All Things American Xenophobia & White Supremacy

[Bact PhD]

Jul 15, 2021 15:00:49 GMT LFC said:

Jul 15, 2021 14:16:01 GMT Bact PhD said:

That’s becoming even more patently obvious, as Cuban demonstrations that happen to block roads are given all but a free pass.

This could have even gone in the Republican fascism thread. Creating laws which are then selectively used to punish only your political enemies is Fascism 101.

I debated where to put it. Decisions, decisions…

[LFC]

Jul 15, 2021 15:03:16 GMT Bact PhD said:

Jul 15, 2021 15:00:49 GMT LFC said:

This could have even gone in the Republican fascism thread. Creating laws which are then selectively used to punish only your political enemies is Fascism 101.

I debated where to put it. Decisions, decisions…

It's a tough call. So many of the GOP's words and actions bridge multiple types of immorality. Maybe we should pull together a half dozen or so threads and just label it all "Republicans Suck."

[pnwguy]

Jul 15, 2021 15:04:55 GMT LFC said:

Jul 15, 2021 15:03:16 GMT Bact PhD said:

Maybe we should pull together a half dozen or so threads and just label it all "Republicans Suck."

Only a half dozen? I think you are seriously undercounting how many threads would fall under that classification

[LFC]

The right-wing domestic terrorists, their helpers, and their supporters are getting all racial about who appropriately shot terrorist Ashli Babbitt (sounds kinda' Mooslim to me). It follows a pattern, one that is sick and twisted.

“Who killed Ashli Babbitt?”

It’s a question that, in recent weeks, has become a mainstream rallying cry among the MAGA crew after growing in volume for months on the far-right fringes. Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) has asked it repeatedly, as has former President Donald Trump himself.

But the thing is, they think they already know.

They have a specific individual in mind, a Capitol police officer that they believe to be the culprit in the killing. He happens to be a black man.

It’s a detail that, once known, places the calls for the officer to be exposed and punished in a new light. The ensuing witch hunt takes on a racial tinge, casting Babbitt as a defenseless white woman killed by a black man.

And it’s a context that has allowed Trump and others to blow the dog whistle on the case as loud as possible. He venerated Babbitt as “an innocent, wonderful, incredible woman,” adding, “if that were on the other side, the person that did the shooting would be strung up and hung.”

Babbitt was shot and killed on Jan. 6 after trying to break through a window into the House Speaker’s Lobby, where members of Congress were sheltering and continuing to evacuate.

In some cases, the racial dynamic is blatant. In others, the dog whistle operates at a less explicit frequency, via layers of obfuscation and deniability.

One thread throughout has been an effort to stoke resentment by drawing comparisons between the mass outrage at the death of George Floyd and what they perceive to be the comparative silence at Babbitt’s killing. In that universe, she’s an unsung martyr not only of the stolen 2020 election, but of the supposedly unfair treatment of whites.

Or, as Fox News’s Tucker Carlson put it in a monologue about Babbitt in April: “Two systems of justice. One for the allies of the people in charge, and a very different one for their enemies.”

Dinesh D’Souza, the conservative commentator, walked a similar line as he described the killing on a Monday episode of his podcast as a parallel with Floyd’s death, suggesting that Babbitt’s race meant she was treated badly and that the cop who killed her was protected.

“But the reason this cordon of protection has gone around him, not only from the authorities but from the media, is they can’t afford to admit that the only lethal force used on Jan 6 was illicitly, inappropriately, and in violation of law — used by a black male capital police officer against a female unarmed trump supporter,” he said.

D’Souza took the narrative even further in the podcast, portraying her as an innocent, unarmed white woman who fell victim to a Black man wielding federal power, and using the lack of transparency from Capitol police on the shooting and on the response to Jan. 6 as a way to stoke racial resentment.

“There have been a number of police shootings,” D’Souza noted. “Can you think of a single case where the identity of the officer has been systematically concealed by the media?”

He then asked listeners why.

The answer, he said, is because the officer is “black.”

“And so we have right away, a racial incident in the sense that you’ve got a black cop shooting and killing an unarmed white woman, who, by the way, is also a veteran,” he said. “And this white woman was doing nothing more in this case than pushing her way through a window.”

Similar comparisons have made their way into radical right members of Congress. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) made the same comparison this week to the death of George Floyd.

“If this country can demand justice for someone like George Floyd,” she said, “then we can certainly demand justice for Ashli Babbitt and everyone deserves to know who killed her … we need to know who it is.”

[LFC]

I highly suggest reading Josh Marshall's Ashli Babbitt And Trump’s Stab In The Back Myth. It compares the current deployment of the victim narrative to what was done in Germany post-WW I. They're taking a violent traitor and painting her as a martyr. As the piece notes this is supposedly an act of "betrayal" by the government which inflames a special kind of anger. Bonus points that she's white. More bonus points that she's a veteran. Ultra-bonus points that, whether true or not, they get to blame her death on a black man.

Violent, retributive political movements commonly focus on stories and causes focused on generating the experience of vicarious grief, victims who become totems, who generate and sustain demands for retribution and properly order an outside world of enemies. The aforementioned Erich Ludendorff went directly from the General Staff headquarters to a residential hotel where he set about building his story of betrayal. He eventually made his way to another young extremist who had been injured in the war, Adolf Hitler, and they became allies in the nascent Nazi party. He was part of the failed Kapp Putsch in 1920. He was again part of Hitler’s failed Beer Hall Putsch in 1923. But Hitler eventually had no more use for Ludendorff, seeing him both as a potential political rival to be sidelined and also attracted, along with his wife, to increasingly obscure and esoteric forms of right wing extremism and mysticism. He died in 1937.

In any case Ludendorff was always too independent and unpleasant a figure to play a martyr’s role. But Hitler was looking for one. His colleague Joseph Goebbels’ first attempts to find one fizzled. But they eventually happened on a 23 year old Nazi extremist and SA squad leader named Horst Wessel who was shot to death by a member of a Communist party street paramilitary in an encounter that seems to have grown out of a rent dispute. There were contradictory reports on precisely how Wessel died. But it appears – and certainly the Nazi propaganda machine portrayed it this way – that he was shot at point blank range by Communist party member Albrecht Höhler when he opened the door to his apartment.

Wessel was portrayed as embodying all the key Nazi Aryan qualities and values. He had penned a Nazi march which, as part of the celebration of his martyrdom, was made the official anthem of the Nazi Party, the so-called Horst Wessel Liede (Horst Wessel song). Every young Nazi man could aspire to be like Wessel and feel the righteous rage against the domestic enemies who were responsible for his martyrdom.

Every culture finds its own martyrs suited to their constellation of values and grievances. Babbitt is almost right out of central casting for the role in the world of Trumpism. A blonde, white woman, “a 110-pound woman with nothing in her hands” as Rep. Paul Gosar put it, “a young lady, a veteran, wrapped in an American flag that was killed in the U.S. Capitol.” It is a great benefit that there is a pretty clear video record of what happened since absent that there would certainly be more lurid and absurd conspiracy theories about the circumstances of her “execution.” As it is we know that she ignored repeated warnings to not break through the final door protecting fleeing members of Congress. She did so anyway and was shot as a result.

[AnBr]

[LFC]

This thing is an assistant DA, sworn to serve all the people under the jurisdiction he works for.

The Guardian has identified an Alaska assistant attorney general as a supporter of the Mormon-derived extremist group the Deseret nationalists who has posted a series of racist, antisemitic and homophobic messages on social media.

The Guardian’s investigation has triggered a review in the Alaska department of law, where the lawyer works.

Matthias Cicotte, whose job means he works as the chief corrections counsel for Alaska’s attorney general, has acted for the department of law in a number of civil rights cases.

But evidence from his Twitter output allowed Cicotte to be identified by anti-fascist researchers, whose evidence was confirmed and augmented by a Guardian investigation.

Since-deleted tweets archived by anti-fascists reveal that he advocated various extreme positions including the summary imprisonment of Black Lives Matter protesters; vigilante violence against leftwing groups; and a punishment of execution for acts including performing gender reassignment surgery.

The JReubenCIark account was also one of the earliest and most prominent accounts to promote Deseret nationalism on Twitter using hashtags like #DeseretNationalism and #DezNat.

Deseret nationalists or DezNats are a loose association of rightwing Mormons. Previously they have been noted for harassing perceived enemies online, such as progressive Mormons, LGBTQ Mormons, former Mormons and political progressives.

Some who identify with the movement wish to recreate Deseret, the region which is now much of the interior of the western United States, which Mormons sought to have admitted to the union, and effectively ruled between 1862 and 1870.

Some DezNats advocate the creation of a theocratic secessionist Mormon state, and some have proposed that this be a white ethnostate, a desire which is reminiscent of the proposals of some white nationalists for a white ethnostate in the Pacific north-west.

[LFC]

They may finally remove a bust of one of the worst racists in American history from the Tennessee Capitol. Of course being Tennessee the vote is still not certain.

The bust of Nathan Bedford Forrest is expected to be removed from the Tennessee Capitol this week, following decades of controversy over its placement.

Pending a successful Thursday morning vote by the State Building Commission, Gov. Bill Lee plans to have the bust of the Confederate general, early Ku Klux Klan leader and slave trader moved to the Tennessee State Museum by this weekend, according to multiple individuals with knowledge of the removal plan.

The governor's office has not provided information about the planned removal, but has called a news conference for Thursday morning ahead of the Building Commission meeting.

"We are working to determine next steps and will provide updates accordingly," Lee spokesperson Casey Black said in a July 8 statement. "Our plans have not changed."

Lee announced last summer he supported relocating the bust from the Capitol, citing the pain Forrest's legacy represents for African Americans. The statue was installed in 1978 and has drawn regular protests at the Capitol in recent years.

Per law, the governor's office had to wait 120 days to take action after the Historical Commission's March vote approving the bust's relocation. That waiting period ended July 9.

[LFC]

Looks like defending a cruel, murderous, racist like Nathan Bedford Forrest is still good politics in Tennessee. Yee, haw!

Republican Tennessee Lt. Gov. Randy McNally on Thursday sparked an uproar by defending the legacy of former Ku Klux Klan leader and Confederate Army general Nathan Bedford Forrest, whose bust is being removed from the Tennessee state capitol.

McNally's statement on Forrest's legacy came after Tennessee's State Building Commission voted to remove the former Klan leader's bust in a 5-to-2 vote.

The Tennessee Republican argued that he did not want to see Forrest removed even though he admittedly left a "problematic" legacy.

"His life eventually followed a redemptive arc which I hope is outlined in detail in our state museum," argued Forrest. "No figure honored on the capitol grounds or across the state could stand up to modern scrutiny."

While it's true that cultural norms have changed since the years following the American Civil War, the Klan has been treated by the United States federal government as a violent criminal organization.

The Enforcement Acts of the 1870s, for example, were passed as a way to prosecute Klan members who were using violence and intimidation to stop Black Americans from exercising their right to vote.

McNally continued by saying that the "woke mob's" goal was to cancel all Tennessee "heroes," starting with Forrest.

"Without historical context, we would have no Tennessee heroes, only villains," he wrote. "No Christian saints, only sinners. The left-wing activists who are pushing an anti-American, anti-history agenda here in Tennessee and across the nation will not stop with Nathan Bedford Forrest."

In fact, Tennessee is also the birthplace of American icons such as Davy Crockett and Dolly Parton, neither of whom has ever led a racist terrorist organization.

[LFC]

White supremacy loses a bit more ground, this time in Richmond, VA.

The huge statue of Robert E. Lee in Richmond, Virginia—one of the biggest Confederate monuments in the nation and one in the heart of the former capital of the Confederacy—has been removed from its pedestal.

The 21-foot-tall bronze statue of the Civil War leader on horseback was lowered to the ground early Wednesday, 131 years after it was first erected. Photographs showed a crane alongside the statue as workers began its long-awaited dismantling before it was brought down to earth.

Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam first announced plans for its removal in June 2020—days after the murder of George Floyd—but the efforts were held up by multiple legal challenges to the removal. Shortly before work began, Northam reportedly said in a statement: “This is an important step in showing who we are and what we value as a commonwealth.”

Early Wednesday, Northam posted a livestream of the event that showed crowds gathering to celebrate the statue’s removal. Cheers erupted when the bronze sculpture was lifted into the sky, with members of the public shouting “Black Lives Matter!” and “Whose streets? Our streets!”

[goldenvalley]

The Atlantic ran an old article on Robert E. Lee.  The Myth of the Kindly General Lee   The Lost Cause, we were just fighting for states' rights, myth included him.    

Over and over again in recent years I realize that the biggest thing to immortalize the Union's defeat of the uprising was to take over Lee's property and put the national cemetery on it.  

[LFC]

Sept 9, 2021 16:54:15 GMT goldenvalley said:

The Atlantic ran an old article on Robert E. Lee.  The Myth of the Kindly General Lee   The Lost Cause, we were just fighting for states' rights, myth included him.   

I believe I posted that on the old TRS. I don't know if it was in school, from friends, or what but I learned all of the popular Civil War lies that those supporting treason pushed all through the 20th century and I grew up in New Jersey.

[Bact PhD]

Sept 9, 2021 17:12:02 GMT LFC said:

Sept 9, 2021 16:54:15 GMT goldenvalley said:

The Atlantic ran an old article on Robert E. Lee.  The Myth of the Kindly General Lee   The Lost Cause, we were just fighting for states' rights, myth included him.   

I believe I posted that on the old TRS. I don't know if it was in school, from friends, or what but I learned all of the popular Civil War lies that those supporting treason pushed all through the 20th century and I grew up in New Jersey.

I’m pretty sure you did post that there.

Hell, the myths only become more blatant the further into The South you go. I never heard the phrase “The War of Northern Aggression” until I came to North Florida…and I spent significant chunks of childhood in Virginia and a graduate career in North Louisiana.

[jackd]

The best place to encounter "the war of Northern Aggression" is in Charleston at the Battery where they fired the shots on Fort Sumter.

[LFC]

Sept 9, 2021 23:50:54 GMT jackd said:

The best place to encounter "the war of Northern Aggression" is in Charleston at the Battery where they fired the shots on Fort Sumter.

“See what you made me do! I don’t want to lob cannonballs at you but you keep making me do it.” —The South

[AnBr]

Growing up in Ohio I did not get much of the revisionist history. It is the land of Grant and Sherman. My great grandfather marched to the sea with Sherman and his brother was a prisoner of Andersonville. Around here is was sometimes called the War of the Rebellion or War of the Insurrection. The site of Sherman's "War is hell" speech is a short drive from where I am now.

[goldenvalley]

Sept 10, 2021 13:09:21 GMT AnBr said:

Growing up in Ohio I did not get much of the revisionist history. It is the land of Grant and Sherman. My great grandfather marched to the sea with Sherman and his brother was a prisoner of Andersonville. Around here is was sometimes called the War of the Rebellion or War of the Insurrection. The site of Sherman's "War is hell" speech is a short drive from where I am now.

Similar for me in Illinois...my childhood home was on the block bounded by Sherman and Grant streets, seriously it was!

My one year in high school in the South didn't include American history and my college classes were always European history.  My poly sci professors were all damn Yankees like me.  Didn't really hear much about "economic reasons" for the Civil War until my brother, who is younger than me and stayed in the South, mentioned them.  

[jackd]

"Economic reasons" for the Civil War: cheap labor; e.g. slavery.

[LFC]

I doubt this asshat gave this poor deliveryman COVID but it really is a great illustration of right-wing insanity.

A deliveryman in Missouri recently tested positive for COVID-19, and he thinks his encounter with an anti-vaxxer could be to blame.

Brandon Ford, 23, told the St. Louis American this Wednesday that while making his rounds as an Uber Eats driver, he was confronted by an unmasked customer who identified himself as a doctor and began to lecture him about the alleged negative effects the COVID-19 vaccine has on Black people.

"You look like a nice guy," Ford, who is Black, claims the man said. "Then he started bragging about never wearing a mask and not being vaccinated. He proceeded to lecture me about how Blacks and Latinos are more at risk and how the medical system has always had plans for us…he mentioned Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood, and how abortions were started to wipe out the black race…all this crazy stuff! It was a pretty racist experience."

"As a Black person, I feel like sometimes there's not much you can say because usually white people are in positions of power like this particular guy. I didn't say anything because I felt it would only hurt me," Ford said.

Ford, who is fully vaccinated, says he wore a mask during the encounter. But later that evening, he says he began to feel sick -- then he lost his sense of taste and smell. He later tested positive for COVID-19.

You know, just in case I think Ford should be allowed to sue this "doctor" for $10,000 plus legal fees. If the "doctor" wins then he gets nothing monetary, just the sweet, warm feeling of vindication. Sound good, doc?

[LFC]

Why do we think many Republicans are racists? Because THEY'RE F***ING RACISTS! It's called acknowledging reality.

Survey results just released by USA Today show that "more than 60% of American parents want their kids to learn about the ongoing effects of slavery and racism as part of their K-12 education."

But that innocuous finding was drowned out by a more newsworthy one: There's a 14% difference from the same respondents when asked if they favored Critical Race Theory (CRT). Contrasting a 63-30% margin of Americans saying they favored teaching slavery's effects with just a 49-30% margin favoring CRT, USA Today popped a gotcha headline:

It turns out the lead was buried, drowned out by the noise of the manufactured CRT debate. Lost in the shuffle were two key takeaways: 1) that an astonishing number of respondents -- largely white Republicans -- don't believe slavery should be taught in schools as a matter of ongoing concern at all; and 2) that both the racial and partisan gaps are resounding.

Here are the topline findings:

Democrats favor teaching about the ongoing effects of slavery and racism by a margin of 82-15%, while Republicans oppose such teaching by 53-38%.

Blacks favor such teaching by an overwhelming 82-11%, but whites overall by just 53-38%. Both Hispanics and Asians had 75% pluralities in favor.

One can make a case that the real headline here is that by a very substantial margin, Republicans oppose teaching that slavery and racism have going effects. It would have been interesting to see some follow-up questions as to why.

For those opposing teaching about these effects, is their position that they don't exist? Would they agree would the statement: "Slavery and racism in America are a thing of the past and have no relevance today?"

Or perhaps they might have been queried one of these: "Do you believe slavery and racism ever existed in America?" Or "Do you agree with the statement that there were fine people on both sides of the slavery issue?"

Finally, "Do you agree that there are ongoing effects of slavery and racism, but that it's not appropriate for these to be taught or discussed in my kid's school?"

[goldenvalley]

Sept 10, 2021 20:13:09 GMT LFC said:

Why do we think many Republicans are racists? Because THEY'RE F***ING RACISTS! It's called acknowledging reality.

Survey results just released by USA Today show that "more than 60% of American parents want their kids to learn about the ongoing effects of slavery and racism as part of their K-12 education."

But that innocuous finding was drowned out by a more newsworthy one: There's a 14% difference from the same respondents when asked if they favored Critical Race Theory (CRT). Contrasting a 63-30% margin of Americans saying they favored teaching slavery's effects with just a 49-30% margin favoring CRT, USA Today popped a gotcha headline:

It turns out the lead was buried, drowned out by the noise of the manufactured CRT debate. Lost in the shuffle were two key takeaways: 1) that an astonishing number of respondents -- largely white Republicans -- don't believe slavery should be taught in schools as a matter of ongoing concern at all; and 2) that both the racial and partisan gaps are resounding.

Here are the topline findings:

Democrats favor teaching about the ongoing effects of slavery and racism by a margin of 82-15%, while Republicans oppose such teaching by 53-38%.

Blacks favor such teaching by an overwhelming 82-11%, but whites overall by just 53-38%. Both Hispanics and Asians had 75% pluralities in favor.

One can make a case that the real headline here is that by a very substantial margin, Republicans oppose teaching that slavery and racism have going effects. It would have been interesting to see some follow-up questions as to why.

For those opposing teaching about these effects, is their position that they don't exist? Would they agree would the statement: "Slavery and racism in America are a thing of the past and have no relevance today?"

Or perhaps they might have been queried one of these: "Do you believe slavery and racism ever existed in America?" Or "Do you agree with the statement that there were fine people on both sides of the slavery issue?"

Finally, "Do you agree that there are ongoing effects of slavery and racism, but that it's not appropriate for these to be taught or discussed in my kid's school?"

Not surprising to me.  People probably wouldn't mind teaching that slavery was in America's past but it's over now.  Suggesting that the aftereffects of slavery persist in the structure of today, that's what they don't want to hear about because "I'm not racist." 

[LFC]

Oops! He said the quiet part out loud.

This week, the statue of General Robert E. Lee in Richmond, Virginia — one of the largest standing monuments to the Confederacy — was taken down from Monument Avenue, a major victory for activists who have long sought to remove white supremacist symbols in the public square.

On Thursday, Republican Missouri state Rep. Tony Lovasco tweeted that people should be "fair and balanced" about "tearing down statues of reprehensible people" — and accompanied this with a picture of the Lincoln Memorial.

Lovasco did not clarify why he considered the father of the Republican Party -- and the president widely credited with saving America from the Civil War and bringing about the end of slavery -- to be "reprehensible," but doubled down in a follow-up tweet, insisting he didn't support the Confederacy either.

Nice attempted recovery, shit for brains.

[goldenvalley]

Sept 10, 2021 21:38:32 GMT LFC said:

Oops! He said the quiet part out loud.

This week, the statue of General Robert E. Lee in Richmond, Virginia — one of the largest standing monuments to the Confederacy — was taken down from Monument Avenue, a major victory for activists who have long sought to remove white supremacist symbols in the public square.

On Thursday, Republican Missouri state Rep. Tony Lovasco tweeted that people should be "fair and balanced" about "tearing down statues of reprehensible people" — and accompanied this with a picture of the Lincoln Memorial.

Lovasco did not clarify why he considered the father of the Republican Party -- and the president widely credited with saving America from the Civil War and bringing about the end of slavery -- to be "reprehensible," but doubled down in a follow-up tweet, insisting he didn't support the Confederacy either.

Nice attempted recovery, shit for brains.

Absolutely child-like in the responses I see from folks like Lovasco. Simple visceral striking out; no thinking done.

[pnwguy]

Sept 10, 2021 21:38:32 GMT LFC said:

Oops! He said the quiet part out loud.

This week, the statue of General Robert E. Lee in Richmond, Virginia — one of the largest standing monuments to the Confederacy — was taken down from Monument Avenue, a major victory for activists who have long sought to remove white supremacist symbols in the public square.

On Thursday, Republican Missouri state Rep. Tony Lovasco tweeted that people should be "fair and balanced" about "tearing down statues of reprehensible people" — and accompanied this with a picture of the Lincoln Memorial.

Lovasco did not clarify why he considered the father of the Republican Party -- and the president widely credited with saving America from the Civil War and bringing about the end of slavery -- to be "reprehensible," but doubled down in a follow-up tweet, insisting he didn't support the Confederacy either.

Nice attempted recovery, shit for brains.

Easy to see the reprehensible actions of Lincoln were to destroy the wealth of thousands of god-fearing white patriots! He was just like Fidel Castro a hundred years later. Lincoln was the world’s first communist, decades before Karl Marx. God showed his justice by having him executed.

[LFC]

Just white people hatin' the fact that they are facing down a life where they are treated equally and no longer hold the position of bully.

Downingtown, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Philadelphia, has been changing. And the school district has tried to change with it.

In 1994, students of color made up just 5 percent of the enrollment in the Downingtown Area School District. By 2020, that figure had grown to almost 24 percent, largely because of an increase in Asian and Latino residents.

In the last few years, the district hired a diversity coordinator, launched a cultural equity task force and began to study racial disparities in how students are placed in advanced classes. The district made Diwali an official school holiday this year, and in the spring held a listening session for people of Asian descent to discuss racism they had experienced.

But all of these measures suddenly came under attack this summer, when dozens of parents signed a petition calling for the end of Downingtown’s diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. Parents and local Republican groups questioned why Downingtown schools needed a diversity coordinator at all, citing the schools’ high graduation rates and the lack of high-profile hate crimes in the community. Several parents labeled the diversity efforts “social engineering” and racist at school board meetings.

Downingtown is one of at least 220 school districts in the U.S. that faced a backlash over diversity and equity initiatives from May through August, according to NBC News’ tracking of media reports. And student enrollment data suggests that these conflicts tend to occur in communities that experienced significant demographic shifts in recent decades.

An NBC News analysis of 33 cities and counties where school districts have faced rancor over equity initiatives this year in at least three recent school board meetings finds that each has become less white over the last 25 years, reflecting a national trend.

The ghost of Lee Atwater is still a powerful force in the GOP.

“In virtually any community, when there is rapid demographic change you see a backlash,” said Tomás Jiménez, a Stanford University professor who has studied population changes in cities. The conflict often manifests around things that reflect the shift, such as celebrating different holidays or signs in different languages, he said. “When demographic change happens quickly, the backlash tends to be stronger.”

These fraught debates over how to talk about race with the next generation come as the nation’s white majority continues to shrink, according to new census figures. The local objections to diversity programs in schools have also been reinforced by a loose network of conservative think tanks and organizations run by former Trump administration officials, and amplified in conservative media, fueled by Republicans who see an opportunity to mobilize their base.