Last night I witnessed a remarkable event that should alarm all Americans: Nine publicly elected officials in Loudoun County, Virginia abruptly shut down input from the public, vacated the dais, and ejected their own constituents.
The reason? Parents and other taxpayers dared to clap after a speaker’s comments.
CAUSE FOR CONCERN
The pushback from many LCPS parents and taxpayers today revolves around a recent sharp and severe leftward turn of the school board, buoyed by the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors, and accompanied by a growing sense by some that the school board is no longer serving its constituents or caring for the well-being and safety of students. I will deal more in depth in other articles, but issues and policies being advanced have included:
- Attempts to force all LCPS staff, and ultimately students, to speak against truth and (in many cases) against their conscience. Emblematic of this battle was the recent suspension of LCPS Physical Education teacher Tanner Cross for voicing the opinion that his love for all the children under his care could not permit him to lie to them by using pronouns other than those corresponding to their sex. (For international readers, the United States Constitution affirms free speech. Therefore, this is a fairly clear-cut case in our county: Voicing civil opposition to a proposed policy is protected speech.) As expected, a Loudoun County Circuit Court judge quickly ruled in favor of Cross, and ordered his reinstatement. The LCPS board, however, has appealed. Several parents last night pointed out that the appeal is also a losing case and a reckless waste of Loudoun taxpayer dollars by an intransigent and ideological school board.
- LCPS’ categorical rejection of the principle of equality and individuality of students, in favor of the marxist Critical Race Theory (CRT) as the new guiding philosophy across all schools via the implementation of an Equity initiative, the hiring of a raft of Equity officers, the recruitment of student “Bias Ambassadors” (chosen, ironically, exclusively by race, until an adjustment to the policy also made it available to white students, so long as those students are “passionate about social justice”), the creation of an online form for the reporting of “bias,” and so forth.
- Bully tactics and abuse of power by some members of the school board. Members of the LCPS board have, it appears, taken steps to silence or intimidate private citizens who, for example, oppose the board’s embrace of Critical Race Theory, or who oppose the board’s equity policy. This alleged intimidation has taken the form of the creation of lists of parents who oppose CRT, and calls or implied calls for certain adverse actions against those individuals.
- Safety of children. Multiple parents yesterday evening voiced concern about unintended consequences of LCPS proposed policy 8040, which would make it compulsory for LCPS staff to use the preferred pronouns of students who do not identify with their sex as determined at conception, and which would allow the mere claim of identity to force children into potentially dangerous situations. It is not difficult to imagine a boy with ill intentions using the loophole of the proposed policy as a means to gain access to gendered space such as locker rooms, bathrooms, accommodations during school trips, and so forth. Indeed, one family present yesterday reported their child to have been raped in just this fashion. The brave child actually took the microphone and spoke outside the building after citizens had been ejected from the meeting. At least two citizen speakers suggested yesterday that there are reasonable ways to accommodate the legitimate sensibilities of all students without placing some students in potential physical danger.
- Exposing children to sexually explicit material at school. A little more than a year ago, LCPS announced a “diversity reading list” that would be added to the library of each LCPS school. In my own preliminary review of the list at that time, I noted that about half the books were LGBTQ-oriented. Other books on the list touched on immigration (mostly favoring or making sympathetic, it seemed to me, illegal immigration), and other matters. A range of readings reflecting different viewpoints on current social issues probably makes sense in a public school library; whether an actual diversity of viewpoints is being offered is perhaps doubtful, but this is beside the point. What does not make sense, in the view of myself and other parents as evidenced by their comments, is sexually explicit content. Among the books and materials either in LCPS libraries or even included in assigned readings have been content that is explicit and highly inappropriate for children. At a recent LCPS meeting, a number of parents read out loud from such materials.
SPINNING A NARRATIVE
In recent weeks, Loudoun County has become the point of the spear in a growing national awareness of the alarming move to entrench CRT or its derivative philosophies in school policy and curricula across the nation. National media has been present at recent LCPS meetings, and the spotlight has clearly become very uncomfortable for the LCPS board, who probably would have preferred to advance these policies silently and without anyone noticing. These facts explain why, by all appearances, the shutdown of the meeting last night had been planned in advance, and it is already being spun by the leftist board, most of whom are facing recall by their constituents, as violent and fearful event.
Is clapping to encourage a speaker and to emphasize the audience’s agreement with the point or points that speaker just made simply unacceptable?
Are only approving comments allowed? May parents’ assembly to tell the school board making (in some cases) life and death decisions about their own children only be permitted so long as parents make no criticism of anything the board is doing? Is clapping to encourage a speaker and to emphasize the audience’s agreement with the point or points that speaker just made simply unacceptable?
Apparently so. At least in Loudoun County, Virginia, where the Marxist coup appears well underway.
CALLING OUT PIRACY
During the public comment time at the Loudoun County Public Schools board meeting last night, I was speaker #51 out of 259 who were signed up.
Chair Brenda Sheridan has long suggested “jazz hands” and prohibited applause, passive aggressively treating parents like children while also limiting the expression of public approval of any particular speaker’s comments.
Former Virginia State Senator Dick Black, whose remarks elicited the cheers which became the board’s pretext for shutting down further comment, was a couple of speakers after me.
The school board ended the meeting because parents were clapping and cheering. No violence. No disorderliness.
In the end, my own prepared comments proved eerily prescient: The LCPS board has indeed gone rogue, kicking parents and taxpayers (i.e. the board’s actual bosses) out of the captain’s seat.
Chair Brenda Sheridan has long suggested “jazz hands” and prohibited applause, passive aggressively treating parents like children while also limiting the expression of public approval of any particular speaker’s comments. Two weeks ago, she twice called a recess after parents clapped for speakers. Last night, Ms. Sheridan did the same following boos at an earlier speaker’s comment that “hate” was “dripping from the followers of Jesus.” (For the record, I was not among those who booed. I was actually saddened by the speaker’s comment, and also by the booing, which I felt was unnecessary.)
In the end, my own prepared comments proved eerily prescient: The LCPS board has indeed gone rogue, kicking parents and taxpayers (i.e. the board’s actual bosses) out of the captain’s seat.
The Loudoun County Public Schools board has, in other words, just mutinied.
You are not the captain. We are your bosses. And, God willing, we will return most of you to the private sector very soon. We don’t hate you, but we do love our children, we love all our neighbors, and we love this country.
My remarks follow:
First, I read the short poem “Pirate Captain Jim,” from Shel Silverstein’s “Where the Sidewalk Ends.” In the poem, a small captive of a pirate manipulates himself into the captain’s seat, leaving the actual captain powerless. Then I said to the school board,
“I’ve noticed a pattern.
• You treat your bosses (all of us) like children
• You treat the woke mob, your employees, and teachers’ unions like the boss,
• And you treat children who have not harmed you like pawns in your leftist social experiment
Children are not identity groups. They are individuals – each one unique. But the woke ideology you all have embraced denies this.
The United States are a nation unlike any other, where limited government accountable to the people preserves opportunity for everyone. But in the false premises of wokeness, you propose to teach kids a self-destructive hate for others, tearing down their own future.
Brenda, when you give us “time-out” for clapping, we hear you saying, “Look at me. I am the captain now.”
You are not the captain. We are your bosses. And, God willing, we will return most of you to the private sector very soon. We don’t hate you, but we do love our children, we love all our neighbors, and we love this country.”
Originally published at danielbruber.com
39 comments
I would love for history to be taught in its TOTALITY, and not just through the lens of the black grievance mongers and their self loathing white Marxist allies.
Joker,
Stop with the foul language and name calling. Second warning. I don’t want to have to delete your posts, but I will.
We keep saying the Loudoun School Board is the problem, but we need to name the real culprit–Loudoun DEMOCRATs. It is the DEMOCRAT School Board and the DEMOCRAT Board of Supervisors that are the problems. We keep leaving out the operative word “Democrat”. Conversely, the only real solution to these problems is to elect Republicans. If we recall the School Board and then vote in more Democrats, we are back to square one.
Republicans = good problem solvers
Democrats = evil problem causers
Republicans’ hissy fit over critical race theory is nothing more than an attempt to rally the party’s overwhelmingly White base by denying documented history and uncomfortable truth.
This manufactured controversy has nothing to do with actual critical race theory, which, frankly, is the dry and arcane stuff of graduate school seminars. It is all about alarming White voters into believing that they are somehow threatened if our educational system makes any meaningful attempt to teach the facts of the nation’s long struggle with race.
The Republican state legislators falling over themselves to decide how history can and cannot be taught in schools — and blowhards such as Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), who warn that children are being taught “every White person is a racist” — know exactly what they’re doing. They seek to create a crisis where none exists in hopes of driving up GOP turnout in next year’s midterm elections.
It’s a cynical ploy. But a party willing to pretend — even now — that Donald Trump might somehow have won an election he lost clearly embraces cynicism as its core identity.
Was slavery key to the colonial economy at the time of the Declaration of Independence? Clearly it was, and one of the many charges the declaration leveled against King George III is that he “has excited domestic insurrections amongst us” — seen by historians as referring to a proclamation in Virginia offering freedom to slaves who joined the British army. The declaration also slams the king for his passive support of the “merciless Indian Savages” who resisted the White settlers’ efforts to more westward and take more of the Indians’ land.
Was slavery written into the Constitution? The word itself does not appear, but the Constitution never would have been ratified without the famous compromise that allowed states to count only three-fifths of their enslaved populations for the purposes of apportioning seats in the House of Representatives. The charter specifies that “free Persons” and indentured servants be counted in full, leaving only slaves to constitute the “all other Persons” who are subject to the three-fifths limitation.
Was slavery just a Southern phenomenon? Not at all. Slavery wasn’t outlawed in New York until 1827, and the last 16 enslaved Black men and women in New Jersey didn’t obtain their freedom until 1865. Moreover, the entire young nation benefited economically from the plantation-style slavery practiced in the South, which gave the mills of New England raw material to work with and the nascent banking center of Wall Street a thriving enterprise to finance.
Didn’t the Civil War and the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments deal once and for all with the problem of racial oppression in this country? Of course not. Reconstruction was cut short, and the states were allowed to establish a system of Jim Crow segregation that endured for nearly a century. Black Americans were systematically robbed of land and wages, denied access to capital, confined to substandard housing, and denied educational opportunities When some Black communities overcame these obstacles — as in Tulsa, Atlanta and a host of other cities — White mobs burned and smashed those communities out of existence.
These are all undisputed facts. This is the history that has, until now, been ignored or played down. Teachers who expose their students to such truths are not being “woke” or convincing impressionable young minds that the nation is “irredeemably racist,” as Cruz has alleged. They are performing an essential task of education: contextually explaining where we’ve been so that we can understand where we are and where we need to go.
This nation can be redeemed — but not without first acknowledging the need for redemption. The Republican Party is trying to prohibit that acknowledgment, and is doing so for short-term political gain. The flap over critical race theory is just another scam from a party that believes in nothing except the unprincipled pursuit of power.
CRT is race based communism. Communism is a totalitarian ideology.
The DemoCRaTs teach exactly that – that ONLY white people can be racists and that black people cannot be racists. DemoCRaTs teach that only white people had slaves and somehow white people are uniquely evil. A TOTALLY FAIR view of events would discuss the evil oppressions perpetrated by POC throughout history and to inject the notion that despite the centuries of oppression, that black Americans have gained considerable material benefits living in a western society. Compared to their remote cousins on the Mother Continent they have it damn good. So, if we whites are to be blamed for everything bad in your lives, give us some credit then, for the good things.
If you want to stop this leftist garbage, stop paying property taxes and put the money in an escrow account to be paid when the School Board is replaced. Over half of all property taxes goes to schools so stop the crazy leftists by stopping their payments. Further, demand vouchers from the Board of Supervisors and don’t take no for an answer. Vouchers which put parents in charge is the sane policy under these circumstances and if the Board of Supervisors doesn’t recognize this then replace them.
I do have to agree with Eric on a point as I stated before… Elections have consequences and you vote Blue.. So you get this horseshit.
And you bastards can outvote me too in the rest of the state… I want to leave. There is no way to outvote you… the supermajority keeps walking across the border on top of the indoctrination that is part of what the author is complaining about…
Lowdown County is according to the census 20 percent Asian… 13 percent hispanic… a single digit black population… But that 33 percent is completely enough to keep this school board in place… but hey Eric…
Asians like their education to be math and science, not CRT… And they like to go to TJ… a lottery doesn’t benefit them.
Parents of all kinds care about the well-being of their kids. Parents of all backgrounds want their children to not be exposed to sexually explicit and otherwise inappropriate materials, and want their kids to be treated as individuals rather than members of a category based upon their race, sex, or other factors. Parents can either affirm 1) “Equity” & “pride”, or 2) equality/justice, freedom, and safety. Many parents and taxpayers are beginning to understand what’s going on, and most fair-minded Americans of all backgrounds prefer justice, freedom, and safety for children. That’s just my read of the room; others are free to disagree with me.
Well,isn’t this special? Trump’s attorney Lin Wood also represented Kyle Rittenhouse who murdered two people in Wisconsin. Turns out Wood let Rittenhouse rot in jail while he raised money using Rittenhouse as bait. Mooma Rittenhouse was not happy.
When Kyle Rittenhouse killed two people during Black Lives Matter protests in Kenosha, Wisconsin, in 2020 Trump-loving attorney Lin Wood swooped in to help. What actually happened, however, is Wood raked in fundraising cash to a nebulous group called FightBack.
An extensive report from The New Yorker revealed Rittenhouse’s case as a “spectacle” for the right-wing movement.
In March, Rittenhouse’s mom Wendy told the Law & Crime podcast that Wood told her it was critical for Rittenhouse to stay in jail because “Armageddon” was approaching in post-election America. At that point, Wendy Rittenhouse demanded an audit of Wood’s fundraising into the FightBack Foundation.
She also said that Wood and his colleague John Pierce were using Kyle Rittenhouse’s image “for their own political sh*t.”
Yawn.. ooh… we read Media Matters today did we shitforbrains? Is this your talking point, shithead? No one cares asswipe… Take it to Blue Virginia. You are a scroungy little punk, know that?
Joker, stop with the name calling and profane language. Thank you.
Whaty does a poor kid who had to defend himself from scumbags trying to murder him have to do with this subject?
So you must have a lot of kids in the LCPS system, Dan…?
You don’t either shithead. But at least you live in the county, unlike the other constant shithead here, your bro WTF.
After this Spring, we have only one child in LCPS. Our oldest daughter graduated last year … she was Woodgrove High School’s only National Merit Scholar. Our second daughter graduated Woodgrove this year and was co-valedictorian of her class of 401. Our third is a rising 10th grader.
Perhaps you can explain to me a point of grammar.
You write — and it now appears to be damn near standard practice: “Our second daughter graduated Woodgrove . . . ”
No, she did not “graduate Woodgrove.” She “graduated FROM Woodgrove.”
“Graduate” is not a transitive verb. Neither Webster’s International nor the Harbrace Handbook nor the Chicago Manual of Style recognize the form “graduated Woodgrove” as correct grammar.
Which simply confirms that in many cases PhD means “Piled Higher and Deeper”.
You are correct about “graduated from.” You are also right that it the incorrect grammar is becoming common usage. I have my own grammar pet peeves, and can relate. One that really bugs me is the current fad for turning nouns into verbs, e.g. “I purposed to do such-and-such,” rather than, “I made it my purpose to do such-and-such.” Anyway, now that you have mentioned my mistake above, I will probably begin to see this sort of aberration everywhere. Thanks.
The English language has taken a beating over the past 15 years, and I suppose it will only get worse. There is no more “right” and “wrong” way to use language. We live in an age of mob rule. If enough people use it incorrectly, then that becomes accepted speech. One could argue that that is the way language has changed anyway, albeit over a longer period of time. But, I’d counter-argue that previous changes were mostly due to gradual pronunciation differences and today’s changes are because people don’t understand the underlying concepts (i.e. we are dumbing down the language).
“But in the false premises of wokeness, you propose to teach kids a self-destructive hate for others, tearing down their own future.”
Daniel, what exactly are they “proposing” to teach your 10th grade daughter that you find so disturbing? I’ve seen no actual “proposal” to adjustments in teaching curriculum. I’ve read about a lot of smoke but so far it seems to be paired with mirrors instead of fire.
LCPS is focused upon “equity,” has “equity” officers, is doing away with class rankings, is curtailing the teaching of advanced math, and is messing with admission to the Academies, among other things, aiming to meet racial representation thresholds rather than admitting those students who meet the academic qualifications for entry. These are just a few examples, and they are to the best of my knowledge correct. The false premises of wokeness include the proposition that kids of some races are less inherently capable of achievement than others. The policies implemented or proposed by LCPS, like the ones above, teach kids to view other kids through a racial (or other identity group) lens, and to see differing potential based upon race (or other identity group) … because that is the example that is being set by the school board. This is part of what I mean when I say that they propose to teach kids a self-destructive hate for others, tearing down their own future. Kids are individuals, and a good school board would treat them as such.
“LCPS is focused upon “equity,” has “equity” officers, is doing away with class rankings, is curtailing the teaching of advanced math, and is messing with admission to the Academies, among other things…”
Sorry but “equity” is not “hate for others” nor are any of the other examples you cite. Further, none of the examples are curriculum changes with the possible exception of supposedly “doing away with higher math” which is not what they are doing or proposing. I realize your language might stir up the crowd and sell more books but you are being patently dishonest. Not a good example of how to provide pubic comment, imo.
Today the proper way to voice concerns is to;
Amass in the streets outside the building, start fires, throw rocks and spray paint the building.
You left off the ? at the end of my nym.
I am asking my Senator and Delegate to have the General Assembly pass the following law:
— You can purchase only one firearm every two years.
— You can purchase a firearm only on the first tuesday in November.
— There can be only one firearms’ store in each county.
— You must show multiple forms of photo ID to purchase a firearm.
— If you must stand in line, and someone gives you water or food while you are waiting in line, you and the person assisting you will be arrested.
Sounds good to me.
The country formerly known as the United States etc. is a burning dumpster fire at this point. So go ahead and rearrange the chairs on the Titanic… paint them rainbow colors and put some BLM stickers on them while you are at it.
Old Shithead and Eric the Shithead and the other liberal who sometimes posts here, has no idea of the degree of how bad these schools are these days… Say boys… did you see the story about the kid in Baltimore whose Mom found out didn’t have enough credits to graduate because he only passed a few classes??? Turns out that he is in the majority there! I know fellows… WHITE SUPREMACY!!! Except boys… whites don’t run Baltymore…haven’t for decades… and the white who used to run it were… Liberals!!!!
Well what does it matter at this point… in the words of your heroine…
The hand wave (Jazz hands, as it’s become known ) is a long-standing school board policy, emanating at least from just prior to me being elected to the Board of Supervisors in 2011 with some very stellar and reform-minded school board members, like Jeff Morse, the Dulles district rep). However, according to an email i had with Wade Byard, the long time public information director for LCPS, “We’ve never had public comments cut short before. Chair Sheridan did not cut comments short, it was done by a unanimous vote of the School Board. This was done only after repeated calls for decorum were ignored.” I lived in Loudoun from 2002 to 2018 and what normally is done if the audience is unrully is the chair asks the police to remove the people from the room. However, LCPS counsel told Sheridan during a five-minute break she could ask the board to cancel the input session. Norfolk Mayor Kenny alexander cut off public comment on zoom last year when 2nd amendment supporters were agitating. So, it can be done legally, but is very bad public relations and just poisons the atmosphere in the county. It’s very evident to me that this current school board cares nothing about public input and arrogantly thinks this recall effort and the flocking of people to their meetings is some kind of aberration and will die down before the next election. Not so. Asian parents are very pissed at the relaxing of standards at the Academy of Science and are prime to support GOP candidates in 2023. There is an active effort to recall six of the school board members, which may not succeed, but will lay the groundwork for throwing the rascals out in 2023, as the Delgaudio recall effort in 2014 led to his defeat in 2015. This is how movements start that lead to changes at the polls. Ive seen it time and time again in Loudoun and other suburban communities. Property rights advocates were a vocal minority in the county and succeeded in taking control of the Loudoun Board in 2003.; Then, in 2007, it swung back to the Democrats due to concerns about the 2003 board being in the “pockets of developers.” Our all GOP board took over in 2011 due to the excesses of the 2007 board, notably in trying to bar development (even swing sets) near streams. The Dems took over in 2019 due to hatred of Trump and concerns about the GOP and guns. But perhaps the current “woke” school board is so arrogant that Loudoun has turned blue and “woke’ and they have the wind to their backs. Perhaps some will not seek re-election in 2023, but that opens these seats up to the Republicans. If I were on the current school board, i would strongly urge them to turn the ship around before it’s too late
It may be “bad public relations” but when a Board — School Board or Board of Supervisors is trying to hear public comments and a gang of uninformed jackasses — which includes the “second amendment sanctuary” crowd — decides to interrupt, boo, catcall, and comment out loud while others are speaking, then, the Board has no choice.
Act like adults.
Yes, act like adults and burn down the school after looting it. Maybe tear down or deface a statue or two as well. Like adults do.
No, that would not be a good thing to do, nor would it be the act of mature adults or parents who care about kids, like those who went to this meeting to be heard by their school board. Antifa or BLM might burn and loot, but it is highly unlikely that any of these regular parents who just want kids not to be harmed would do such a thing. There is a big difference between clapping/cheering and burning/looting. Your remark is hyperbole (but in the first definition, probably not the second one, since you seem to wish readers to believe that the citizens were being violent or destructive at the school board meeting, which they were not: https://www.dictionary.com/browse/hyperbole)
I think you missed my point. Shouting at a meeting is evil and seditious, while burning, looting and murdering id zok as long as it’s for the “correct” ideology
Why do Democrats hate children?
Why are you so stupid?
Struck a nerve I see. OK, maybe not fair to generalize. Why do you personaly hate children?
Why do you have:
— a burner phone not traceable to you
— a credit card that your wife does not know about
— a weekly reservation at a no-tell motel in Fredericksburg
— regular payments from you private checking account to you mistress for child support
You do realize that this is the Alinski tactic of blaming other for what you do don’t you.
Projection ain’t just a river in Egypt
We didn’t vote for Biden….
Your Idiot county voted for Biden in the high 60 percent range I believe. So what do you expect from your shithead population? A population showered with money by the federal government… The richest county in America thanks to government spending….
Guess if you don’t like Democrat strong arm politics and CRT, your only redress is to move. I want to leave Virginia and join West Va personaly in my rural county so you shitheads can bask in your taxes and bullshit… What does governor asswipe and the shithead liberals want to do with gas tax for example?
I believe the county is substnatially Asian now… they vote Democrat… hope they enjoy getting CRT good and hard…
Say Shithead Eric and Shithead Old Redneck, you scroungy liberal POS… what did Asians have to do with Slavery? Oh well… screw them… let their kids get the same shitty ideology based education as everyone else… Lottery for TJ dumbassews? Good..
So whatever… You don’t have enough votes to get rid of this idiot school board… hey it looks all white except for maybe one guy… but enjoy the money of the corrupt federal government!!!