"I Joined A Far-Right Group Of Moms. What I Witnessed Was Frightening."

[babylonsister]

I Joined A Far-Right Group Of Moms. What I Witnessed Was Frightening.
"I caught a gleam in the woman’s eye I didn’t like. Was there some flirtation with insurrection being suggested here?"
By Phoebe Cohen, Guest Writer
12/21/2021 07:30am EST


“Look out for the trigger words,” the woman says. She’s perched on a chair in front of the room. She’s well-dressed yet funky with elegant boots, a demure sweater and some colorful jewelry. “‘Equality,’ ‘diversity,’ ‘inclusion,’ ‘marginalization,’... These words are CRT. If you see these words in your kids’ homework, you need to speak out.”

I am in a meeting held by a local right-wing mom’s group. It’s an organization catering to mothers who are bent on protesting at school board meetings to stop the supposedly evil critical race theory agenda from being taught in public schools and address other typically conservative concerns.

snip//

For several years now I have been worried about the increasing right-wing views that I have noticed in my demographic (white suburban women). Before 2016, I always thought of Nazis as mainly historical villains that belonged in Indiana Jones movies or old news reels or the sad stories my grandfather told me. Now, however, as the last Holocaust survivors are dying, I am aware that fascism is creeping back into the world at large in terrifying ways.

I wanted to know how I could fight against the appallingly stupid yet dangerously widespread disinformation that is entrancing many of my friends and neighbors. Basic facts about COVID-19 are being dismissed by whole states as part of the “liberal mainstream corporate media.” Bodies from COVID victims were stacking up in ICUs and filling the morgues back in 2020, yet I was still called a “child abuser” by people on the street because I made my son wear a mask. Why are people going nuts? Why are people dismissing science and history in favor of conspiracy theories? And, most importantly, how could we nudge the nation in a saner direction?

snip//

“Some of these people literally do not believe white privilege exists because, according to them, the Union soldiers who fought in the Civil War were overwhelmingly white. (No, I don’t understand that argument either.)”

more...

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/far-right-extremist-moms_n_61ba330de4b0456499dcc9bf

[MagickMuffin]

1. Perhaps more of us should do this, infiltrate the Klans and see what they are up to

Record the meetings and wage a "war" within their Klans.


“‘Equality,’ ‘diversity,’ ‘inclusion,’ ‘marginalization,’


TERRIFYING, I know!

[milestogo]

2. Terrifying to bigots.

[IrishAfricanAmerican]

5. It's a good idea...

but someone will have to go in my place.

[dchill]

19. These words are CRT...

Completely Real Truth.

[MFM008]

23. Im sure

The FBI and other watch groups are doing just that.

[PTWB]

29. To your run of the mill MAGGAT, "equality" is a fighting word.

[ShazamIam]

3. The explanation, since Union soldiers were White, you can't claim all Whites are racist and since

all Whites are not racist and since some Whites fought for freeing the slaves, it is evidence Whites don't have privilege because no one would fight to surrender privilege. It doesn't have to make sense if it can be shaped into something that sounds similar to a sentence.

[Boomerproud]

4. Regarding the last paragraph where the author asks questions

about how we can counter this...were any answers given?if people are triggered by the word "equality " we are in deeper trouble than we know.

[Caliman73]

11. Triggered doesn't necessarily mean "emotionally aroused".

It looks like, from context, that the right wing mom was saying that if any of the words on the list appear in their children's homework, should trigger the other moms to believe that CRT is being taught in their school and activate them to protest.

The reality is that all of those words are basic anti-racism and anti-discrimination language, not CRT. CRT is a methodology, a framework for examining the impact that racialized views has affected the legal system and other aspects of American life. It is complex, it is dense, and is only taught in law schools and some Master's level sociology and Social Work classes.

We are in trouble if we allow these small but very loud groups, who are not even grass roots (they are funded by right wing groups who want to perpetuate a culture war), to intimidate school boards. We have to also go to the board meetings and refute their nonsense.

[LittleGirl]

27. Yes! eom

[Midnight Writer]

6. "a local right-wing mom's group"? I very much doubt that.

More like a chapter of an astro-turfed disinformation campaign paid for by very rich agitators.

[Caliman73]

12. Exactly.

They may be setting up locally, but they are NOT organic at all. They are being funded by right wing groups and many of them, by evidence, are paid to go in and disrupt School Board meetings.

[PatSeg]

9. Schools should just tell such parents

if they are so unhappy with the curriculum or the rules, they should pull their kids out of school and send them to a private school. No public school should have to put up with this crap. The ignorance and crass entitlement is stunning.

[Caliman73]

13. That would be great. Unfortunately the Boards cannot do that.

They can certainly refute the lies that these groups are telling, but during the Public Comment period, as long as the speaker is not threatening member directly or creating an imminently harmful environment, they have to be allowed to speak. Because everyone's taxes pay for the schools, they cannot be told to take their kid out of school.

What we, as parents with children in the same school, can do is say that for the Board or simply call out the crazy parents.

[PatSeg]

14. I know

I just get so frustrated with these people who think they can dictate how other parents' children should be educated. But seriously, if they disagree so strongly with school policies and programs, they should put their money where their mouth is and pull their kids out of public school. Of course, they won't do that, because they want to make a lot of noise and undoubtedly enjoy the attention. I really feel badly for their poor children.

[Caliman73]

16. Totally agree.

My parents wanted me to get a religious education so they put me in Catholic School after the first grade. I went through 11 years (through high school). I got a good secular education and a religious one. The secular education stuck but the religious one actually gave me the tools I needed to step away (much to my parents chagrin) but such is life.

[PatSeg]

22. Most of the people I've known

who attended Catholic schools, usually got a better education than public school kids. I was lucky as the schools I attended were among the best public schools in the country. We moved in the middle of junior year to Mississippi and that is when I realized what an incredible education I had gotten until then. What a stunning contrast.

I'd like to see these crazy Q-parents try their crap with a Catholic school. They'd be shown the door pretty quickly.

[paleotn]

26. Not told. Suggested as an option.

It's like deseg. in the 1970s all over again in my major city, mid-south hometown. Parents screamed and moaned, rolled around and eventually pulled their kids out and sent them to one of the quasi-religious, all white privates that were popping up like wheat in a Kansas field. The local school board had no choice, due to federal court order, and in their best Curly Bill imitation from the movie Tombstone said...."well........bye."

[calimary]

24. So, okay then. BE pigheaded. Get sick and die.

But don't expect any sympathy from me. If you won't take the wise and credibly-recommended advice about precautions, then I guess you reap the whirlwind.

I keep wondering - Seriously, WHAT is it that they don't understand about "YOU CAN DIE FROM THIS," and "COVID IS A DISEASE THAT KILLS!"???? I guess they're all still too busy paying attention to the reality SHOW, and not the real, actual, critical, and uncomfortably harsh REALITY.



I don't often quote from Scripture but 14 years of Catholic school pounded it into me. And I find myself inevitably wandering back to the part where Jesus advised his apostles that if they go out and preach and share the Good News, and people sneer and aren't receptive and reject the message and refuse to embrace it or listen or otherwise find salvation, then just shake the dirt off your sandals and head on down the road. Perhaps that may have been His way of recommending against wasting time throwing pearls before swine.

[mountain grammy]

32. Yes CNN interviewing these people

like the article says women were interviewed by the NYT and the BBC.. Maybe. just maybe, they might try interviewing those who disagree with the wingnuts. Seems they'll stick a mic in front of any and all extremists, but your average Biden voting American is invisible to them. 81+ million Americans just don't exist.

[Solly Mack]

8. ...

I always laugh when some right-winger says this or something along the same lines...

(Children) Given Freedom to Learn Without Coercion.”

Because that's exactly the opposite of what they want for all children and opposite of what they already do with their own children.

[crud]

10. They feel ashamed

They hate democrats for making them feel ashamed. They hate Dems so much they are willing to die rather than get a vaccine, and maybe hate so much they are willing to kill also.

[live love laugh]

35. They are shameless. I doubt they feel anything like shame. nt

[Wingus Dingus]

15. The most alarming part of this article is that the New York Times and the BBC are

interviewing, and thus elevating, these turds.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

18. Normal sanity don't attract eyeballs & ad bucks the way zealotry does. . . . nt

[Bernardo de La Paz]

17. Equality is a fearsome concept to whiteys defending their privilege. Make them quake more. . . . nt

[Mr.Bill]

20. School Board meeting should be conducted on ZOOM

until further notice, possibly permanently.

[Ford_Prefect]

21. You can blame Rupert Murdoch and his children along with the late Roger Ailes.

They have abused the American psyche towards just such madness. They have spread racist filth and autocratic memes all over the globe at great personal profit.

[LittleGirl]

30. Don't forget Rush Limbaugh...torched America with their propaganda. eom

[Ford_Prefect]

34. Rush was a significant player in America. Murdoch spread it all over the planet and still does.

[spanone]

25. Brainwashed morons.

One and all. They were morons before tfg, he legitimized stupidity.

[paleotn]

28. And they've all got Orwellian names like "Moms for Liberty"

which really means...let me shove my bullshit down your throat. Liberty my ass.

[RAB910]

31. Right wing women will overlook Trump's sexism and rapiness because they love his racism

[misanthrope]

33. My wife was invited to one

It was her sister's Bunco group. She said all they did was gossip, or spout socially and politically conservative palaver. Whenever they referred to Black people, they used the term "Democrats," especially for the few Blacks who attended their kids' Catholic school. Public school "just isn't done" in their groups.

When my wife mentioned the limitations on my income due to my means-tested access to Medicare, she was told that I "just have to know how to work the system" to get around that. When asked, none of them could explain how those work-arounds operate or any other details about it. In fact, none of them had first-hand experience with disability status whatsoever.

My wife never went back.

[live love laugh]

36. They're basically using CRT to advance racism.