Grandparents For Truth Mobilizes Against Book Banning And Censorship—People for the American Way

Friends:

I just became a grandma again this week for a third time. It's beyond glorious, as any grandparent knows. It also fosters that deep sense of concern over, and responsibility for, where our country is headed with toxic school board politics, censorship, and book bans. 

Consequently, grandparents, along with parents and anyone concerned with our fledgling democracy, need to step in the gap in this fight over book bans and censorship. I am happy to see the timely emergence of this organization, Grandparents For Truth. I just signed up here and hope you consider doing so, as well. As you can read for yourself, you don't have to be a grandparent to join.

Relatedly, the American Library Association also has an initiative that is organizing readers everywhere to fight against censorship. Censorship is what authoritarian regimes do so that they can limit and narrow the thinking and imagination of their people. 

What I find to be cognitively dissonant or discordant is that these extremist politics are playing out at a time in human history when knowledge is multiplying at an unprecedented rate. What we should be focused on instead is helping youth make sense of information, managing distractions and informations overload while learning how to be judicious over credible, as opposed to less credible or questionable information or data.

We must all push back on censorship wherever we see it playing out. Consider running for your local school board or alternatively, for your State Board of Education. A free society depends on access to the truth combined with an ethic and practice of lifelong learning. As for children themselves, they need to be able to see themselves in literature and history in order for them to be able to heal from their own traumas, or alternatively to expand their horizons and sense of self, as well as to navigate the complexities that life invariably brings, while also discovering the awe and beauty of lived experience and the natural world that becoming a grandma makes palpable and profound. Feeling blessed. ❤️

-Angela Valenzuela

#GrandparentsForTruth @peoplefor @UABookBans @ALALibrary #UniteAgainstBookBans 

#TeachInclusion #TruthInSchools

‘Grandparents For Truth’ Mobilizes Against Book Banning And Censorship

/ Community Organizing, Partner News

This blog post is from Miranda Jayne Boyd with People For the American Way – a Unite Against Book Bans partner.

People For the American Way—a proud partner to Unite Against Book Bans— has been fighting authoritarian attacks on the freedom to learn for more than 40 years. Now, with book-banning and censorship on the rise, and attacks on education becoming more and more aggressive, People For has launched a new campaign to fight back—Grandparents For Truth.

Grandparents For Truth is a voice against censorship and for the freedom to learn, mobilizing members who are grandparents, have grandparents, or know grandparents to join up and oppose book banning and censorship. Through on-the-ground rallies and petitions, as well as online organizing and activist trainings, Grandparents For Truth advocates for inclusive education reflecting the lived experiences of people with diverse identities, while helping members fight for truth at their local schools, school boards, and more.

Right now, there’s a coordinated assault against education in this country, especially against communities that have historically been marginalized. The vast majority of banned and challenged books are written by or about members of the LGBTQ+ and Black communities. Honest and diverse education is vital to an inclusive society and a thriving democracy, and authoritarians are doing everything they can to deny that education to our young people.

Under the guise of parental rights, groups like Moms for Liberty and their political allies are imposing their ideology on students, schools, school boards, and libraries and trying to control what other parents’ children can read and learn. Grandparents For Truth serves to counter groups like Moms for Liberty and combat these attacks on our children’s future.

Grandparents are the perfect people to push back against the tide of censorship we’re facing today. They’ve seen how censorship and book banning have played out as tools of authoritarianism in the past, and they have a stake in building the world their grandchildren will inherit. But it will take everyone to stand up to authoritarian assaults on education.

Regardless of age or whether someone is actually a grandparent, everyone who believes in the freedom to learn can be a part of Grandparents For Truth and take a stand for honest education. Backed by People For’s proud history of opposing authoritarianism and the determination of People For’s members to make their voices heard, Grandparents For Truth is a powerful force in the fight against book banning, censorship, and all other attacks on education.

Featured Image: People For National Field Director Alana Byrd rallies the crowd at a Grandparents For Truth event in Philadelphia. Photo by People For.

"The Right-Wing Political Machine Is Out to Take Over School Boards by Fanning Fears of Critical Race Theory," by Peter Montgomery

This bulletin out of the Network for Public Education highlights a right-wing campaign to sow division, especially at the school board level.

Why is this so? 

On the heels of the racial justice and Ethnic Studies movement, together with the demographic shifts that are increasingly diversifying our country, they, meaning mostly white republicans, are jealously protecting their positions of power. And since they have no enviable vision for what could and should be a dynamic and deliberative civic culture—much less a just and humane society—defensive, divisive posturing and politics is all they have. 

Wreak havoc at the school board level and "stir up the base" to maintain and extend Apartheid rule far into the future.

If that's all they have, their days are numbered. Not that this won't be a protracted struggle here in Texas and beyond, particularly with their simultaneous attack on voting rights, poor people, and women's reproductive rights—but certainly in the long run.  

As with any relationship, lies, toxicity, and drama bent on fostering division will only get you so far. In the meantime—as we suffer their antics—we must all remain calm, strong, and focused with our eyes wide open—even as we alternatively craft a substantive, values-based, and redemptive vision for education and society.

Ours is and has been the long and patient game for a just, inclusive, and vibrant democracy. And fortunately, for those of us in the civil and human rights community, we are not only good at it, but we are considerably motivated. How not to be when our children's lives and futures—and indeed, the future of the planet—are at stake?

-Angela Valenzuela

"The Right-Wing Political Machine Is Out to Take Over School Boards by Fanning Fears of Critical Race 

Theory" 

by 
Peter Montgomery

at Right-Wing Watch

Peter Montgomery:  writing at Right Wing Watch, lays out some of the behind-the-scenes work going on among some right wing groups. The right-wing campaign to stifle teaching and discussion about racism in U.S. history and institutions is fearmongering about critical race theory to mobilize right-wing activists and conservative voters to take over local school boards. The Leadership Institute, which has trained generations of right-wing activists, is promoting a 20-hour online course to train conservatives how to run for their local school boards in order to “stop the teaching of Critical Race Theory before it destroys the fabric of our nation.” 

Critical race theory is an academic analytical framework for exploring the existence and impact of systemic racism. Over the past year, the term has been aggressively deployed as a right-wing culture-war weapon that is being used to smear educators and social justice activists. Campaigns against efforts to examine racism in school settings are often combined with attacks on other initiatives to promote inclusion, such as anti-discrimination policies based on sexual orientation and gender identity. Right Wing Watch previously reported that Intercessors for America and the Center for Renewing America, the latter run by former Trump administration official Russ Vought, are distributing a toolkit that encourages conservatives to “reclaim” their schools by taking over local school boards through campaigns focused on opposition to critical race theory. 

The Leadership Institute, with its new course, appears to be following their lead. An email promoting an online presentation about the Leadership Institute’s new training sessions, which begin on Aug. 9, declares that “conservatives are preparing a school board takeover and you can get involved.” 

The presentation was made by the Leadership Institute’s director of international trainings Ron Nehring, a protégé of anti-tax activist Grover Norquist who ran as a Republican candidate for Lt. Gov. of California in 2014 and served as a spokesman for Sen. Ted Cruz’s 2016 presidential campaign. “The left has spent many years and vast funding to stack local school boards,” the Leadership Institute’s website claims. “America’s children suffer the effects of this liberal domination every day.” The group adds, “Patriotic Americans must take back the schools.” Read the full article here. You can view the post at this link :

Right Wing Watch is a project for People For the American Way.