GOP School Board Flak's Brave Stand Against Children Of Color 'Feeling They Belong'

Because America is a zero sum game.

On September 14, a slate of rightwing candidates who stirred up fears of "critical race theory" won all five Republican primary spots in the school board elections for Guilford, Connecticut (population a bit over 22,000 ). For Mary Beeman, who managed the candidates' campaigns, it was quite the feather in her cap. Truly, she must know how to appeal to voters who care about excellence in education! Or maybe she just knew that not very subtle race-baiting can win Republican primaries these days, who can tell?

Unfortunately, in a big black eye for her reputation, Beeman's own racist comments in a University of Connecticut online forum on "critical race theory" were noticed by Hartford TV station WFSB, which reported on the comments yesterday. The station didn't specify when the forum took place, but it had a screenshot, and Beeman was quick to insist that heavens no, she didn't mean anything bad when she'd typed "Helping kids of color to feel they belong has a negative effect on white, Christian, or conservative kids." Of course she didn't! Here's the video, cued up to the story so you don't have to be confused by several minutes of silence at the start, yeesh, guys, you work in teevee.

 youtu.be 

That's pretty much the chief doctrine of white supremacy and "replacement theory" going back forever: If those people have rights, then we white people are losing our beautiful America. They've tried, with varying success, to hide such zero-sum thinking behind a lot of dog whistles and bad-faith appeals to "equality," but that's the simple brutal form of it. "Helping children of color feel like they belong" harms white kids, it just does, because if they have to share, they'll have less America all to themselves.

Jesus, you might as well freak out over a children's TV show that teaches about inclusion and getting along with people who are different.

Beeman explained that her comment in the forum was "poorly worded" and that it had been "shown out of context," because surely there's a context that would make "Helping kids of color to feel they belong has a negative effect on white, Christian, or conservative kids" a perfectly acceptable statement. Hey, let's see how she does when given the chance to polish that turd! Beeman told the TV station that what she really meant was more words with the same meaning and an attack on political bad guys.

Guilford students who may have staunch Judeo-Christian values — or simply are conservative thinkers — have been bullied into submission by their teachers and fellow students with left-leaning ideologies.

That's so much better! No mention of race at all, so now it's not controversial, you see!

For some reason, Bill Bloss, a former member of the town's school board who served 20 years, 14 years of them as chair, didn't buy a bit of it, asking reasonably enough, "exactly what context would that comment be positive in?" Bloss is advising several independent candidates for the board this year, and says Republicans are full of it when they claim public schools are teaching critical race theory to kids. He's probably right, since we've seen no evidence that Guilford schools have a law program or other graduate level offerings for the tots.

The report went on to interview a guy who has no children in Guilford schools, but who wants to stop critical race theory anyway, whatever he thinks it is. He explained that America is a "great country" whose "founding documents say all men are equal," which pretty much proves there's no such thing as systemic racism, now doesn't it? How can anyone know anything about anything, really?

Also too, we should note that before Beeman's comments came to light, the worthies at the National Review   weighed in on the school board election in Guilford, presenting it as a case study of how the "specter of critical race theory in the classroom has galvanized grassroots moms and dads without prior political credentials" to "recapture their progressive-dominated school boards and expel even Republican members deemed too complaisant." The piece notes that the one thing that pisses such parents off is when school officials insist they're not actually teaching critical race theory, because by god they are, at least as Fox News defines it.

The National Review piece is especially noteworthy for this mood setting paragraph that tells us Guilford is for only white people, without actually saying it's only for white people.

With its rural, colonial roots, Guilford is a quintessential New England community. It is home to Connecticut's second-largest agricultural fair, complete with goats, a circus, and a harvest celebration fit for E. B. White's Charlotte 's Web. Its postcard-esque town center features a village green, a church steeple, and a cozy cluster of mom-and-pop shops. Twenty years ago, Guilford was a red town. But once Yale graduates and Manhattan commuters started occupying and gentrifying it, a liberal consensus hardened within it, making political commotion rare.

Clearly, not the sort of place any kids of color need to feel like they belong, if there even are any. The Census Bureau reports the town is 92 percent white, but should there be any kids of color at all, they maybe need to just shut up and not make a fuss.

We also learn that the furor over CRT in Guilford kicked off last year when a student reading The Catcher in the Rye was given the option of discussing that very whitest of books "using a racial justice score card," and also when there was a move to get rid of the school mascot, which OF COURSE was "The Indians," in honor of the people genocided so that New England could be such a white place. So suddenly, after the murder of George Floyd, the schools were full of Marxists in Kente cloth we guess, and that's why white people are suffering so much.

So, if Guilford is "the story, in microcosm, of what's been happening around the country," we should assume that pretty much every campaign against "critical race theory" is being pushed by people who assume that if kids of color feel like they belong, then white kids will suffer. That certainly makes intuitive sense to us. Thanks for the clarification, guys.

Ms. Beeman says she will not resign from managing the campaigns, and lord only knows what'll happen next. Probably Tucker Carlson will be elected mayor.

[ WFSB-TV / Daily Beast / National Review / DC Comics blog ]

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