Stand With Mallory!

 

Last week a fellow Senator, a Republican, attacked a Democratic legislator in Michigan and accused her of being a “groomer for sexualizing children” since she did not agree with attacks from the right on the educational system. The senator used her claims to raise money for her campaign. Senator, Mallory McMorrow stood up to the claims of her accuser with these words:

“So, who am I? I am a straight, white, Christian, married, suburban mom who knows that the very notion that learning about slavery or redlining or systemic racism somehow means that children are being taught to feel bad or hate themselves because they are white is absolute nonsense.

I want every child in this state to feel seen, heard, and supported, not marginalized and targeted because they are not straight, white, and Christian.

And if more people like me, who are not in a minority group, who are not under attack, stand up and call it out as hateful, hollow nonsense, then we take away its power.”

In an interview with John Yang on PBS she added: “But I just thought about, if I felt as horrible as I did on Monday, how much worse it must feel every single day if you are the parent of a trans child, if you are a member of the gay community who gets called a pedophile or a groomer every single day.

And I realized that we have to do a lot more.

And I know that there are thousands, if not millions, just like me, who don’t want our kids to grow up in a place that is hateful and malicious towards anybody who is different.”

First, I applaud her words and wish they had been said earlier, before these hateful incidents spread across the country. Educators and elected officials are being attacked, much as Mallory was. Members of communities who are gay or trans had been living peacefully in their neighborhoods are being accused of “grooming children,” if they interact with youngsters in their daily jobs or neighborhood activities. Do these people even know what grooming is? This reminds me of the QAnon conspiracy theories that led a man from NC to come to DC to shoot up a pizza parlor and try to rescue the children he believed were trapped in the building's basement by supporters of Hillary Clinton.

This is the year of the mid-terms and the Republicans are pulling out all of their old tricks:

{Scare parents that their children are being threatened in their schools with early lessons in sexuality? Check! Scare white parents that their white children are being guilt tripped because slavery existed and their school mentioned it?

Scare parents by claiming that a gay teacher might make their child gay? Fire that teacher!

Scare parents that their school libraries are exposing children to books with racial themes, sexual messages, or critical race theories? Convince parents that their elected school board members do not have the child's best interests in mind?}

Meanwhile, as statehouses focus their energies on such negative issues, potholes are not being filled, bridges are not being repaired, critical thinking is not being advanced, and our country is poorer for this.

Just as soccer Moms changed hearts and minds twenty years ago, now we need those other Moms who are like Mallory and dislike what they are seeing, to stand up and speak out. We need to let others know that teaching hate will not be permitted in our schools, on our sports teams, or at the neighborhood playgrounds. Too many have remained silent for too long and this inaction has allowed the haters to gain a foothold on the American psyche. The right has long used children as scapegoats for their divisive issues, as pawns in their book banning efforts and as the victims of their scare techniques. Anti-Covid efforts focused on the distance learning enforced in many school districts to keep children safe before vaccines existed; the right claimed that teachers just did not want to return to work and were hurting children by asking for safe classrooms with good ventilation and accommodations for teachers with health concerns.

Why do we see campaigns such as these cycle back every few years? Because they work, that is why. Do you remember the nursery/daycare scares back in the 80’s when teachers were accused of child sexual abuse and devil worship? After thousands of claims across the country-few of which were actually borne out as the Washington Post reported in a book review about the scares (We Believe the Children, written by Richard Peck):

“…the conservative backlash against feminism, which had encouraged women to work outside the home (with its resultant need for day care); and the reality that the patriarchal nuclear family had not just changed, it had become “incoherent.” Conservative evangelicals had just helped elect President Ronald Reagan, and many of them believed that “porn, gays, and women had run amok.”

Even though most of the charges were dropped or defendants acquitted or convictions overturned, few apologies were ever given to those falsely accused; some authorities have likened the hysteria seen to the Salem witch trials. We see Governor DeSantis in Florida asking children to report their teachers; Governor Youngkin claims his parent complaint hotline is privileged communication and that he is not required to share the complaints with the press. Several entities are now suing him under the Freedom of Information Act to get this information supposedly about schools with divisive practices. Is this really what the American public wants?

In a wide-ranging speech this past week at Stanford University, former President Obama called out the tech industry for its lack of monitoring of internet communications and by this neglect, fostering hate speech. He said that these actions are significantly weakening our democracy. Below are some of his remarks as reported by the Guardian:

“People are dying because of disinformation’

Obama’s speech called attention to the grave impacts of disinformation and misinformation – including manipulation of the 2016 and 2020 elections and the rise of anti-vaccination sentiments.

He was candid about regrets he had surrounding Donald Trump’s election, saying his administration had long known that Russia had an incentive to manipulate US democracy, but he underestimated the effectiveness of the efforts. “What still nags at me is my failure to appreciate at the time just how susceptible we had become to lies and conspiracy theories,” Obama said. “Today’s social media has a grimness to it,” he said. “We’re so fatalistic about the steady stream of bile and vitriol that’s on there. But it doesn’t have to be that way. In fact, if we’re going to succeed, it can’t be that way.”

Obama’s tone harkens back to an age of tech before the 2016 elections shook the world’s faith in companies like Facebook. His presidency took place at a time when social media was still thought of as a force for good-stoking democratic revolutions like the Arab Spring.

Stories of eccentric Billionaire Libertarian Elon Musk trying to buy Twitter have caused an uproar in many circles as few expect that, if he succeeds, his efforts will further the issue of free speech, since he has long spoken out against any restraints on speech, even divisive speech. I certainly hope that this move fails. Some fear that he would again allow former president DJT to return to Twitter, from which he previously had been banned for his lifetime, after the events of January 6^th 2020. Since the attempt to set up a rival internet presence for him has largely failed, he would probably welcome a return to unfettered public comments. I certainly hope that this does not happen.

Some positive news tonight-French President Emmanuel Macron won re-election as President by approximately 58.6% in unofficial results over former rival and Putin fan, Marine LePen. Europe and America, which had been holding their collective breaths after a closer than expected first round of ballots, now let their breaths out. The French people voiced their displeasure with the President in the first election but came home and did their duty in the final. I wonder where this leaves LePen? After two defeats, is the right still a significant force or will it be replaced by a further right group down the road? This sends a blow to the authoritarian movement which has been prominent in Europe, especially with the reelection of Viktor Orban in Hungary. The president of Poland, has on the other hand, softened his strident militancy with the arrival of millions of Ukrainians in his country. Perhaps he too fears the Russian bear nearing his borders. Russia threatened to expand past the borders of Ukraine, should it succeed there.

Meanwhile, back on the COVID front, a Florida judge (appointed after the 2020 election by a lame duck Congress) who was deemed unqualified by the ABA, struck down the national mandate for masks on transport and extended it to the nation at large. So, overnight, masks were removed, with some airline passengers tossing their masks into the air. I cringe as I see covid particles, which had been contained, flying around the plane. But maybe I have a vivid imagination here! I certainly fear further decisions by others of her cohort, equally unqualified!

Guess that does it for now!
‘Til next week, Peace