Considering how rapidly the right's "war on woke" is expanding, it was perhaps inevitable: Self-identified "mama bears" on a Texas school board are angry that a classroom had a poster showing people of different races holding hands. Last week, the school board in Conroe, Texas, a small city north of Houston, turned the right-wing mania for censorship into a dark parody of itself. At issue? A poster that seemed to imply that interracial friendship is possible.
According to ABC 13 Eyewitness News in Houston, things started when school trustee Melissa Dungan declared that she had spoken to parents who were upset about "displays of personal ideologies in classrooms." When pressed for an example, according to the news report, "Dungan referred to a first grade student whose parent claimed they were so upset by a poster showing hands of people of different races, that they transferred classrooms."
"I wish I was shocked," Dungan said of the poster. "I am aware these trends have been happening for many years."
Yup this is a racist tantrum, "anti woke" is just the new coat of paint. It isn't "anti woke" that's getting more common, it's racism, xenophobia, and hate in general.
If you'd read the article, you'd know that it is not all it is.
If you have, in fact, read the article, read it again. To the end. Maybe take in some of its links too.
This is not 'just' a racist tantrum. It is a billionaire-funded fascist takeover. Lazily dismissing them won't work. People need to start turning up to school board meetings to outnumber these fucking psychopaths. Even if no one is paying them to do it.
I take your point about language. It is important to say "racist" when you mean "racist".
But they're also targeting LGBTQ+ people and women, and any other group they can use to distract attention from the fact that billionaires are robbing us blind lest they lose one tiny drop of power.
So, in this case, "anti-woke" is a perfectly reasonable term to use. Not least because if we want to destroy these fuckers, it will take every single one of us making common cause, not fighting about who gets top billing.
This is about racism but it is about racism because it is about power. Power protecting itself by throwing everyone else under the bus. "Look! Over there! The poor people have all your money!"
We cannot defeat them by retreating into identity siloes. Obviously, we all have different specific battles to fight but they're all the same war. Against fascism. We do need a language that acknowledges that.
Yes, that is a fair point and one I'd missed a bit from your original post. I appreciated the scare quotes in the article but you're not wrong.
That said, I don't know if you're exactly right either. "Woke" was co-opted by the fash. I don't think we should just let them have it. A good starting point is for every interlocutor to stop them and ask them to define the word every time they use it. The word is not the problem.
You're only letting them have it if you also let them define it. They are anti-woke. Woke (aware of structural injustice) is not a bad thing to be. 90% of the population has every reason to be woke because 90% of the population is subject to structural injustice. But far too many have been distracted by the idea that some other fucked-over group has it better than them, or gains consolation from not being quite at the bottom of the pile.
It's a neat trick but so easy to expose. And one of the simplest ways to expose it is to make them spell out what they think it means.
90% of the population are either too poor not to be suffering structural injustice, or are relatively well off but still too Black, too queer, too female,. Class and race cannot be separated. If we ignore the people who are struggling just because they're blaming the wrong people for their struggles, fascism will win.
Do you think a working class Israeli faces the same injustices as a working class Palestinian? A working class Jew in 1935 Germany the same as a working class Christian?
No, of course I don't. But a working class Israeli has a hell of a lot more in common with a working class Palestinian than they do with the Israeli ruling class. And they may not get much publicity (and a lot of jail time) but quite a lot of Israelis recognise that; I know because I have worked with some of them.
Oppression Olympics is a dismal fucking sport. Divide and fucking rule from the bottom up. Completely self-defeating. It is structural and if you refuse to expose the structures, you'll never change a thing.
The concept of whiteness needs to go. But white people are no more a homogeneous blob of identity than Black people, or LGBT people, or Jewish people (some of whom are white). I'll oppose those who turn to racism and bigotry as a solution to their problems. As I do Louis Farrakhan for his anti-semitism, homophobia, misogyny and general removedy conservatism. Being oppressed is not an excuse to do some oppressing of your own. But it's really fucking easy to see how people fall into that trap. And really fucking racist to believe that Black people can't be authoritarian fuckwits, or that Jewish people can't oppose Israel, or that white people can't be oppressed by poverty.
Steven Avery and Brendan Darcy were fucked over because they are poor, not protected because they are white. Black people are fucked over with impunity because the colour of their skin is a marker of powerlessness. Women and LGBT people are fucked over because that which is feminine is despised.
This is a really useful example of what I am talking about. The woman was mistreated because she was Black. She got (a form of) justice because her family is rich.
She later woke in a hospital bed with no memory of what had happened and minus her clothes. Now 26, the woman said she believed the officers had treated her in the way they did because she was black. According to the woman, when she came round in hospital she spoke to the police officer at her bedside, who said she was very well spoken and asked where she was born. When the woman replied: “Hampstead”, the officer radioed a colleague and was overheard saying: “I think we made a mistake..”
As soon as she opened her mouth ... "I think we made a mistake."
"Dungan referred to a first grade student whose parent claimed they were so upset by a poster showing hands of people of different races, that they transferred classrooms."
can't wait until the Supreme Court reverses Brown
In practice there's still extreme racial segregation across a lot of US schools. I recall a good article on the NY school system but can't find it.
oh I know. but they'll dial that ratchet straight to 11 once Brown is gone.
You mean it hasn't already happened? God maybe there is some hope still
not unless the Ds suddenly decide they want to fight back and pack the court or something. barring that, the right has a majority on the court for the next generation.
Moms for Liberty has heavily promoted trainings for conservative activists on how to take over school boards, which ought to make clear how we should understand stories like this one, which just sound like a racist tantrum in a Texas suburb. These aren't random or isolated events — they're part of a large, well-organized and well-financed attack on public education across the country.
I feel like it's important to keep the eye on the ball here. The right has been incredibly successful at organizing at the local level and has flipped a lot of seats because of it, and not just in the rural south either.
The first friend I made in preschool was different from me. Damn bigots
My mom's anti-racism was very liberal white savior but I will always thank her for the fact that she actively encouraged me to make friends with our black neighbors when I was like 4. I unfortunately still lived mostly in white dominated areas growing up and had very few black acquittances and no close black friends. Though I did have a few close asain friends in highschool I guess. But still, I went to a highschool with like a grand total of two black people, and the one I was friendly with had been adopted by a white family. So while my mom did instill that racism is wrong, i still lacked necessary perspective for a long time. Pretty much didnt really get interested and involved in race issues until I was on tumblr when Mike Brown happened. And I still haven't really had as many one on one conversations and friendships with black people as I would like.
Idk, maybe I'm being weird about race even with this post. I just kind of regret the fact that being in white dominated areas meant I didnt get to have the kind of experiences that would help me have been better on race earlier. I did at least have no open racists in my family growing up, which was good. And in addition to my mom my paternal grandma has always been proactively anti-racist. Both in a liberal way, but better than the upbringing a lot of white Americans have.
Sorry for the info dump lol.
ETA: OH I should mention that one positive experience with racial diversity in my life has been working with POC children in my past jobs with kids. Thats been beneficial I think. For example I specifically remember viscerally feeling the anxiety my latine students had during the rise of Trump.
I've been on this rock for around five decades now, and some of the best people I've ever met were not of the same flavor I am.
My only friends in grade school for a significant time were different race than me.
spoiler CW
I had a coloured friend once when I was nine and susceptible. Thank goodness that my mother (now a local leader in Moms for Liberty) was there to beat some sense into me. Who knows what I might have been if I continued down that path.
Please cw for use of racist language, even for satirical purposes
