker 1: passionate about it. I thought God called me to this.
Speaker 1: I had so many parents coming and very concerned. So
Speaker 1: we've been very involved in educating them, helping them work
Speaker 1: with their school boards, finding school board members. Were just
Speaker 1: doing everything we can to really assist these parents because
Speaker 1: they're in a very difficult situation and we're seeing their
Speaker 1: children propagandize through all this. And it really is a
Speaker 1: Marxist agenda. Not only is the critical race theory Marxism,
Speaker 1: but the comprehensive sex set is too, because Marxism is
Speaker 1: all about separation of family, breaking down the country. And
Speaker 1: what is key to our country? It's our family, all right?
Speaker 1: You get the idea, So cursed aside, and the fact
Speaker 1: that like people can look up false consciousness and understand
Speaker 1: what marks sort about race and maybe investigate why that's
Speaker 1: not actually right. This reminds me so much of the
Speaker 1: are you guys familiar with the Trojan Horse affair? I
Speaker 1: think that not seeing not like the Greek thing, but
Speaker 1: like the scandal in British education, whereby there was largely
Speaker 1: like a mass panic about like like quote unquote fucking
Speaker 1: whatever this means to different people, right, Sharia law in
Speaker 1: education and like quote unquote islamicization of British schools. And
Speaker 1: there's an excellent podcast. I think it was people who
Speaker 1: did cereal. They made it, made it serious about this
Speaker 1: and people should listen to it. Um. But like it's
Speaker 1: the same same ship, right, like it's it's it's it's
Speaker 1: just fabricated mass panic about like they're taking our children. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, I sorry. That sounds fascinating to me, And
Speaker 1: it's so interesting because like I want to talk about
Speaker 1: this later in the episode, but how schools and like
Speaker 1: education has long been this this place where you can
Speaker 1: always reliably get people scared and panic. Like there's something
Speaker 1: about schools and I think that the vibe of like
Speaker 1: sending your kid off to school is like a very stressful,
Speaker 1: you know, emotional thing for a lot of parents. And
Speaker 1: I think that it's just it's just like it creates
Speaker 1: the conditions for really harmful panics to take root and
Speaker 1: spread um And I think that's one of the reasons
Speaker 1: why we see education as this battleground and we have
Speaker 1: for so long. Yeah, And like the nature of the
Speaker 1: world is such that generations will always be different, right,
Speaker 1: and they have been, Like you can find that Greeks
Speaker 1: and Romans writing about these kids today and their ship music.
Speaker 1: But like you send your children away to school, they
Speaker 1: get exposed to other perspectives, to other people, and they
Speaker 1: come back different from the way they were if you
Speaker 1: just kept them in your little bubble and cokinge. And increasingly,
Speaker 1: I'm guessing for a lot of these people, their kids
Speaker 1: are coming back more tolerant, more aware of people who
Speaker 1: are different from them, right, and what diversity means and
Speaker 1: why it's probably a good thing. And they didn't like
Speaker 1: that so that they got mad and made up of
Speaker 1: thing exactly exactly. So that brings me to another hater
Speaker 1: of the year in this story. Noel Kahanian, who runs
Speaker 1: protect Student Health Georgia, a nonprofit that is basically the
Speaker 1: same stuff as Rhonda's is um it's all based in fearmongering,
Speaker 1: and it's so interesting. So I went to her website,
Speaker 1: her organization's website, and they would have you believe that
Speaker 1: schools are handing out hardcore bondage pornography to kids. So
Speaker 1: on her website, under the section remove obscene Materials, she writes,
Speaker 1: Georgia law contains a loophole that allows school libraries and
Speaker 1: public libraries to expose children to obscene and harmful materials
Speaker 1: both visual and verbal descriptions. The definition of harmful to
Speaker 1: minors is stato masochistic abuse. It means actual or simulated
Speaker 1: flagellation or torture buy or upon a person who is nude,
Speaker 1: clad in undergarments, a mask or bizarre costume, or the
Speaker 1: condition of being fettered, found, or otherwise physically restrained by
Speaker 1: one so closed or nude. I don't know that that's
Speaker 1: I don't know that that's really being handed out in
Speaker 1: school libraries, Like I don't know that that is really
Speaker 1: It's interesting to me, how, like anybody where was the
Speaker 1: BDSS section in my fourth grade school library? I really
Speaker 1: needed to find it. But it's just it's all fearmongering, right.
Speaker 1: I think that most people would read this and be, oh,
Speaker 1: she is clearly trying to stoke my fear and outrage
Speaker 1: about you know, my kids being threatened by you know,
Speaker 1: perverts or something to get me to act. I don't
Speaker 1: see how anybody could look at these and think this
Speaker 1: is not just meant to fearmonger. Yeah, very sure. And
Speaker 1: some of the ships in the Bible, I guess there's
Speaker 1: probably some some flagellation and maybe that's what they're going for. Yeah, maybe. Um.
Speaker 1: And it's interesting to note that both of these women's
Speaker 1: organizations on their websites have places where they encourage people
Speaker 1: to send in tips about schools teaching things that they
Speaker 1: don't like, or to surveil school board members. Right. It
Speaker 1: was like, oh, you know, definitely has Yeah, it definitely
Speaker 1: has that aspect of surveillance and turning people in who
Speaker 1: you suspect of teaching things that you don't like. Um.
Speaker 1: And so these parents are just grieving smongers who have
Speaker 1: figured out how to use this outrage and stoke it
Speaker 1: to generate attention, not just for their like bullshit liberty
Speaker 1: in schools or whatever mantra, but to also pay attention
Speaker 1: to them to personally raise their profiles. ProPublica got audio
Speaker 1: of Noel telling parents how to go to school board
Speaker 1: meetings and to use what she calls the tsunami effect
Speaker 1: to just pile on with more and more outrageous speeches
Speaker 1: and to get good video of, you know, really stellar performances.
Speaker 1: She told a crowd, it's good in case Tucker Carlson
Speaker 1: wants to put you on the air. It really helps.
Speaker 1: I think these are people who are open about the
Speaker 1: fact that they are gunning for television opportunities and for
Speaker 1: fame and for eyeballs. They haven't They're not just concerned parents.
Speaker 1: There are people who have an axe to grind and
Speaker 1: also just really want to be on television party normal staff. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I think James, it goes back to something that
Speaker 1: you said earlier about our sort of digital media climate
Speaker 1: where we have this vibe where attention is what sells
Speaker 1: like and so these parents know they can display to that.
Speaker 1: So it's not it's not parents getting up at a
Speaker 1: school board and making a thoughtful saying something thoughtful or
Speaker 1: like genuinely trying to have actual discourse or ask a
Speaker 1: question or find actual understanding. No, no no, no, they're interested
Speaker 1: in little stunts and grandstanding because they know that's what's
Speaker 1: gonna pop, that's what's going to work in our current
Speaker 1: digital media ecosystem. Right, Like, if it if it can't
Speaker 1: be distilled to like a TikTok or a tweet or
Speaker 1: like like an instagram real, then is it is it
Speaker 1: really worth like saying in like you're not gonna get
Speaker 1: the attention for it, right from being like I don't
Speaker 1: understand what we're teaching and I'd like to know, Like
Speaker 1: I'm concerned, but please explain to me what a d
Speaker 1: I coordinated does, for instance. Exactly, So, at a school
Speaker 1: board meeting, these people start discussing Cecilia, who began has
Speaker 1: not even started her job in the school district yet,
Speaker 1: and they're basically saying that she's an outsider who it's
Speaker 1: going to change the district. Listen to how racialized. What
Speaker 1: they say in these meetings is we are we said
Speaker 1: you can't, you know, you can't find some way and
Speaker 1: if you're looking for her back, it's not about the power,
Speaker 1: it's what she's going to bring. So and they're there
Speaker 1: every parenty U. So basically they really talk about her
Speaker 1: like they're like, oh, it's not that she's black, if
Speaker 1: they wanted to find somebody black, Atlanta's just down the street,
Speaker 1: which like what like it's it's very clear to me
Speaker 1: that they're dancing around race. So they really are careful
Speaker 1: to be like, oh, it's not we're not racist, we're
Speaker 1: not racist, but it's just about we don't like her,
Speaker 1: and so it's it's using all this language that is
Speaker 1: really trying to make her this outsider, which again, they
Speaker 1: don't really know anything about this woman, what she's planning
Speaker 1: on teaching. She has not even started yet, so they're
Speaker 1: just completely basing this off the fact that she is
Speaker 1: a black woman who has the word diversity in her title.
Speaker 1: And remember how Cecilia said that she had no idea
Speaker 1: what critical race theory was when her administrator asked her
Speaker 1: about it. Well, even as all of this outrage was brewing,
Speaker 1: she still didn't really know what it was. She told
Speaker 1: Republica that she actually had to research it to confirm
Speaker 1: that had nothing to do with her role. But she
Speaker 1: was like, I don't know, maybe I missed a memo
Speaker 1: somewhere that this is what I'm doing. Because they're so
Speaker 1: upset um And again, this is the one who doesn't
Speaker 1: have social media. She only has a LinkedIn. She has
Speaker 1: never made public statements about CRT or really any kind
Speaker 1: of like public social media statements of any kind. Really,
Speaker 1: she doesn't do social media. But in a forty eight
Speaker 1: hour period, the school gets one hundred form letters demanding
Speaker 1: that Cecilia's employment offer be rescinded because of her perceived
Speaker 1: involvement with critical race theory. And why they're upset is
Speaker 1: super clear, right, it's because she's black. And one letter
Speaker 1: they basically spell this out. Somebody writes, did you know
Speaker 1: that seventy seven point eight percent of the population is
Speaker 1: considered white alone, seven point seven are black, at eleven
Speaker 1: point one are Hispanic. Are we now in a county
Speaker 1: that is going to care to a handful of people?
Speaker 1: Like the way that this is so obviously an overtly
Speaker 1: racialized and like about this incredibly white community feeling threatened
Speaker 1: by a black person coming from Maryland is very clear.
Speaker 1: And also another thing to know is that she's coming
Speaker 1: from Maryland, but the place where she works in Maryland
Speaker 1: is also very white and also is like deeply trumpy,
Speaker 1: So it's not it's not like she's coming from Baltimore,
Speaker 1: where she's coming from from one heavily white school district
Speaker 1: that voted for Trump to another heavily white school district
Speaker 1: that voted for Trump. God forbid your children at school
Speaker 1: in Cherokee County, learn why they're living in a trumpy
Speaker 1: white school district. Right. So people are outrage age and
Speaker 1: there is a school board meeting. The meeting you can
Speaker 1: find videos of the meeting on YouTube, and the meeting
Speaker 1: is like one of those school board meetings where you
Speaker 1: know it's standing room only. They have to have security.
Speaker 1: They have met they have installed metal detectors because that's
Speaker 1: how outraged and pissed that these people have been whipped
Speaker 1: up into a frenzy. And so she doesn't live there,
Speaker 1: so Cecilia is not even able to be to speak
Speaker 1: in this meeting, but she does watch it on a
Speaker 1: live stream, and basically she watches as all of these
Speaker 1: people who hired her, who talked about how excited they
Speaker 1: were to have her doing this d I work that
Speaker 1: they wanted to do, basically turn on her. The superintendent
Speaker 1: who hired her to work on d I says, while
Speaker 1: I initially entertained and publicly spoke about the development of
Speaker 1: a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion d I plan. I recognize
Speaker 1: that our intentions have become widely misunderstood in the community
Speaker 1: and it created division. To that end, I have concluded
Speaker 1: that there will be no separate d I plan. So
Speaker 1: the thing that Cecilia had been fired to lead, he
Speaker 1: just gets up and it's like, never mind, y'all, we're
Speaker 1: not doing it. It's over. Also, State Rep. Brad Thomas
Speaker 1: says that he's going to draft a resolution to make
Speaker 1: teaching critical race theory and the sixteen nineteen project illegal
Speaker 1: in Georgia again, both of which have fuck all to
Speaker 1: do with Cecilia's job. And just again it's like just
Speaker 1: a mixed bag of perceived black things. It's like, oh,
Speaker 1: we're gonna throw in like we don't think anybody should
Speaker 1: play a Missy Elliot album on campus either, throw that
Speaker 1: in there. It's like it's just like they're just like
Speaker 1: grabbing at things they perceived as black, and thanks they're
Speaker 1: against it. It's bizarre, Like and look, God, if you
Speaker 1: wouldn't your child to fucking navigate the world, Like maybe
Speaker 1: maybe they should be paying attention to the sixteen project,
Speaker 1: Like maybe it would be good if that was even
Speaker 1: Like I'm in California, right, which is like extremely awoke
Speaker 1: as education systems go, and like I will have students
Speaker 1: come to my classroom like totally unaware for instance, of
Speaker 1: like really any of the history of like the Black
Speaker 1: Panthers or the American Indian Movement stuff which is extremely
Speaker 1: important in making the country that we all have to
Speaker 1: live in, especially stuff where you, like I taught a
Speaker 1: course on political violence and that's not something we talk
Speaker 1: about very much in schools at all, but like we
Speaker 1: we are massively under educated on a lot of this
Speaker 1: stuff and very strange just out of curiosity in your
Speaker 1: personal like education journey, when did you And I am
Speaker 1: not super familiar with how it works where you grew up,
Speaker 1: but when do you When did you feel like you
Speaker 1: started getting a better education on the things that are
Speaker 1: so often left out of the story. Well, I went
Speaker 1: to a lot of different schools, but one of the
Speaker 1: schools we had a couple of priests who had had
Speaker 1: to leave South Africa because of their like fervent opposition
Speaker 1: to apartheid, and like, I think that opposition may have
Speaker 1: straight into political violence, but they we're pretty good and
Speaker 1: being like there's some funked up ship going down eleven
Speaker 1: year old children and you should be aware of this.
Speaker 1: And like, I think I was younger than that when
Speaker 1: apartheid ended, but um, around then I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: that's pretty messed up maybe, and then like my family
Speaker 1: traveled a lot to go to different parts of the
Speaker 1: world and just being like, fuck, these little kids that
Speaker 1: I'm playing with here have have a different situation to me,
Speaker 1: and that's pretty sunked up. So I think I was
Speaker 1: probably about ten or eleven, Okay, yeah, when I when
Speaker 1: I became work, and it's all been downhill from there. Obviously.
Speaker 1: Now you're working. Now, you're working with cool vown media,
Speaker 1: making lefty Marxist podcast. Yeah, out here reading marks and
Speaker 1: it's like transiting children's genders or whatever it is is
Speaker 1: fourthing kids in the drag brunches. They work expect how
Speaker 1: we do. We're out there every days, kidnapping your children
Speaker 1: on the front lines. Main just projecting like b DSM
Speaker 1: porn into kindergartens. Always, Sophie makes me, Yeah, that's that's
Speaker 1: Sophie's that's Sophie's job as the leader of this ship.
Speaker 1: It was weird when she got me the giant projector.
Speaker 1: But now I understand why. So at this school board meeting,
Speaker 1: things start to go off the rail. Cecilia is mentioned
Speaker 1: by name, and when she is parents, many of whom
Speaker 1: are we're not able to get into this packed house
Speaker 1: school board meeting who are outside start beating on the
Speaker 1: windows and screaming no, no, no, when her name gets
Speaker 1: brought up. Here's a little a little taste of what
Speaker 1: that sounded like. So it's like a circus. It is
Speaker 1: like a circus. It is a lot of Caucasian people
Speaker 1: banging on the edge of a scop window. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: hope they're all well sunscreened. I'll just say that, because
Speaker 1: it's like a hundred percent white ample crowd. No again,
Speaker 1: this angry about somebody who they have never spoken to.
Speaker 1: They don't know any any anything about, right, this is
Speaker 1: like And that's just the overflow crowd of folks who
Speaker 1: were not able to fit into the school building for
Speaker 1: the meeting. So the meeting is adjourned and it's still
Speaker 1: pandemonium and school board members have to be escorted home
Speaker 1: by the police because it is not safe. So in
Speaker 1: this meeting they passed the resolution to banned critical race
Speaker 1: theory and not teach the sixteen nineteen project, and that
Speaker 1: there's not going to be a d e I initiative
Speaker 1: in the school. Cecilia responds and a statement saying, I
Speaker 1: wholeheartedly fell in love with Cherokee County when I came
Speaker 1: for a visit and accepted the position. But somehow I
Speaker 1: got caught in the crossfire of lies, misinformation, and accusations
Speaker 1: which have zero basis um. And so I will give
Speaker 1: the tiniest, most miniscule defense of the school system here
Speaker 1: and that. Cecilia does say that she got lots of
Speaker 1: calls from administrators who were like, oh my god, we're
Speaker 1: so embarrassed, We're so sorry. You know the classic this
Speaker 1: is not who we are. They say that they still
Speaker 1: want her to come work for the school district, but
Speaker 1: just not in d e I as planned because they
Speaker 1: got rid of the d e I initiative. Cecilia understandably,
Speaker 1: it's like fuck no, right. Her husband is like, absolutely,
Speaker 1: no way we are moving there. You are not working
Speaker 1: with these people in no way does it seem like
Speaker 1: a safe situation her She hasn't even moved to this
Speaker 1: this community or even started this job, and so she
Speaker 1: already resigns before her first day, So you would think
Speaker 1: that's the end of it, right, These these people got
Speaker 1: what they wanted. There's gonna be no d I in
Speaker 1: the school district. Cecilia is not coming to work there.
Speaker 1: You know, it shouldn't be the end of it. Well,
Speaker 1: you're gonna have to get used to me saying this
Speaker 1: like five more times in this episode, because every time
Speaker 1: you're like, shouldn't that be the end of it for
Speaker 1: these people, it's not. The story continues, and this is
Speaker 1: where stuff gets a little bit weird because there's kind
Speaker 1: of a lot of overlap of some of the conspiracy
Speaker 1: theory stuff that we've talked about before. Cherokee County parents
Speaker 1: keep using their private Facebook group to speculate on Cecilia's whereabouts.
Speaker 1: Cecilia is still in Maryland, mind you, she did not
Speaker 1: end up coming to Georgia, so she is still just
Speaker 1: like in her home in Maryland. But people are making
Speaker 1: posts in this private Facebook group being like I saw
Speaker 1: her at the hardware store, I saw her in a
Speaker 1: white car and had Maryland plays. So it's just like
Speaker 1: just like, really, I mean, I can't even imagine chasing
Speaker 1: something like chasing somebody out of the community, and so
Speaker 1: they don't they don't even come there because they because
Speaker 1: I've I've You've been so horrible to them. And then
Speaker 1: after you get your way, you're going to continue to
Speaker 1: like speculate on their whereabouts as if she's hiding in lows,
Speaker 1: lurking in your community, just waiting to pounce, and like
Speaker 1: teach your kids about diversity or something. What are you
Speaker 1: communicating to your children, Like monthly just going on her
Speaker 1: private Facebook group to harass and black lady in Baltimore
Speaker 1: who she thinks she saw it lows like exactly exactly,
Speaker 1: like the like the posts on the group are are
Speaker 1: like just just something. There's something very very different of
Speaker 1: like y'all have too much time on your hands and
Speaker 1: are way too obsessed with this one person that you
Speaker 1: have never even met. Yeah, very strange. So Cecilia never
Speaker 1: ended up coming to Georgia for that job, but her
Speaker 1: husband is still meant to be relocating for work, and
Speaker 1: so she still intends to look for work in Georgia.
Speaker 1: She ends up getting her resume passed along to a
Speaker 1: job as the social studies supervisor in copp County, Georgia,
Speaker 1: which is nearby Cherokee County. So when she gets this job,
Speaker 1: that same private Facebook group for Cherokee County parents lights up.
Speaker 1: Even though she is not intending to work for Cherokee County,
Speaker 1: She's working in another county. Uh. These parents continue surveiling
Speaker 1: this one educator that they've never met or spoken to
Speaker 1: and has nothing to do with the education of their
Speaker 1: child with point and the comments on the posts about
Speaker 1: her getting another job are horrible. One person writes, she's
Speaker 1: a syringe filled with division, razor blades, and hate, like
Speaker 1: this was the one that they've never even met and
Speaker 1: they have no idea what her background is. Yeah, what
Speaker 1: a bizarre Yeah, it's very strange. I'm just looking. Isn't
Speaker 1: that like just outside Atlanta? M hm yeah, yeah, but
Speaker 1: it's still not Okay, it's great because you look on
Speaker 1: the I found out Google Maps. It's nice to see
Speaker 1: Stone Mountain still kicking around. They'll kick in, they'll kick in,
Speaker 1: totally normal. That's the that's the normal stuff where I say,
Speaker 1: d I is what's in? What's its fermenting division and bad? Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like, oh, that's like these I mean, it's one
Speaker 1: of those things where I hear a lot worse, like oh,
Speaker 1: black people are so obsessed with race. Now, excuse me
Speaker 1: while I name all of our roads and monuments after
Speaker 1: fucking Confederate heroes and ship like mountain here. Yeah, make
Speaker 1: my racist mountain my monument of racism. But y'all are
Speaker 1: obseted with the race that y'all I did. I was
Speaker 1: in Georgia, not this year, our last summer writing about
Speaker 1: a refugee women's hiking group, which is very cool thing.
Speaker 1: And people are in Atlanta. They should they should go
Speaker 1: support them, give them money. But it's fascinating because Stone
Speaker 1: Mountain is like not the neighborhoods around that am not
Speaker 1: like all wealthy white people and a lot of these
Speaker 1: these women who are like who had arrived from Afghanistan
Speaker 1: or run or all over the world. Right, we're like,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, I love to go hiking in Stone Mountain.
Speaker 1: It's great. I can get outside a second, Like, which
Speaker 1: is the best fuck you to the racist on the
Speaker 1: mountain I could possibly think of, right to see these
Speaker 1: families enjoying their time outside. You have a whole This
Speaker 1: is such a tangent. You have a whole background, and
Speaker 1: like um inclusion in the outdoors. Right, Yeah, it's something
Speaker 1: I've tried to write about a lot. Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: it's really important, and I think it's something that we have.
Speaker 1: Really it's got better. But like every single time I've
Speaker 1: been to Outdoor Retailer for as long as I think,
Speaker 1: which is a trade show of the outdo industry, the
Speaker 1: theme is inclusion, and then it's the same fucking thing
Speaker 1: every year, and it's extremely tiresome. And that I'm like
Speaker 1: a cist, gender heterosexual, white guy, and I find it tiresome.
Speaker 1: And I can imagine like some of the ship my
Speaker 1: friends have had to deal with in the outdoor industry
Speaker 1: is just extremely cringe. Yeah, we should do we should,
Speaker 1: we should talk about it, we should. I am happy
Speaker 1: to I tried to say on the subject. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: not my thing to like obviously, I'm like I said,
Speaker 1: and miss cis hat white guy, but we could all
Speaker 1: do more in the outdoor industry. And yeah, it's it's disappointing,
Speaker 1: and it continues to be disappointing. And we appropriate ship
Speaker 1: from indigenous people and like virtue signal, but then don't
Speaker 1: actually look pay native artists who use native art and
Speaker 1: that kind of stuff, and it's yeah, it's bad. Don't
Speaker 1: do that don't do so before Cecilia starts her new job.
Speaker 1: The complaints from the same parents who you know, we're
Speaker 1: complaining the last time even though she's not even working
Speaker 1: in their county. Hoor in, and they really illustrate again
Speaker 1: this complete lack of understanding of CRT and the job
Speaker 1: that Cecilia was hired to do. Parents called Cecilia a
Speaker 1: quote well known advocate of critical race theory when again
Speaker 1: remember she's never talked about it publicly. She didn't even
Speaker 1: know what it was. Cobb County, like Cherokee County, also
Speaker 1: had voted to ban teaching critical race theory and the
Speaker 1: sixteen nineteen project, even though this is something gonna do
Speaker 1: with what she was hired for. But Apparent emails the
Speaker 1: school district and basically expresses worry about critical race theory
Speaker 1: being taught. The superintendent reply saying, I agree what a
Speaker 1: hundred percent with you about critical race theory. Don't worry
Speaker 1: because it's banned in this county. The parent replies, why
Speaker 1: has Cecilia Lewis been hired by Cobb. She was hired
Speaker 1: by Cherokee Schools for CRT and was run off because
Speaker 1: the parents put up such a fight. Now, Cobb has
Speaker 1: quietly hired her. This is not a good move for
Speaker 1: the optics that Cobb has supposedly banned CRT. So again,
Speaker 1: this person who has nothing to do with it, just
Speaker 1: just bye bye virtue of her being a black woman.
Speaker 1: That is all that takes to connect her with critical
Speaker 1: race theory. So she starts this job and it is
Speaker 1: red flag city right like. She ends up being asked
Speaker 1: to prepare a presentation to introduce herself to all the
Speaker 1: social studies teachers at a training, and then when she
Speaker 1: goes to this training, she's not allowed to speak. Um,
Speaker 1: all these different changes happened to her position. She was
Speaker 1: hired as a social study supervisor, but any correspondence to
Speaker 1: social studies teacher that she's going to have now needs
Speaker 1: to be approved ahead of time, and she says that
Speaker 1: nothing that she ever writes gets approved. Basically, they were
Speaker 1: shutting her out of this job that she was hired for,
Speaker 1: she explains to Republic As. She says, it was pretty
Speaker 1: much them tucking me away. Every meeting was canceled, every
Speaker 1: professional learning opportunity that I was supposed to lead with
Speaker 1: my team, I couldn't do every department meeting with different schools.
Speaker 1: I was told I can't go, And honestly, kind of
Speaker 1: kudos to her, because I don't know, a lot of
Speaker 1: people might be fine withdrawing a salary for a job
Speaker 1: that they don't actually have to do, but Cecilia was not,
Speaker 1: and she ends up resigning. So now she has been
Speaker 1: chased out of not one, but two different jobs because
Speaker 1: of this group of parents. Yeah, this is yeah. Cutos
Speaker 1: to this lady for like being incredibly brave. I would
Speaker 1: not be in the state fucking Georgia if I was like, no,
Speaker 1: absolutely not bold, but yeah, good on her for sticking
Speaker 1: to our guns. And in the end, these hating as
Speaker 1: parents of Cherokee County, they realized that they were wrong
Speaker 1: to drum up fake outrage around one black woman for
Speaker 1: no reason, and they were all deeply ashamed of their
Speaker 1: behavior and they were gonna reflect inward. Oh wait, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: I'm just kidding. They were like high fiving and like
Speaker 1: popping bottles. Right. They took Cecilia leaving the state of
Speaker 1: Georgia as a rallying cry to continue to work to
Speaker 1: amass more power on school boards. They started a group
Speaker 1: called Educate Cherokee, where they bragged about chasing her out
Speaker 1: of town, claiming it as one of their accomplishments. On
Speaker 1: their website, they wrote, bring your ideas, energy and enthusiasm.
Speaker 1: We need to convert all of it to an effective
Speaker 1: election to effort to eliminate critical race theory by replacing
Speaker 1: all the current school board members up for re election
Speaker 1: with new Conservatives committed to our cause. The group that
Speaker 1: initially ousted Cecilia started calling themselves the four Can Do
Speaker 1: More coalition, and they launched a website that reads, and
Speaker 1: I know physically in pain. What a powerful win for
Speaker 1: settler colonialism that you can call your group educate fucking
Speaker 1: Cherokee and not interspection that for a second introspection. Yeah, no,
Speaker 1: wild Maybe maybe school should teach some ship. Yeah if
Speaker 1: if only they had they had D E I or
Speaker 1: like so. On their website, they say In May one,
Speaker 1: Cherokee County was taken by surprise when it was announced
Speaker 1: that our conservative board voted to bring in Cecilia Lewis
Speaker 1: as administrator on a special assignment director of Diversity, Equity
Speaker 1: and Inclusion. However, her history was riddled with critical race
Speaker 1: theory ideologies in her previous school district. Why would the
Speaker 1: current board vote seven to zero to bring in someone
Speaker 1: to implement programs not in alignment with the family values
Speaker 1: of our community. They had a whole plan to basically
Speaker 1: take over the school board through running for local school boards.
Speaker 1: They were even endorsed by the seventeen seventy six Project pack,
Speaker 1: which you remember was that thing created to be sort
Speaker 1: of in opposition to the sixteen nineteen project Like oh
Speaker 1: you say sixteen nineteen, we say seventeen seventy six. Cool. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: very strange. Good, Yeah, I remember them doing this as
Speaker 1: if those people didn't own slaves, like like it exactly. However,
Speaker 1: they all lost. They do. They're all losers, and they
Speaker 1: did what losers do, which is lose. They all lost
Speaker 1: their fucking elections, and of course, probably not surprising to you,
Speaker 1: when they lost their elections, they tried to pull that
Speaker 1: same kind of like, oh, rigged the election, like oh,
Speaker 1: we need to like ridged vote kind of nonsense that
Speaker 1: we're all so familiar with by now, yes, steal what
Speaker 1: what date? We what day we at? Now? This is
Speaker 1: like post Trump. Yeah, this is post And it's funny
Speaker 1: because we did an episode about Shay and Ruby Freeman
Speaker 1: about how since that has become a common song in dance, right,
Speaker 1: like I lost this election. Ergo it's rigged ergo. Special
Speaker 1: lecters like how that has just become a thing that
Speaker 1: is now in our our national bloodstream to all of
Speaker 1: our destriment. Yeah, we don't even have to wait to lose, right,
Speaker 1: Larry Elda had its website ready for that ship before
Speaker 1: the day of the election, like he did, pivoted his
Speaker 1: website to stop the steel like like a midnight the
Speaker 1: day before the vote. Well, also, that is like, really,
Speaker 1: it's not. It's like if you are if you think
Speaker 1: you know you're gonna lose, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: It's like, well, I'm not a winning endorsement transparent griff here.
Speaker 1: So again, in the episode that we did about um
Speaker 1: Shay and Ruby Freeman, we talked about how the business
Speaker 1: of local elections have been so intense that regular people
Speaker 1: just don't want the headache and the risk to their
Speaker 1: personal safety of being involved in anymore, leaving these critical
Speaker 1: roles to be filled by extremists, and that very same
Speaker 1: thing is threatening our local school boards and education system
Speaker 1: as well. According to chalk Beat, extremists have launched at
Speaker 1: least eighty five attempts in two to recall two d
Speaker 1: and twenty five school board members, a record number of
Speaker 1: recalls for a single year, especially given that only twenty
Speaker 1: three states even allow for voters to recall school board members.
Speaker 1: I will say that like, it does maybe seem like
Speaker 1: the tides are maybe turning a little bit on this um.
Speaker 1: Just like those losers who targeted Cecilia Lewis who all
Speaker 1: lost their elections for school board in Michigan, extremists who
Speaker 1: are running for school board candidates who attacked like woke
Speaker 1: public schools lost far more racist than they won. This
Speaker 1: is true in parts of New Mexico, Ohio, and Connecticut.
Speaker 1: And my hope is that people are just sort of
Speaker 1: getting sick of this, like they're they're just enough already.
Speaker 1: We don't want our school boards to become a complete
Speaker 1: circus of who of you know, who is vuying like
Speaker 1: American Idol style to be on Fox News or whatever. Yea,
Speaker 1: And I would be curious to get your take on this, Shamus,
Speaker 1: because I think that one of the reasons why education
Speaker 1: is such an effective kind of battleground for all of
Speaker 1: this is that there's a historical precedent for it. You know,
Speaker 1: this idea of concerned parents being used as a smoke
Speaker 1: screen to fuel and mask hate. You know, biggots were
Speaker 1: not pro segregation in the fifties. They were concerned parents
Speaker 1: advocating for school choice. And you know, it was not
Speaker 1: homophobes who wanted to strip gay people of their rights.
Speaker 1: It was concerned parents who wanted to keep their kids
Speaker 1: safe from the threat of gay teachers. Right and so, like,
Speaker 1: I think that schools and education have always been this
Speaker 1: historical place where a lot of hate can be masked
Speaker 1: by concerned parents who are concerned for their kids. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think what we need is Dark Brandon to send
Speaker 1: the hundred first air one to eSchool Cecilia Lewis to
Speaker 1: school every day like Eisenhower did. Yeah. Yeah, And I'm
Speaker 1: not trying to are are you a parent, James, I'm
Speaker 1: so I'm not trying to like let these parents off
Speaker 1: the hook at all. But I do think that parents
Speaker 1: sending their kids to school is like, I do think
Speaker 1: that that is that leaves some people open or vulnerable
Speaker 1: to manipulation. Right, Like, parenting is very difficult. Parents do
Speaker 1: not have a ton of resources or like meaningful institutional support,
Speaker 1: and there are legitimate threats to the safety of kids,
Speaker 1: Like if you sending your kids off to school, they
Speaker 1: might not come back. And that's probably a very scary reality.
Speaker 1: And I think that when people are scared and also
Speaker 1: under resourced, it creates the prime conditions for manipulation. And
Speaker 1: I think oftentimes the real threats are like systemic, big, scary,
Speaker 1: thorny issues, And so it's a lot easier to be like, oh,
Speaker 1: the threat to your kids, it's black people the threat
Speaker 1: to your kids, mass or drag queens or whatever, because
Speaker 1: even though it's ridiculous and harmful, because it's just like
Speaker 1: easier for people who are angry and scared and under
Speaker 1: resource to wrap their head around. Yeah, Like and I
Speaker 1: can imagine it is petrifying, right, you raise this little
Speaker 1: human being and you get like four or five years old,
Speaker 1: then you entrust him to someone you barely know, and
Speaker 1: like you, kids get shot in their schools far too
Speaker 1: often in this country, and like that that must be.
Speaker 1: I can't imagine how scary and wearing that is. But like, yeah,
Speaker 1: that Mark has got a lot of ship wrong, but
Speaker 1: he got a lot of ship wrong with false consciousness.
Speaker 1: But I do sometimes think that like, yeah, you're you're
Speaker 1: attacking the facade, not not the foundation of the structure
Speaker 1: with this stuff exactly. And you know, this is just
Speaker 1: not something that educators get into the field to deal with,
Speaker 1: Like as educators. When I was teaching, I made no money.
Speaker 1: I had to work even though I was like like
Speaker 1: a full time lecturer at a university, I had to
Speaker 1: work at a cafe on the weekends. I wasn't making
Speaker 1: a ton of money. And so who, just like with
Speaker 1: the election situation, like who would want to for not
Speaker 1: a lot of money have to deal with people like
Speaker 1: this who are making it not just not just precarious,
Speaker 1: but also unsafe to do a job that's like pretty
Speaker 1: low paid at times. Like it's just like not what
Speaker 1: educators get into the field to deal with. And I
Speaker 1: think that we're seeing a lot of the impacts of that.
Speaker 1: There's not a lot of national data about educator shortages,
Speaker 1: but I do know that is a statewide problem. According
Speaker 1: to the Washington Post, the Nevada State Education Association estimates
Speaker 1: that roughly three thousand teaching jobs remained unfilled across the
Speaker 1: states seventeen school districts as of early August. In a
Speaker 1: January report, the Illinois Association of Regional School Superintendents found
Speaker 1: that eight percent of school districts statewide we're having problems
Speaker 1: with teacher shortages, while over two thousand teacher openings were
Speaker 1: either empty or filled with a less qualified higher or
Speaker 1: less than qualified higher um. The famous true in Houston
Speaker 1: for the largest five school districts are all of reporting
Speaker 1: between two hundred and a thousand teach positions remaining open.
Speaker 1: And I think, you know, I'm I'm not going to
Speaker 1: pretend to know what the cause of the teacher shortages,
Speaker 1: but I have to. I have to imagine that the
Speaker 1: kind of extremist takeovers that we have seen of our
Speaker 1: of our education system has to be playing a role
Speaker 1: in it. Yeah, I mean, you just don't. You shouldn't
Speaker 1: have to deal with that ship full start, but to
Speaker 1: deal with it for you know, less than minimum wage
Speaker 1: by the time you commute to work and like buy
Speaker 1: your students books and stuff, right, like we pay teachers
Speaker 1: terribly and yeah, it's it's just not worth it. It
Speaker 1: wasn't there a state the drafted National Guard into like
Speaker 1: teaching positions for a while, Yep, yep, yeah, totally normal.
Speaker 1: We've seen that National Guard being at to teach in Florida.
Speaker 1: Florida was allowing veterans with no teaching background and without
Speaker 1: bachelor's degrees to teach, which, by the way, after all
Speaker 1: of the SANTIS is like puffery around that program. It
Speaker 1: resulted in a whopping seven new teachers. So thank you
Speaker 1: to SANTIS for that program. And I think that that's
Speaker 1: also part of it. I think that like the deeper
Speaker 1: nationalization of educators being like, oh, anybody can do it.
Speaker 1: I think that's part of what's going on here. And
Speaker 1: I think, you know, my hot take is this is
Speaker 1: all by design. It is by intention to dismantle and
Speaker 1: disarm our public education system to the point where it
Speaker 1: will no longer be a viable option for folks. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and yeah, a lot of people are certainly, like wealthy
Speaker 1: people have always been sending their children sort outside of
Speaker 1: the public educationation system, right that, Like it should be
Speaker 1: one thing that we can all get behind funding. There
Speaker 1: shouldn't be disagreement about this, Like everyone wins even if
Speaker 1: you don't have children, right, everyone wins when our children
Speaker 1: are better educated and better people like that, Thus the
Speaker 1: d I stuff. But yeah, apparently we can buy us
Speaker 1: thirty fives, but we you know, we can't give our
Speaker 1: teachers heating or whatever. Yeah, it's it's a like it's
Speaker 1: what when I think about my time as a teacher,
Speaker 1: it's not it's like not easy work. It's very emotionally
Speaker 1: complex work. And the fact that we are just allowing
Speaker 1: for extremists and Charlatan's and grifters to attack educators in
Speaker 1: this way, I think, as you said, like we all
Speaker 1: lose out. We're going to be a less educated populace,
Speaker 1: we are going to be less equipped to deal with
Speaker 1: the challenges that we know are facing our country down
Speaker 1: the line, and I think everybody loses. Yeah, it's very strange,
Speaker 1: Like it's such a difficult challenge, Like you end up
Speaker 1: becoming a lot of things, a lot of different things,
Speaker 1: a lot of people. Right, people will come to you
Speaker 1: with their with their emotional needs, like I've I've helped
Speaker 1: students fix their trucks and their cars before. Like you
Speaker 1: sort if you're at the front line of whatever it
Speaker 1: is that these young people are facing and you're there
Speaker 1: sort of often there are only person outside of the
Speaker 1: household that they speak to regularly and in some cases right,
Speaker 1: so you're there to sort of connect them with other services. Right,
Speaker 1: be that counseling or sort of housing. Increasingly, I'm sure
Speaker 1: it's the same where you are, Like with many of
Speaker 1: our students can't afford to pay rent and they end
Speaker 1: up like living on the streets or living in their cars,
Speaker 1: and so you become the front line. And that when
Speaker 1: my email inbox after I'm done, I'll have some kind
Speaker 1: of email about how to connect students with housing services
Speaker 1: or something. So you're doing all this stuff and then
Speaker 1: getting paid very little, and now you've also got like
Speaker 1: this this mob of people screaming outside, Like I can
Speaker 1: understand what people don't want to deal with that ship. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I can completely understand. And it makes me sad because
Speaker 1: I feel like, as you just articulated so thoughtfully, teaching,
Speaker 1: I loved teaching, and teaching was like I had a
Speaker 1: license plate that said love to teach, Like teaching was
Speaker 1: a part of my identity. And I don't think it's
Speaker 1: I don't think it's good when that is just so
Speaker 1: callously attacked. When when people who go into the profession
Speaker 1: because they really love it are attacked, and people realize
Speaker 1: they can make a name off of themselves by attacking them,
Speaker 1: I think it just it just it makes me very sad. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: especially as like students play so much trust in their
Speaker 1: teachers often right Like, it's extremely sad to see their
Speaker 1: parents or maybe not their parents, other parents attacking them
Speaker 1: and sort of yeah, I don't know, it's such a strange.
Speaker 1: I understand why it's become this this sort of site
Speaker 1: of the culturals. But like I said, like everyone loses.
Speaker 1: It's really yeah, it's it's for someone to sort of
Speaker 1: go after and there are people who like crafted this narrative,
Speaker 1: right like, and for them to choose to go after
Speaker 1: some of the most altruistic professions in our society. It's yeah,
Speaker 1: it's just pathetic and sad and incredibly frustrating. But this
Speaker 1: all brings us to sort of our conclusion. I want
Speaker 1: to talk briefly about what I think needs to be
Speaker 1: done well. For one, I think that tech leaders and
Speaker 1: social media platforms need to take seriously their role in
Speaker 1: spreading harmful attacks on public education. One the National Education Association,
Speaker 1: then social media platforms in general, a letter asking them
Speaker 1: to act on this specific part of the conversation, saying quote,
Speaker 1: take for example, the alarming growth of a small but
Speaker 1: violent group of radicalized adults who falsely believed that graduate
Speaker 1: level courses about racism are being taught and k through
Speaker 1: twelve public schools because of misinformations brought on social media.
Speaker 1: And there are another small, yet vocal group of extremists
Speaker 1: who are putting the safety of our children, educators, and
Speaker 1: families at risk over the notion that wearing a mask
Speaker 1: is an infringement on personal liberty. The speed and reach
Speaker 1: of these lies that are manipulating so many of our
Speaker 1: citizens would not be possible without the use of social
Speaker 1: media platforms. So I think that this is definitely a
Speaker 1: situation where tech leaders need to get in the game
Speaker 1: and really have an honest accounting of the ways that
Speaker 1: they have made this problem worse and act. Second, I
Speaker 1: think that in general, our media needs to do a
Speaker 1: better job of reporting on issues, specifically issues that are
Speaker 1: so disingenuous like the CRT panic, so that the next
Speaker 1: moral panic doesn't take off. You know, we talked about
Speaker 1: how Christopher Rufo was so explicit about his strategy for
Speaker 1: making critical race theory this toxic thing that you could
Speaker 1: put anything under the category of why have we allowed
Speaker 1: that same exact strategy to be effective when it comes
Speaker 1: to things like lgbt H folks or Drag Queen Story
Speaker 1: Hours and things like that. And then lastly, this is
Speaker 1: a little bit of looking inward. I think the misinformation
Speaker 1: and disinformation community needs to do better for whatever reason.
Speaker 1: I think that when it comes to misinformation about something
Speaker 1: like COVID or vaccines, it's a lot easier for us
Speaker 1: to talk about and do a lot of public education
Speaker 1: around than compared to something like critical race theory that
Speaker 1: is based on inaccurate or inflammatory statements around racial identity.
Speaker 1: So I think that as a community of folks who
Speaker 1: are interested in doing public education around how false information
Speaker 1: works and is spread and is weaponized, we have to
Speaker 1: be better about taking up that mantle and taking up
Speaker 1: that fight when those attacks are rooted in identity. But
Speaker 1: there is a little bit of a happy ending here,
Speaker 1: because I am happy to report that this whole ordeal
Speaker 1: did not stop Cecilia Lewis. Cecilia currently works as a
Speaker 1: head of HR for a school district here in the
Speaker 1: DC area. So this was not the end of her.
Speaker 1: She didn't, you know, She continued to be the talented
Speaker 1: educator that by all accounts that she was um and
Speaker 1: still is. And so yeah, I think it's a story
Speaker 1: of how all of these panics can really have a
Speaker 1: human cost that can really derail people's professional lives and
Speaker 1: personal lives in these ways that they just don't deserve,
Speaker 1: Like regular people don't deserve to get caught up in
Speaker 1: somebody's you know, cultural war grievance so that they can
Speaker 1: be the next Fox News superstar. Right. Like, I saw
Speaker 1: this video of a woman at a school board meeting.
Speaker 1: She was upset about pronouns and classrooms and she was
Speaker 1: dressed as a cat, right Like, who it doesn't make
Speaker 1: It doesn't serve anybody to have people be like I
Speaker 1: have this cat, I have this cat suit. Let me
Speaker 1: just bust it out on the school board meeting. Like
Speaker 1: that's not a good situation. Yeah, Like if you're a
Speaker 1: cat sup person, that that's all well and good, Like
Speaker 1: you should wear a catsoo, but yeah, maybe don't. Don't.
Speaker 1: Don't make that your thing at the school. It's like
Speaker 1: the turf in Scotland who decided to flash everyone because
Speaker 1: other people were sexualizing kids. It's bad. It's bad. Well
Speaker 1: that is all I have. James. Where can folks hear
Speaker 1: you read you all of that? Okay? Um? So We
Speaker 1: have a podcast called it Could Happen here also on
Speaker 1: cool Zone Media. People can find it by searching that,
Speaker 1: and they will hear me far too much probably and
Speaker 1: become annoyed and go on the Internet and post about that.
Speaker 1: But yeah, they're can hear me there. I do Twitter,
Speaker 1: it's just my name, James Stout. Don't do other social
Speaker 1: media because of all this that we've just talked about.
Speaker 1: But yeah, those are the those are the two main things.
Speaker 1: I don't know. People should go and read. Maybe they
Speaker 1: should read some critical theory. Maybe they should read like
Speaker 1: Ordering Lord or something like that. And and then actually,
Speaker 1: you know, take the take some to rain back for
Speaker 1: being nice to other people, which is anything that you
Speaker 1: want to plug at the end here me yeah, oh
Speaker 1: well you could. Well. Thank you for listening to this podcast.
Speaker 1: You can listen to my other podcasts. There are no
Speaker 1: girls on the Internet, and you can follow me on
Speaker 1: Twitter at Bridget Marine or on Instagram at Bridget Burney
Speaker 1: in DC. Okay. Cool Fun Episode Internet Hate Machine is
Speaker 1: a production of cool Zone Media. From more podcasts from
Speaker 1: cool Zone Media. Check out our website cool zone Media
Speaker 1: dot com, or find us on the I Heart radio
Speaker 1: app Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts