There was another disruptive incident at a Loudoun County School Board meeting — I’ll get to that in a minute. But more importantly, the meeting resumed. No matter how unruly the behavior or how grave the threats, civility somehow prevails over chaos.
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But don’t take it for granted.
Put hundreds of people in room — White, Black, Hispanic, Asian — give them a mic and let them vent about school policies on the three scariest topics in life: race, sex and germs. The wonder is not that there’s an occasional blowup; the wonder is that there has not yet been another civil war.
Even in Loudoun County, beautiful equestrian country, home of the horse-riding, high-tech engineer and one of the wealthiest counties in the country. Add in truck drivers, cashiers, teachers, nurses and blue-collar workers and the county’s median annual household income is still about $130,000.
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And they are having as much difficulty with the meaning of critical race theory, an intellectual movement that examines systemic racism, and defining gender and explaining how the coronavirus is spread as anywhere else. Just not as bad as in Florida, where CRT-crazed residents used weed killer to burn “FU” on the lawn of a school board member and falsely reported her to authorities for child abuse.
Not that bad here. Not yet.
“You are bullies,” a parent said to board members at the meeting in Ashburn last week. “You are actually sending students to the offices — sending them home or segregating them for mask noncompliance. Shame on you!”
A real Miss Manners, compared to some.
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A group called Families Supporting Diversity Equity and Inclusion in LCPS had prepared to use the public comment session as a Black History Month teach-in. They spotlighted people and issues that deserved to be included in public school history instruction or get better treatment for the ones being shortchanged.
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One student, who was White, recalled being taken by her mother to the birthplace of abolitionist Harriet Tubman on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. After learning about the Underground Railroad, she wondered why that had not been taught in her schools.
Another parent recounted meeting Mamie Till, the mother of Emmett Till, who was 14 when he was lynched in Money, Miss., in 1955. A White woman had claimed Till had whistled at her. Years later, she recanted the story. The speaker explained that Till’s mother had held an open coffin funeral to make sure that the world knew what had happened, that the truth would not be covered up, that history would not be forgotten.
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When she’d finished, you could hear a pin drop in the room.
As parents took turns at the mic, doors to the room swung open and 14 children marched in carrying boxes of paper. This was the disruption, with two older youths dressed in Boy Scout uniforms leading the way.
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“These are legal affidavits; you must accept them,” a woman said loudly, pointing at the boxes. Others joined in demanding that the board sign for and accept the documents.
Turns out the boxes contained duplicates of a manifesto criticizing critical race theory and opposing the use of masks to prevent coronavirus infection.
The statement could have been read at the mic. But some people would rather shut a meeting down, make their voice the only one that gets heard.
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Board Chairman Jeff Morse had to call a brief recess when his request for quiet was refused. Once order was restored, the meeting resumed.
I asked him later to describe the demands of the job on a day like that. In an email, he wrote that the board’s work requires, among other things, “listening to all constituents, no matter the viewpoint, while being challenged by a handful of citizens who place their behavior above the rest of the community.”
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Back at the mic, a speaker who identified herself as a therapist, gave an alarming account of her work.
“I have seen the devastation of masking our children,” she said. “I can tell you countless days and hours I have spent with schoolchildren that have anxiety and depression. I have had to hospitalize countless kids over these last two years in mental institutions and not just one time — three times, four times. Stop abusing the kids.”
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From her account, you’d think masks were being woven in hell by the Devil himself and doled out by satanic schools. On the other hand, her comment did put a much-needed focus on mental health problems — whatever the cause.
Another speaker from the Black History Month teach-in commented about those who had complained about mask mandates making them feel “oppressed” and “segregated.” He told the story of a great-uncle who had been in the first class of Black Marines trained in segregated facilities at Montford Point in North Carolina before shipping off to fight in the Pacific during World War II.
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What the unmasked meant by segregation, the man said, was different from what the word meant to him.
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At Loudoun board meetings, tradition eschews applause and prefers instead a show of “jazzy hands,” a raising up of the arms and shaking of the hands the way one might when doing a dance like the Charleston. Clusters of jazzy hands, Black and White, could be seen shimmying throughout the meeting.
In an auditorium-size room with every seat taken and more than 100 people signed up to comment, you might be surprised at the combination of hands a speaker’s comment can draw.
Mutual interests, beyond politics, can be revealed by association. But it takes time — and a place, with enough people of goodwill to keep it civil.