Please help us protect the largest school district in Kentucky from being infiltrated.
As I entertained images of a lantern-waving Paul Revere riding horseback through the night to wake up his neighbors and alert them of the impending life-threatening invasion by colonizing troops, I thought about titling this post “The Fascists Are Coming.” I hoped it would conjure up the emotions and urgency that both he and I no doubt shared. But to do so wouldn’t be entirely accurate, you see, because the fascists are already here.
On Friday, August 9, 2022, I turned in a 42-page complaint with KREF about the dark money endorsements and disinformation campaigns we see making their way around our communities. When you consider the exhibits and attachments, my complaint was probably over 100 pages regarding groups who fail to identify themselves properly in their endorsement of candidates that align with a fascist, Christian white nationalist, SPLC-designated hate group agenda. We don’t really know who is behind these efforts, but many of their organizers and financial backers don’t seem to be from around these parts.
This is not hyperbole. President Biden has been sounding the alarm that that’s who these extremists are. They are the same traitor bullies who would storm democratic bastions and deny the results of a free and fair election if given the mechanisms to do so. They call themselves “patriots” and “liberty” caucus members. If you are approached by anyone espousing these beliefs, please report them to authorities or ask a family member to intervene. They should be considered armed and dangerous, in my honest opinion. They are exhibiting fascist mob-like mentality and are a threat to our national security. And there’s nothing “Semi” about it.
And they’re right here in our own back yards.
They’ve been here since the beginning of time, honestly. They went dormant, but they never died out. Especially not in southern red states like Kentucky with deep pockets of remote communities that lack access to indoor plumbing and quality education, much less internet and the ability to cull out the truth from the myriad disinformation that is spread through our state’s compromised religious institutions and the rumor mill. Kentucky was a slave-trading state, choosing to remain “neutral” during the Civil War. And we all know that being neutral sides with the oppressor.
I run the advocacy group Dear JCPS. I have been posting and blogging about the groups that have been disrupting our school board meetings since last June. I don’t think it’s a good strategy to go out of your way to flip flop on a unanimously approved board policy to appease a group of domestic terrorists that has “stop the steal” on their website.
But that’s exactly what my opponent did.
As I mentioned, this is not the first time they have disrupted our meetings. In June of 2021, they brought 3 percenters to a work session. And last October, they caused our meeting to be shut down during the public comment section, resulting in hearing from only a half dozen of more than 30 people who signed up to speak that night. And on August 2, when they brought more than 100 COVID-breathing bigots to our district’s headquarters, they made their biggest move yet. Led by Frank Simon’s notorious SPLC-designated hate group, American Family Association, and others, with ties to 3 Percenters and groups out of Texas that have been running campaigns to infiltrate school board races, they are recruiting and radicalizing extremists to cause further disruptions, and they are using our school board meetings, PTAs, unions, and other traditionally “neutral spaces” to do so.
Over three years ago, I encouraged our school board to take a more proactive role in governing the outside organizations that have access to our employees, students, families and community resources. Their participation in our school activities and policy making can have an impact on a wide range of things including policies, budget, curriculum, parental involvement and agency, fundraising ability and more. When I wrote this speech, it applied to PTA, but I have since also referenced it in regards to the teachers’ union and others.
Yet Our Parents and Guardians Are Disregarded
In December of 2019, Dear JCPS published our draft of Legislative Priorities, entitled, Educational Justice With “E’s”. The following night, I spoke at the JCPS Board Meeting asking that district leaders add SBDM and parental involvement to their legislative agenda.
When I realized that the district’s legislative agenda for 2022 had no mention of parents, families, or removing barriers to their participation in site based decision making councils, parent teacher organizations, and no effort to level the playing field when it comes to parental involvement within our schools or our students’ lives, I published the following blog piece.
To date, this is an area that remains unaddressed. Meanwhile, fascists with unverifiable claims that they are representing parents and guardians, seem to be taking up all of the oxygen in the room, while those who have been most severely impacted, not only by the unaddressed structural racism that has existed for decades, but more recently by the pandemic and the civil rights movement that was brought to Louisville following the murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, a JCPS graduate.
The first step is to learn to recognize the dog whistles and point them out to your friends, relatives and neighbors, as a warning. The second step is to report these ongoing dangerous behaviors to the authorities. I will admit, this is difficult, because local agencies tend to look the other way and do a terrible job investigating themselves. As we have seen with the botched investigations from school districts, police departments, union politics and elections, and our own attorney general’s office, Louisville’s good-old-boy network cannot be trusted to govern and investigate ourselves. We need outside and national attention.
We Need All Eyes On Kentucky.
Please consider making a donation to my campaign for JCPS School Board. I am the only mom in my race. I’m also the only outspoken anti-fascist, anti-racist, anti-privatizer out of any of the challengers. In the other three races, the incumbent is the best option. In MY RACE, District 3, the incumbent is a fascist sympathizer. Please help my campaign protect our school board from fascists who want to ban books, intimidate teachers who teach history accurately, and who are forcing students as young as 9 years old to give birth to their rapists’ babies. You read that right!
These same extremists were busy passing trigger laws long before the Supreme Court reversed Roe vs. Wade in June. Kentucky was one of the states where abortion bans went into effect immediately afterwards. There is now a constitutional amendment on the Nov. 8 ballot that will permanently and irreversibly ban abortion in Kentucky once and for all.
The Good News
People on both sides of the aisle, urban, rural and everywhere in between, recognize that Kentucky’s Christian white nationalist-driven abortion ban goes too far. Not allowing exceptions for the life of the mother until it’s too late, or for victims of rape — ESPECIALLY CHILDREN — is unconscionable. With nearly two months left until election day, it’s entirely possible that voter turnout in Kentucky is going to exceed everyone’s expectations, including those who live outside the state. We also have an amazing Democratic candidate for Senator, Charles Booker, who could very well unseat Rand Paul, helping keep Mitch McConnell in the minority for the next two years. Between Kentucky’s overwhelmingly blue Lexington and Louisville, and a few pockets of fed up Kentuckians across the rest of the state, a blue wave is coming.
Won’t you help us get the message out and protect Kentucky from this threat?
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