Conspiracy Theorists FAIL At Hijacking School Board Candidates Forum

The eight candidates for the NLMUSD school board. 

(Screen grab from La Mirada Blog's Youtube video)

LA MIRADA - Parents ignored an attempt by event organizers to turn a Norwalk-La Mirada school board candidates forum into a conspiracy theory forum.

"What's with these questions? There's definitely an agenda going on here."

Those were the words I heard from the parents closest to me as I witnessed one of those cliche' school board meetings you might see on Youtube from the Midwest, the Deep South, or maybe just Orange County, California, where big government religious authoritarianism still have their militant enclaves, and conspiracy theories abound.  The questions asked were about critical race theory (CRT), LGBTQ issues, gender issues, and of course - communism. 

But this was no mere school board meeting, folks. This was a candidate's forum. Just under 80 people attended a candidates forum on September 16, put on by the La Mirada Chamber of Commerce and the La Mirada Lamplighter, an affiliate of the Los Cerritos Community News. 

There are four seats open on the Board. With eight candidates running, and at least two of them clearly in the conspiracy theory camp, this forum's purpose was seemingly to act as a springboard for a select few candidates who have their roots firmly planted in fantasy. Here's the sad part: one of them is already on the Board, and they're looking to take it over fully and indoctrinate your kids.

But there's good news here, too. This attempt at controlling the dialogue failed miserably. The parents who attended turned it into a regular forum. THEY did it. Not the organizers, the audience.  So, let's give a shout out to the parents of NLMUSD for calling out this nonsense.

That's the real story here: the parents foiled the conspiracy theorists and turned it back into a normal forum. That part of the story is going to get buried by other news outlets like the Los Cerritos Community News. The Community News in particular, is going to be spending a lot of energy trying to distance itself from this forum, since it was technically one of the organizers in charge of the event. Their publisher, Brian Hews, denies that he knew what was planned for the event.

So What Happened? 

In a nutshell, the organizers only asked questions related to buzz word topics like CRT and gender identity. They did NOT talk about real issues facing NLMUSD parents and students.

I've been told by the event's organizers that all the funny questions were submitted "anonymously" by "parents". Okay, fine.

I have some questions myself.

1. Being that these questions were said to have been submitted by parents, why did almost every question revolve around talking points you might hear on the fringiest of the fringe media outlets (CRT, gender issues, etc)?

2. Why was this particular moderator (Gracey Van Der Mark) selected?  These conspiracy theories and fringe content is literally the only thing she is known for. 

3. Why didn't anyone ask similar questions during the regular Q&A?

Isn't that fishy? Those three things together are suggestive of something going on in the background. I'm very skeptical of coincidences. 

In addition, those conspiracy theory candidates were really trying hard to suggest that the school district is teaching Marxism, critical race theory, and trying to groom kids into becoming trans or gay. Eye On Pioneer tried to get to the source, for proof that the claims they were making about the school district was true. Event organizers sent Eye On Pioneer photos of questionnaire cards submitted (some of them look like the same handwriting) and links to articles whose argument can be distilled as ‘guilt by association’.

Above: Photos of the submitted questions.

Moderator Or Inquisitor?

The moderator, Gracey Van Der Mark (pictured standing at the podium on the left) has been accused of being an anti-Semite and is known for allying herself with the alt-right. Van Der Mark peppered the candidates with a barrage of conspiracy-laden, Q-Anonish, Infowars-esque psychobabble focused primarily around LGBTQ issues, gender, and ethnic studies, all magically conflated into "Critical Race Theory" (aka CRT). At least five of the eight candidates were taken aback by these questions. 

To be fair to Van Der Mark, the questions were supposedly submitted by anonymous parents, and she was just reading the cards.

After 40 minutes of these questions, incumbent Board Member Robert Cancio said, "I almost feel like I'm not in a friendly debate for the school board with these questions." 

The cognitive dissonance faced by these five candidates was simple enough to diagnose from any third party perspective.  These guys were duped into thinking that this forum was going to be a normal and informative debate about serious issues among reasonable adults. About half of the audience did, too. 

Well, they don't do that in La Mirada, I suppose. Those candidates and parents of students were ambushed. For example, you might think a candidate forum's first question to the candidates would be something like: "Tell us about yourself and why people should vote for you."

Nope. That's way too predictable, and the answer might even be - God forbid - informative. That question  about introductions was literally asked one hour later, after the groans from the audience got loud enough to shut the questions down. But, to illustrate what went down, this was literally the first question: "Will critical race theory be taught in any form at Norwalk-La Mirada?"

What?  

 

Critical race theory actually means something in the world of law school and lawyers. It's basically about the effects of racism in the past and its effects on the present. But critical race theory in K-12 schools? It's a tired but apparently still meaningful buzzword to rouse the emotions of the most wild eyed of the Q-Anon/InfoWars fan base.

What Do Conspiracy Theorists Mean By 'Critical Race Theory'? 

From the sound of it, conspiracy theorists use of the phrase 'critical race theory' is not truly in line with its actual meaning in law school. To them, it was an all-encompassing word capturing race, LGBTQ issues, gender issues, socialism and communism.

That's why incumbent board members and one of the challengers looked befuddled by this first question, but answered truthfully and said several variations of "No, Norwalk-La Mirada does not teach Critical Race Theory". Some even said if it was ever brought before the Board, they'd vote it down. And of course, the two conspiracy candidates took the opportunity to make baseless claims that the school district was teaching it.  

But this wasn't a forum for truth or reason. This event was engineered as a portal into the psyche of a paranoid political cult.  

I think anyone who even had the intellectual curiosity to bother understanding what critical race theory was would probably be, at the very least, okay with it, or just forget about it and say, "Whatever."  But to illustrate its actual intent in law school, the idea behind CRT is that America's racial past does have an effect on shaping public policy. 

But, that's not the concept that was discussed at this forum. In the mush that is the mind of authoritarian conspiracy theorists, CRT means "evil thingies that I don't understand," while enthusiastically claiming that Norwalk-La Mirada School District was teaching it.

And Then They Came For The Communists - For Some Reason

One guy, a boardmember named - nah, I'm not even going to dignify him by naming him - held up a book written by Howard Zinn, A People's History of the United States, as an example of how the school was teaching communism and glorifying it. This particular edition was one geared towards youth. It wasn't the regular version that I read in college. 

First of all, that book is an awesome book. I encourage you to give it the old college try and read it. That first chapter on Christopher Columbus blew my mind, and the entire book is a page turner. And what's even better about it - it's friggin' true. The book doesn't teach people to hate America: it gives context about America, about its struggles and how regular people emerged victorious time and time again over the monied interests that usually control political power.  The book doesn't glorify socialism, either. But it does talk matter-of-factly about how in the late 1800s and early 1900s, socialism has (and continues to have) a positive impact on the United States. 

How does socialism have a positive connotation? If you like social security, Medicare, or even the post office, or if you like Parks & Recreation - guess what, guys? That's socialism. And of course, if you're engaged in the democratic process of - oh, I don't know - a public school candidates forum, you already like and participate in certain forms of socialism.  If you like unions, many of labor's early leaders - dudes like Eugene Debs - they were democratic socialists. Even Martin Luther King, Jr. described himself as a democratic socialist! George Orwell, author of Animal Farm and 1984 was also a democratic socialist.

But that's not what the conspiracy theorists mean about socialism. They're mainly talking about Joseph Stalin's communism; which was a brutal form of left wing authoritarianism. Imagine demonizing all of capitalism because of Adolf Hitler's fascism, which was a brutal right wing authoritarian version of capitalism.

The People Weren't Having It

First let me say, the parents saw right through the ruse. It took about 20 minutes, but it started looking suspicious when everyone started Googling in real time the "moderator".

The questions' died down fast when the outcry from the audience got louder, and then the forum actually morphed into a somewhat normal candidates forum. The link to the entire forum is below. Listen carefully to the crowd, and by the 45 minute mark, people just weren't having it anymore. It became a normal forum not by any design from the questions, but because when people went up for the regular Q&A portion of the forum, no one took the bait that was set earlier. These parents and one student asked normal engaging questions that had nothing to do with the boogeyman agenda that the organizers were trying to engineer. Instead, parents asked questions about handling disabilities, the use of technology, intimidation by security, updating the dress code policy for females. 

Good informative questions. Hearing these parents take back control over this forum, my faith in humanity was restored almost immediately after I lost it.

Satisfyingly, the attempts at fireworks fizzled out fast and the moderator, who is an OC native, realized that this LA County crowd was not going to have her OC BS.  Sure, she likely brought some out-of-town people to help lead the cheers, and I'm sure some church organizers from La Mirada brought a few of their own people as well. But it didn't catch on.

Defeated, the moderator slumped into her chair while parents like Elizabeth Moreira (pictured standing) asked real questions and turned the forum into an informative discussion of real issues.

And after a time, the moderator slumped into her chair, soundly defeated by logic chokeholds, rational suplexes, and reasonable body slams from three of the incumbents and two of the challengers. And of course, not to mention the annoyed groans of responsible and smart parents. The moderator spent the rest of the night probably playing video games or, as I like to imagine it, angrily texting someone in Huntington Beach that these LA County folks were not buying into the snake oil.

So, whom were the candidates that I was impressed by? There's four seats open. I don't care which ones you vote for, but I strongly suggest any of the following: Norma Amezcua (Incumbent), Robert Cancio (Incumbent), Jorge Tirado (Incumbent), Casey Chattle (Challenger), or Rudy Miranda (Challenger).  These individuals really seemed to have it together, and genuinely seemed knowledgeable on education or, at the very least, reasonable and caring about the position.

Here's the link to video. If you're interested in an informative candidates forum, skip to the Q&A section at around the 49 minute mark: