We will not be silenced

They think they can scare women but they can’t

UPDATE

I wrote this post the week before the April 4 election in Wisconsin. I waited to run it until after the election because I want to stay somewhat anonymous.

You will all be happy to know that my candidates won and all three of the men – the ZERO TOLERANCE men – LOST.

Also – I finally looked at their facebook pages and guess what?

They disabled comments on their pages.

They could dish it out but they couldn’t take it.

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Opponents of the candidate I support for school board are trying to get me kicked off a city board where I volunteer because they don’t like a comment I made on my candidate’s facebook page.

Yes.

You read that right.

I made a comment on *my candidate’s page.*

My candidate’s opponents did not like my comment.

So they googled me and discovered I volunteer on a city board – let’s say it’s the Twinkie Board, where most of the meetings are about reviewing and approving Twinkie invoices, updating Twinkie policies, like can we convert some employees from part time to full time and is there money for it and will the city council approve it, and talking about the annual Twinkie budget and will the city approve that.

Glamorous, right? People are lined up to volunteer to be on the board so they can attend the board meetings every month and the committee meetings and read and prepare for the meetings.

Hahahaha I joke.

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We have a contentious school board race in my town this year. Who knew?

Oh wait anyone who is paying attention anywhere.

School board races all over are contentious.

And somewhere, someone is coordinating something where men are running in groups of three, as a slate. My town is not the only place it’s happening. They all seem to have the same agenda, with similar platforms.

In my town, the language is about “ROI” on the schools and “zero tolerance.”

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Who talks about return on investment on public schools?

I have never heard one of these people talk about ROI on the police department. Or on the fire department. Or on the highways. Or on the library.

But suddenly, the schools are supposed to show a profit?

How do we even calculate that?

I have an MBA from a top 20 school. I had a 4.0 GPA. I worked in corporate finance at a Fortune 100 company. I’m smart.

I don’t even know how to begin to calculate the ROI on a public school.

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And zero tolerance.

Which means – something about kicking kids out of school if they fight.

Which has been happening a lot I guess.

Because children have just been through a few HIGHLY TRAUMATIC YEARS.

So yeah – kicking them out of school and sending them back home, where they’ve been isolated for the past few years is the solution.

Also. Our district is mostly white, but we have open enrollment with a neighboring city which is mostly Black, which means we have Black students from that city in our schools.

Some – only some – of our city’s parents don’t like that.

Some of our city’s parents don’t want to tolerate that.

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The three men sent out a very expensive mailing. That is, they each sent out a big postcard.

I know it was expensive because when Mr T was running for office, we thought about sending out a mailer (maybe we did send it? I don’t know those years are a blur) and know how much it costs. It costs A LOT. Thousands of dollars.

In one of them, one man accused my candidate – a woman – of being soft on crime because she is against zero tolerance.

My candidate – let’s call her Athena and let’s call the man Nathan Bedford Forrest (IYKYK) – wrote on her facebook page that Nathan had misrepresented her position.

Wrote on *her* page. *Her* page.

I commented on *her* page that it often seems that the people who love zero tolerance turn into “boys will be boys” people when it comes to sexual assault and rape.

You would have thought I kicked their dog by the way Nathan’s supporters came after me.

On Athena’s page.

On *Athena’s* page.

They ripped into me.

How DARE I accuse Bubba of that!

(Nobody named Bubba is even running?)

I even got a direct message telling me I really needed to re-think my life choices from some woman whose own page is riddled with misspellings and typos and I know it makes me classist but I couldn’t take her seriously.

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But I had broken my own rule.

I had posted something controversial (I didn’t think it would be controversial) on someone else’s page.

So, six hours later, I deleted it and sent an apology to Athena. The last thing she needs is drama. She already gets enough of it as an incumbent and a woman of color on the school board. The haters come after her every day.

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The day after that, I got an email from the mayor, with a cc to the city attorney.

I have known the mayor for years and honestly, would have thought he’d be on my side on this, given his career and his known political leanings.

He wrote that he had gotten several complaints about me and what I had written from people who wanted me removed from the Twinkie board. He said that there is no mechanism to remove me from the board and that I have a First Amendment right to say what I did but that emotions were running high and maybe I could tone it down.

This is me with my jaw dropping.

And still dropping.

And still dropping.

Two days later (of writing, not of this publication date), I still don’t know why – if I have a First Amendment right – WHICH I DO – to say what I think – and there is no mechanism to remove me from the board – he felt it necessary to write to me?

He could have just told the haters about the First Amendment.

Which they probably never heard of because they probably went to school in a place with a school board made up of people like them.

BAM.

Because the asking me to tone it down part was completely out of line.

He’s not my dad.

He is my friend.

But he was writing to me in his official capacity.

To ask me to tone it down.

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I told him I had deleted the post and apologized to Athena.

He replied that we all say things in the heat of the moment.

I didn’t answer him.

I didn’t tell him that it wasn’t the heat of the moment.

That I firmly believed what I said.

That I firmly do believe that the zero tolerance stuff is a racist, sexist dog whistle and that they want zero tolerance only for the people who don’t look like them.

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You know when boys get to be boys?

When they’re white. And when they attack girls and women.

That’s when boys get to be boys.

When Brett Kavanaugh was accused of sexual assault, white conservatives couldn’t defend him quickly enough.

He was just a boy! they cried. That was so long ago!

But what if he’d been Black?

Ha.

You know.

You know what would have happened.

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It took work to track down that I’m part of the Twinkie board.

It took work to have multiple people write to the mayor.

It took work to generate that much outrage about a comment on the page of their candidate’s opponent.

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When Mr T was running for office, he never bothered to look at the comments on his opponent’s page. He was too busy campaigning.

He wasn’t trying to cancel his opponent’s supporters.

He wasn’t triggered by his opponent’s supporters.

But Mr T isn’t a delicate snowflake, I guess.

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Also – and I think this is a key point, especially because Mr T is not known for holding his tongue – Mr T is male and I am female.

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My friend Medusa has a history of speaking up for women candidates and our public schools.

(Because MEDUSA WAS THE GOOD GUY IS WHY.)

Medusa has gotten hate mail through the USPS.

I mean – they have bothered to find her actual mailing address and put a stamp on an envelope and send her something, including a screenshot of a post where her husband mentioned something about how true patriots don’t fly the Confederate flag.

Which they would know if they knew US history (TLDR Wisconsin was not in the Confederacy) which they don’t know because they had idiots like them in charge of their schools.

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I get it. I learned only a few years ago that the real reason that the Texans wanted independence from Mexico is because Mexico had outlawed slavery.

That is, the Texas revolution wasn’t about freedom at all.

It was about preserving slavery.

I, too, went to schools run by idiots who either didn’t know the truth themselves or didn’t want the truth known.

But we know better now or should know better.

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I’m not sure what they’re trying to accomplish.

Do they think Medusa and I will support their side?

Do they think they will scare us into silence?

Do they think we’re weak?

They’re wrong.