Each Republican hiding behind the hysteria of essential racial idea should take heed to this testimony

As a refresher, Administrator Gina Peddy was taped speaking with teachers in the Carroll Independent School District (CISD) about how to comply with the new state law requiring teachers to offer multiple perspectives on “different” and potentially controversial topics. The teachers urged Peddy to get clarity on how this law works in practice when they have books in their classroom libraries. At this point, Peddy gave the example that if you have a book about the Holocaust, you are also offering a book that gives children “opposing” perspectives to balance them out.

The headmaster issued an apology, saying that Peddy’s comments did not suggest that the Holocaust was “anything less than a terrible event in history” and that the district recognized “that there are no two sides to the Holocaust”.

Even so, dozens of people turned up at Monday’s meeting to speak, and for good reason. As of now, Senate Law 3 (and, as mentioned by Peddy, HB 3979) is state law, but as we know, Republicans across the country are eager to take whatever they can if it means voters angry and up Distracted things that actually matter, like the COVID-19 pandemic and police brutality.

Parents Rob Frost described themselves as a descendant of Holocaust survivors. At the meeting, he described the administrator’s comments as “totally unacceptable”.

Jake Berman, a district alumnus, shared a moving testimony that has already resonated on social media. Berman said he experienced anti-Semitic bullying while attending school and stressed that there are “not two sides” to the Holocaust, slavery, Jim Crow, or racism and “equal oppression” that continues to this day.

Here is a clip of Berman’s statement.

“I got everything from jokes about my nose to gas chambers,” Berman recalls. “All while studying for my bar mitzvah from a Holocaust survivor as my main teacher.” Berman said he had suicidal thoughts and depression because of the bullying, and his parents eventually pulled him out of the district because of the bullying.

By and large, we know that this Republican hysteria and ignorance isn’t unique to Texas. A number of states have put in place similar laws or policies, and given the worrying overlap between people raging over CRT and refusing to wear masks, it’s worrying that this legislative trend is picking up speed and teaching teachers, students, and families.