"Kids Don't Pay Attention to Racism & Bigotry"

Hey there, Secular FAM! I am writing this on July 2nd, 2025 - the 100th anniversary of the birth of WWII veteran and civil rights activist, Medgar Evers. 

I vaguely recall hearing about Medgar Evers when I was a kid, somewhere on TV, probably in a PBS documentary. My dad has always been fond of historical documentaries, and when I was a kid, we literally only had four channels to choose from. 

I watched the movie Mississippi Burning back in the late 80s, and I recall news stories and movie critics that mentioned Medgar Evers while discussing the movie, but I didn’t really get a full history lesson on his life and death until I went back for my undergraduate degree at ASU from 2005-2008. 

I regularly state that I feel I received an excellent public education, but I didn’t receive a formal lesson about one of the most accomplished civil rights activists in American history, Medgar Evers, until I attended college. 

Bu-bu-but, I’ve been told that all of our public schools are wOkE!?

Recently, at the latest Peoria (PUSD) board meeting, the board voted to end their partnership with the Arizona School Boards Association (ASBA). ASBA is a former state affiliate of the National School Boards Association (NSBA). NSBA has been around for nearly 100 years and ASBA for over 80 years. According to their website, ASBA “is a private, non-profit, non-partisan organization committed to professional development, leadership, and essential services to public school governing boards across Arizona.”

You may be thinking, “Secular Activist Lady, what does this have to do with Medgar Evers and the Civil Rights Movement?” 

The answer is: a lot. 

You see, the justification to end its partnership with ASBA given by PUSD Board President, Heather Rooks was that “kids don’t pay attention to racism when they’re on the playground.”

Her comments came during the vote to end a partnership with ASBA and go with the Arizona School Risk Retention Trust (aka, the Trust). She referred to decisions made by a completely different ASBA executive director and governing board five years ago as justification for severing ties with ASBA. I really want to give you a full picture of her words, exactly as they came out of her mouth: 

She really has a way with words!

I’m guessing that Mrs. Rooks, like me and MANY other children in America, never learned about Medgar Evers during their K-12 school years. I can only assume that she is unaware of his story and how he was constantly on the receiving end of threats of violence. In fact, he and his wife Myrlie, regularly practiced drills with their children where they told their children, “If you hear shots, drop to the floor and carefully crawl to the bathroom. Get in the tub. You'll be safe there.”

Based on this ASBA vote, other votes, and comments she’s made at the dais and on her social media, I can only assume that she received an incomplete education about American history. She’s a big proponent of the whitewashed PragerU propagandacurriculum, after all.

So I’m guessing that Mrs. Rooks probably never learned that Mr. Evers was assassinated at his own home with his wife and children present. I would imagine that Mrs. Rooks doesn’t know that when Mr. Evers’s family showed up at a hospital in Jackson with him - a husband, a father, an army veteran - the hospital staff initially refused entry because he was Black. They eventually let him inside, and though he died 50 minutes later, he became the first Black man admitted to an all-white hospital. Such a dark footnote to such a bright life. 

I wonder if Mrs. Rooks knows that her cult leader erased any mention of Evers (and many other prominent BIPOC and LGBTQ people) from the Arlington National Cemetery website earlier this year.  

If Mrs. Rooks doesn’t believe that racism is present in our playgrounds, I would LOVE to introduce her to some people I know. Earlier this year, a former colleague of mine told me about an elementary student who was calling students of color the n-word during recess. When this educator informed the administration, they chose not to address it to avoid any wrath from the parents, essentially disregarding the very valid feelings of the students of color and their parents. When the parents were finally informed, they denied the claims of the other students and directed their wrath towards the educator. 

Another friend told me about a similar incident on their child’s school playground where an elementary student referred to other students of color as the n-word. Their child came home and asked what the word meant, and the parent explained and contextualized the word to the 8-year-old, and provided an age-appropriate historical overview. 

When that child understood the weight and effects of that word, they basically promised to educate everyone going forward why they shouldn’t ever say it. 

I remember when I was teaching during the first Cult 45 term. After his 2017 travel ban, barring travel to and from mostly Muslim countries, the one Muslim refugee student from Iraq suddenly stopped eating with her friends at lunch, and began hanging out in my classroom. When I finally asked what happened, she told me that kids had begun pulling on her hijab, and calling her a terrorist. When I learned this, we conducted a restorative circle, and the bad behaviors mostly stopped. 

In fact, we talked about what it means to be an upstander, and *gasp* we discussed what it means to be an ally and an anti-racist. 

And this is WILD, I know, but when we acknowledged the racism, religious discrimination, and xenophobia that was happening in the school, it happened way fucking less.

You see, despite Mrs. Rooks’s assertion that kids don’t think about racism on the playground, sometimes they very much do whether they want to or not. Usually when they don’t expect it, and frequently, when they don’t have the life experience to understand it. Sometimes that racism comes right up to them, taunts them, calls them names, and sometimes, the people who are supposed to be the protectors just look the other way. 

In the PUSD governing board room, that latter scenario has already become the norm: those who are supposed to be protecting the children in their district are looking the other way. 

Somehow, Mrs. Rooks doesn’t understand how the behavior of adults trickles down to children. The children in the above examples learned how to be racists and xenophobes from the adults. In the first two examples, it was the parents (and that administrator certainly didn’t help), and in the last example, it was the President of the United States. 

By banning the accurate teaching of history, school board members guarantee that incidents of racism and discrimination continue and likely increase, both on our school campuses and throughout our society.

It’s already happening. Right now, christofascists are celebrating the clandestine abductions of individuals throughout the United States. In the lead up to the election, this regime promised to target criminals, but countless innocent people have been swept up by masked marauders in unmarked vehicles. And don’t let them tell you that this is all to keep us safer or that they want to only target those who are here “illegally” because they’re picking up US citizens. Generally those with darker skin. 

There are about 11 million undocumented immigrants in the United States, but troglodytes like Laura Loomer don’t even hide that this has nothing to do with safer streets; it is just straight up racism. And an enthusiastic celebration of genocide

In the same PUSD meeting, there was a discussion and vote about the English Language Learner (ELL) curriculum adoption. The district administrator outlined the process for curriculum adoption. She also verified that the curriculum company, Teacher Created Materials (TCM), had signed the attestation about how PUSD’s majority MAGA board rejects the best-practice concepts of inclusion, diversity, and equity. 

When it was time for questions, Board Member Bowles and President Rooks focused on a couple of things that I thought were strange since the process that they’ve laid out seems to have been followed every step of the way. 

First, Board Member Bowles was very focused on the fact that the company is a woman-owned company. It was a blip in the conversation, but of course, I think of Sister Fratelli’s upbringing and her brother, Arizona’s own J6 Insurrectionist, second-to-last vote-getter in the 2024 CD8 congressional primary, Fake Elector, Arizona’s Biggest Manbaby AND Mama Fratelli Look Alike, former Senator Anthony Kern (R-LD27). 

(remember when he licked the carpet of the Arizona Senate floor?)

The Bowles (Kern) family (I think she has 12 or 13 siblings?!) seems to adhere to an apostolic faith, where the bible is to be taken literally, faith healers can take the place of medical professionals, their gods can “speak” directly through the individual, they actively anticipate the “End Times,” and flopping around when one is “moved by the spirit” is a thing. 

Sister Fratelli’s question reminds me of her evangelical extremist background because generally speaking, these evangelical churches demand obedience from the women and girls in their churches. These are people who think that dead women make great incubators and that rape is just a fact of life, so

Both Board Member Bowles and President Rooks had more questions about the company’s own professional development for their staff. I’ll be honest, I often do not know where they get their information from. Like, they (or perhaps one of their minions) dig up as much as they can about companies that they partner with and look into any mention of diversity, equity, and inclusion, whether it has anything to do with their vendor agreements or not. 

Numerous organizations and publicly held companies have decided to double down on their commitment to DEI best practices. Cult members Bowles and Rooks, as well as their cult leader, TACOTUS, believe they should be able to control the free market and rule like dictators, so of course the conversation that ensued was crazy ignorant. 

There was a discussion about “cultural responsiveness” and an assertion that “inclusion” means exclusion [of white people] nowadays or something? 

President Rooks looked into how this company trains its trainers even though the company WILL NOT BE OFFERING THAT PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT TO PUSD, so that was an odd choice. She then went on to complain that some of the company materials provided accurate information about the benefits of culturally “revelant” instruction for students from different cultural backgrounds and “ethincities,” and went on to mention them by name (Mexican-American, African American, Hawaiian American, Native American). 

She doesn’t want anyone to consider the culture of non-white students I guess? I mean, that’s the only reasonable conclusion I can come up with. If any of you can think of another reason, please comment below.  

Like, we acknowledge students' diverse cultures and backgrounds ALL THE TIME in schools. Entire districts acknowledge Jewish holidays. Good teachers that work with certain Native populations, understand that eye contact may not be a cultural norm and should NOT be forced. Families who are Jehovah’s Witnesses usually do not celebrate most holidays or recite the Pledge of Allegiance, so schools that acknowledge this acknowledge diverse cultures. 

Imagine being so smug in your ignorance that you want to dictate every aspect of every company that does business with you, even when it goes against best practices, years of research, and their own executives or boards of directors.

That is what we’re up against, folks: deeply unserious and ignorant cult members are in positions of power, and white supremacists who think concentration camps are AOK.

Supporting the idea of concentration camps on US soil is yet another odd choice from a self-proclaimed “child of god.” 

With nonsense like this happening in our own backyards, it can be hard to find hope. 

I had a brief respite in the high desert last week. I was fairly isolated, and had little cell signal and limited wifi, but I could still connect if I wanted to. After the SCOTUS decisions came down last Friday, June 27th, I began checking my phone more frequently, and my mental health suffered because of it. 

On Saturday, I made the decision AGAIN to stop doomscrolling. I put on a yacht rock playlist, sat in a backyard hammock, and made a list of self-care suggestions. The biggest one was to mindfully consume information AND to implement limits to my media consumption. This has been a game-changing decision so far, and I can’t recommend it enough. 

Instead of letting algorithms determine what I consume, I am actively cultivating a media diet of nutritious tidbits, and limiting the junk food. 

This week, I attended a couple of trainings online. First, I attended a training by an organization called SURJ (Showing Up for Racial Justice), and MAN, I wish that people like Bowles and Rooks would listen to the wise words of activist Loretta Ross. But heck, I can’t even get some of my closest friends to push back against fascism, so I doubt the fascists would be willing to check their own privilege. 

They don’t want to check their own privilege SO HARD that they want to keep an entire generation of children just as ignorant and undereducated as they are. 

I went to another training this week about the idea of “deep canvassing” where we get to know our actual neighbors and gather together. Fascism relies on our isolation and despair, and for a minute, I was drowning in both. Then I remembered that that is what the fascists want. It is up to us to create the communities we want. It is up to us to create art, find joy, and celebrate small victories when they happen. 

Fascists hate that shit. 

If you want to learn more about deep canvassing or how you can “create comfortable community” and find your Secular FAM, let us know. 

In the meantime, in PUSD (6330 West Thunderbird Rd) on Wednesday July 9, 2025 at 6:00 PM, the teacher who filed a lawsuit against the district will be speaking about their lawsuit against the district. I encourage each of you to show up and support them or email the board and let them know that you want them to stay in their lane:

And as always, please support the work we do at Secular AZ

.