For the one of us working on CSA in k-12 environments, which is real and pervasive and SO MUCH WORSE than people are willing to believe, this whole “groomer” nonsense is infuriating. Conservatives don’t GAF about what grooming is and can’t identify it when it’s happening to them and to their children. We cannot get people to panic about actual CSA, because even when it is happening and their kids are asking for help people don’t want to get involved, minimize the harm, or call us hysterical and or some form of “liberal moron”. *tears hair out*
AAarrgh! I'm a white lady who used CRT in my dissertation to critically examine my family history (inspired by folks like Christine Sleeter) and I did this by framing it as much as I could from how families like mine affected Indigenous people in the region. I don't hate myself, for starters, and especially not because I'm white and descend from colonizers. I feel for my friends and colleagues who work in K-12 - but this hysteria (another gendered term) doesn't end there. I have students who are part of the Turning Point USA grift who are watching profs who do espouse justice pedagogies. I just hope we have some success in Roevember that re-emboldens folks to get active to protect all kids, not just white straight ones. A great resource for K-12 teachers is Rethinking Schools (https://rethinkingschools.org/) - they have a magazine and several books that are helpful with teaching justice in the face of oppression and bigotry. Thanks for this column. Again - really timely and needed.
As an old queer man (old enough to remember "queer" as a term of abuse, not self-identification), may I say that this scares the hell out of me. We tried to argue against the CRT panic, and found out that "THEY'RE COMING FOR YOUR CHILDREN!" is too powerful, on an instinctive level, to overcome with logic OR emotion. In UK, the TERFs have taken over the media landscape, and with the Tories forever in power, I fear another Clause 28 is on the horizon. Yes, in this country a lot of the media IS acting as the voice of reason, but reason doesn't seem powerful enough to deal with neanderthal instincts.
It landed wrong for me when Eve Ettinger referred to people as *queers* in her excellent piece which I think she otherwise nailed. I get that the LGBTQIA+ community have taken back that word to claim our power over it and to embrace the rainbow of people with whom we have common cause in our fight for human rights but… At the same time it feels a bit dehumanizing and othering. Referring to them/us as *queer people* reminds us all that we are indeed talking about people, fellow humans, who are also queer. I realize that it may seem to be just my sensitivity but it actually springs from an earlier time when people would refer to African-Americans as “the Blacks”. That form of dehumanization and othering never felt acceptable and I think remembering and reinforcing that we are talking about our fellow humans is very important.
I always thought that the reason people sent children to school was because no parent had all the information a child needed. Of course that's naive. And my "kids" are mid-forties.
Where do all the radical freaks come from? Only with real, actual facts can our children survive.
Excellent article. Even for someone like me, who follows the news closely and reads extensively, the explanation of how the idea of grooming and CRT spread was enlightening. I have found that many people want to view the world as a simple place where everything is good or evil. They don't like complexity and don't like to think so they find it easier to just accept what they hear. And for Mary-Katherine I can assure her that the union doesn't shuffle predator teachers around. I worked for them for 15 years and that is something we simply would not do. We would guarantee their contractual rights, but if we new they were predatory we encouraged them to leave the profession
For the one of us working on CSA in k-12 environments, which is real and pervasive and SO MUCH WORSE than people are willing to believe, this whole “groomer” nonsense is infuriating. Conservatives don’t GAF about what grooming is and can’t identify it when it’s happening to them and to their children. We cannot get people to panic about actual CSA, because even when it is happening and their kids are asking for help people don’t want to get involved, minimize the harm, or call us hysterical and or some form of “liberal moron”. *tears hair out*
AAarrgh! I'm a white lady who used CRT in my dissertation to critically examine my family history (inspired by folks like Christine Sleeter) and I did this by framing it as much as I could from how families like mine affected Indigenous people in the region. I don't hate myself, for starters, and especially not because I'm white and descend from colonizers. I feel for my friends and colleagues who work in K-12 - but this hysteria (another gendered term) doesn't end there. I have students who are part of the Turning Point USA grift who are watching profs who do espouse justice pedagogies. I just hope we have some success in Roevember that re-emboldens folks to get active to protect all kids, not just white straight ones. A great resource for K-12 teachers is Rethinking Schools (https://rethinkingschools.org/) - they have a magazine and several books that are helpful with teaching justice in the face of oppression and bigotry. Thanks for this column. Again - really timely and needed.
If they could package irrational fear,
the line outside the store would be very long.
As an old queer man (old enough to remember "queer" as a term of abuse, not self-identification), may I say that this scares the hell out of me. We tried to argue against the CRT panic, and found out that "THEY'RE COMING FOR YOUR CHILDREN!" is too powerful, on an instinctive level, to overcome with logic OR emotion. In UK, the TERFs have taken over the media landscape, and with the Tories forever in power, I fear another Clause 28 is on the horizon. Yes, in this country a lot of the media IS acting as the voice of reason, but reason doesn't seem powerful enough to deal with neanderthal instincts.
It landed wrong for me when Eve Ettinger referred to people as *queers* in her excellent piece which I think she otherwise nailed. I get that the LGBTQIA+ community have taken back that word to claim our power over it and to embrace the rainbow of people with whom we have common cause in our fight for human rights but… At the same time it feels a bit dehumanizing and othering. Referring to them/us as *queer people* reminds us all that we are indeed talking about people, fellow humans, who are also queer. I realize that it may seem to be just my sensitivity but it actually springs from an earlier time when people would refer to African-Americans as “the Blacks”. That form of dehumanization and othering never felt acceptable and I think remembering and reinforcing that we are talking about our fellow humans is very important.
I always thought that the reason people sent children to school was because no parent had all the information a child needed. Of course that's naive. And my "kids" are mid-forties.
Where do all the radical freaks come from? Only with real, actual facts can our children survive.
Excellent article. Even for someone like me, who follows the news closely and reads extensively, the explanation of how the idea of grooming and CRT spread was enlightening. I have found that many people want to view the world as a simple place where everything is good or evil. They don't like complexity and don't like to think so they find it easier to just accept what they hear. And for Mary-Katherine I can assure her that the union doesn't shuffle predator teachers around. I worked for them for 15 years and that is something we simply would not do. We would guarantee their contractual rights, but if we new they were predatory we encouraged them to leave the profession