‘Moms For Liberty’ Among Right-Wing ‘Parental Rights’ Groups Labeled ‘Extremists’ By Civil Rights Group
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The Southern Poverty Law Center has officially labeled the hordes of primarily Caucasian conservatives who attack Black history, LGBTQ education and other social justice-related curricula under the guise of “parental rights” as extremist groups. According to NPR, the SPLC has included a dozen of these groups in its annual Year in Hate & Extremism report for 2022. Chief among these groups is the coalition of Karens who call themselves Moms for Liberty, which is only an accurate moniker if by “liberty,” they mean “freedom from white fragility-inducing learning materials.”
For example, it was a so-called liberty-loving mom who got Amanda Gorman’s inauguration poem banned from a Florida school district because Gorman mentioned racial equality and gender identity affirmation, or as right-wing extremists call it: Reverse-racist critical race theory ‘woke’ indoctrination that should be damned to hell for waging war against the innocent minds of our sweet Caucasian children!
From NPR:
“They really are seeking to undermine public education holistically and to divide communities,” said Rachel Carroll Rivas, deputy director for research, reporting and analysis at the SPLC. Carroll Rivas said her organization has received numerous calls from parents and educators who are concerned about the sudden appearance and tactics of Moms for Liberty activists in their schools.
Moms for Liberty, founded in early 2021 by conservative women in Florida, has quickly expanded its presence across the country. It has landed national media attention for its efforts — sometimes successful — to fight COVID safety measures in schools, ban books, limit discussion about race and LGBTQ identities and populate local school boards with conservatives. Two of its co-founders, Tina Descovich and Tiffany Justice, provided NPR with a written statement in lieu of an interview to respond to the SPLC designation.
“Two-thirds of Americans think the public education system is on the wrong track today. That is why our organization is devoted to empowering parents to be a part of their child’s public school education,” the statement read.
Recent NPR/Ipsos polling finds, however, that most Americans, including nearly half of Republicans, oppose banning certain books in schools — a central campaign for Moms for Liberty.
Referring to the SPLC, Descovich and Justice further state: “We believe that parental rights do not stop at the classroom door and no amount of hate from groups like this is going to stop that.”
First of all, conservatives love pulling statistics from StraightOutMyStarSpangledHindParts.com in order to back the idea that they’re on the side of popular opinion, despite all the surveys and polls that tend to say otherwise. So, it’s no surprise that Moms for Liberty would make the bold and unsubstantiated claim that two-thirds of Americans agree with the organization’s fire and brimstone attitude toward educators who teach about America’s long history of racism and injustice or that people exist outside of the gender binary.
Secondly, I really wish these so-called “parental rights” activists would stop acting like they’re doing some kind of revolutionary work by fighting to maintain the same whitewashing, jingoism-inspiring, conservative-placating, white nationalist-approved educational standards that have existed in America for decades if not centuries.
It also might surprise these Moms for MAGA Lies to know that the rights of white conservative parents aren’t the only parental rights that matter.
“We’re thinking about the kinds of parents — parents of LGBTQ students, parents of Black students who want to hear the full story of the history of the U.S., parents of all kinds — who just want to make sure that their kids are getting treated fairly and equitably and that they have a really good, thriving education,” Carroll Rivas said.
While conservatives are likely to complain that they’re being oppressed by being called extremists by a civil rights group that has no power to actually oppress anyone, they’re lucky white privilege protects them from the government they purport to hate so much. In 2017, the FBI named Black activists and racial justice advocates “Black Identity Extremists” just for saying things that get white people all in their fragile feelings.
If only there were some kind of critical and theoretical study that could examine such disparities.
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Tweets Link Florida Parent At Center Of School Book Ban To White Supremacists, Far-Right Extremists
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