Alison Rose sent me a Facebook link to this wonderful video. I tracked it down on YouTube so I could easily share it with all of you.
It’s just under 4 minutes, and I hope everyone watches this very powerful video.
Open thread!
This post is in: LGBTQ Rights, Open Threads
Alison Rose sent me a Facebook link to this wonderful video. I tracked it down on YouTube so I could easily share it with all of you.
It’s just under 4 minutes, and I hope everyone watches this very powerful video.
Open thread!
Comments are closed.
Alison Rose
Thank you for front-paging, WG! I was in tears by the end of this.
Jerzy Russian
Damn, that was powerful.
JPL
The clip was amazing.
db11
Thanks for posting this WG.
Very affecting, especially for someone who worries about the physical safety and mental well-being of my grandkids and their two (non-binary) moms.
Josie
What a lovely, strong woman. I hope that her speech goes viral.
Citizen Alan
Preach!
33 days until I move to California.
JWR
Great video! Jackie Goldberg used to be, maybe still is, a regular guest on Pacifica Radio’s KPFK. A very wise woman. Too bad the shouters are too busy being all shouty to hear what she’s saying, and if they do manage to hear what she’s saying, they’re programmed to tune her message out.
KayInMD (formerly Kay (not the front-pager))
Whew! I wish everyone were forced to watch this before testifying against any kids books at a school board meeting. Or at least that this were played at the beginning of every contentious school board meeting. It might set some parameters. Then again maybe not. But people need to hear her anyway.
SiubhanDuinne
Woah! That was some kind of amazing!
Thanks very much, WG and AR.
Alison Rose
@Citizen Alan: We’re happy to (soon) have you! Whereabouts in the state will you be?
Betty Cracker
Ms. Goldberg noted her son was harassed for having two moms but her grandchildren aren’t and said “that’s progress.” Her anecdote captures something essential about this moment, I think. Right-wingers like Rufo, DeSantis, Abbott, the Moms for Liberty kooks, et al., are trying to take away the progress we’ve made, and I think they’ll fail because we’re not going back.
Sorry, wingnuts — you wrung the last remaining electoral college votes out of homophobia in 2004. Fuck off with that shit in 2024.
WaterGirl
@Betty Cracker: I loved the second kid chiming in:
Betty Cracker
@WaterGirl: I had a friend whose mom came out as gay after her kids were grown. My friend referred to her mom’s partner as her maternal stepmother. :)
JWR
Oh, and WaterGirl… it’s just over 4 minutes, not just under! Sheesh!
;)
Roger Moore
@JWR:
It’s a feature to them, not a bug. Their goal is to drown out any message they don’t like, not only so they can’t hear it but so nobody else can, either.
Matt McIrvin
The horrified complaints about how “how will I explain homosexuality to my children?” always seemed funny to me because in my family, being gay is a normal condition of members of my extended family and it was always part of my kid’s reality. She didn’t have to have it explained at all. What she asked about was homophobia–why the hell anyone would ever object to this. That was hard to explain.
Frankensteinbeck
@Betty Cracker:
Oh, yes. They are trying to enforce with laws what the general population used to enforce with violence, mockery, shunning, and inability to get a job.
EDIT – @Matt McIrvin:
“Boys can love boys and girls can love girls if they want to.” Wow, that was easy. Except like you said, usually you don’t have to explain. Little kids are great with trans issues, too. A boy turns into a girl or vice versa, or was secretly one, or was cursed to be one, etc, etc… standard fairy tale stuff. Intuitive.
artem1s
@Matt McIrvin:
And this is the real issue for the Deplorables. They don’t want to have to explain to their families, co-workers, employers, kids and grandkids why they are such rabid racists and homophobes. Therefore any situation where they need to explain their deplorable behavior must be eradicated.
Jackie
What a powerful message! If it opens a few minds and hearts – that’s progress!🌈
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
Uncle Carl’s movie collection that he hides in his attic?
Jay
Thank you WaterGirl.
Spanish Moss
Moved me to tears, thanks for sharing.
FastEdD
Reminds me of an assembly we were forced to attend when I was a high school kid. It was about “Support the war in Vietnam.” My mom said screw that and wrote a note saying we were sick that day. She took us to an anti-war rally in Chicago-a relatively unknown Senator George McGovern spoke and a completely unknown band from downstate named REO Speedwagon opened the rally. Back at school the other kids were required to sing God Bless America and watch the American Legion president give a patriotism award to … his daughter.
I was fortunate to spend most of my career teaching in a public school where the kids and teachers respected each other. None of that homophobia or racism crap. The KIDS wouldn’t allow it.
Jay C
@artem1s:
Or, most, likely, just go back to that true “last refuge of a scoundrel” – not “patriotism”, but religion. Or more accurately, the mis-use of “freedom of religion” to try to give public/official sanction to their prejudices.
Baud
@FastEdD:
Fixed.
Alison Rose
@Matt McIrvin: That argument is so fucking dumb too, because most kids are supremely cool about it. Maybe at first if they have straight parents and there aren’t any gay couples in their family or neighborhood, they might be a little confused. But you tell them “some boys like boys and some girls like girls” and 98% of the time, after maybe four seconds, they’re like “Oh okay, cool, can I go ride my bike now”. Kids don’t actually have a difficult time with it. Homophobic parents just WISH they did.
trollhattan
LA. That shit is happening in LA in 2023 so what’s it like in less-enlightened places?
They’re fortunate to have her.
FastEdD
@Baud: Ha!! Except that song hadn’t been written yet.
Now the guy singing it has dentures. So it goes.
Baud
@Alison Rose: It’s also dumb because they have no problem explaining homosexuality to their kids in the context of teaching them to fear, shun, and hate it.
WaterGirl
@Betty Cracker: ha!
WaterGirl
@JWR: uh oh. My credibility is shot.
Josie
When my youngest was a senior in high school, the boys who had decent grades were lined up to visit with an armed forces recruiter without getting parental consent for the interview. Believe you me, the principal got an earful of my reaction to that, and so did the recruiter when he called the house to follow up. I was later assured that the program would not be repeated.
WaterGirl
Totally open thread, by the way!
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
Seems Silvio Berlusconi died. The hellmouth theory continues to gain traction.
Roger Moore
@artem1s:
I think they also want to be free to teach their kids and grandkids the bigotry they learned from their parents and grandparents. Nobody is born a bigot; you’ve got to be carefully taught. They’re angry because contradicting their bigotry also interferes with their ability to pass it along.
JWR
@Roger Moore:
That’s what’s so damn frustrating about dealing with them.
And oh boy! Already we’ve got news of TFG’s plane on the tarmac, all ready to go. <Groan!>GROAN!</Groan!>
Daoud bin Daoud
@Roger Moore: Universal ignorance is the goal.
TheOtherHank
When my, now 24 year old son, was in first grade, he said to me, “Not everyone has a dad.” I replied something like, “Everyone has a dad, maybe they don’t live with their dad or maybe it’s very sad and their dad died. But everyone has a dad.” He listened and said, “No, Maddie has two moms.”
“Well, I guess you’re right, not everyone has a a dad.”
cain
@Betty Cracker: and the demographics are going to go against them.
Even the war on christmas hasn’t been used in awhile. Funny that.
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
Also, excellent video. She really says it all.
Jay
Back in Junior High School, I had the “Misfit Crew”. Kids who couldn’t eat in the cafeteria because of bullying. There were a couple benches outside the library, where they kept the trophies. Where I would eat lunch. I was a jock, (track and field, rugby, swim team) but also a bookworm, so I didn’t fit in. Had a rep too. Also, still had the Maritime accent. Started with Randy, and then more people started to show up. We would eat lunch in peace and have actual conversations. It was a weird group, but it was a group.
KayInMD (formerly Kay (not the front-pager))
Moms. Wattaya gonna do, right? ;-) Seriously, that sounds like an awesome day, certainly better than the alternative. My mom would never have been so cool.
The one time I got caught for skipping school was when my best friend & I went to see Sen Kennedy argue a bill on the floor of the Senate. Her dad was friends with Sen. McGovern from SD so we went to his office for floor tickets. Long story short, his secretary narced us to her dad and we were in trouble for being stupid. Lesson: when you skip school, go to your state Senator for tix, not your dad’s best friend.
JWR
@WaterGirl: You’re forgiven. This time! ;)
Betty Cracker
@trollhattan: What, holy fuck, I assumed the “LA” was an abbreviation for Louisiana, not Los Angeles! Damn!
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
@Betty Cracker: LA, like any major city, is not bereft of racists and homophobes. It probably has a lot. They’re just outnumbered.
Josie
@Jay: That sounds like a group I used to have in my library. They would bring their lunches in and eat while we talked about books. I didn’t have to say much, just get them started, and they had fun sharing with each other. It was also junior high and was a diverse group.
Roger Moore
@TheOtherHank:
Everyone has a biological mother and father; not everyone has a mom and dad.
NotMax
Non-binary Tony winners highlights (1:21 – 2:09).
Frankensteinbeck
@Daoud bin Daoud:
Absolutely. To some extent they have a point. Ask any older trans person about the thunderbolt that hit them the first time they heard that being transgender was an option. Sure, they always were, but they didn’t know what was wrong and would have flailed around, angry and miserable, chasing other but more conservative-approved solutions for the rest of their life.
And to some extent this strategy is absolutely stupid and a total failure. Conservatives, and especially evangelicals, are downright obsessed with making sure their daughters don’t know sex exists, so that those daughters won’t have sex. This strategy rarely works, and often fails drastically.
Roger Moore
@trollhattan:
The school board is cheering the assholes on instead of taking them on.
Baud
@The Kropenhagen Interpretation:
More Californians voted for Trump than citizens of any other state.
TheOtherHank
@Roger Moore: Yeah, I thought about going there, but at age 6, I decided to agree with him.
eclare
Very powerful. 👊
Jay
@Josie:
the key thing for me about the Misfit Crew, was when we talked, it was real, about our lives, and we were all supportive, (as best we could be back then), not last night’s TV show or gossip, because we were “all going through some shit”. I got to learn about “some shit” that I would never have to go through, because life played out differently for me, but I had ears.
rikyrah
Very powerful. Thank you
eclare
@Citizen Alan:
You must be so excited! Although you will miss out on voting for Elvis’ cousin.
JWR
@Roger Moore:
Which is quite easy to do when the president of the board says publicly that he doesn’t see any reason to even mention a pedophile, (Harvey Milk), which you may remember happened recently in Temecula, CA. Then he gave a presser in a mega-church, reading a statement without taking any questions, flanked by another idiot wearing a white cowboy hat.
trollhattan
@Betty Cracker: Was compelled to click through to YouTube because the location was bugging me and I had assumed same as you.
...now I try to be amused
@Roger Moore:
It’s a double whammy for them. If they can’t can’t pass their bigotry along to their kids, their kids will think less of them for it.
Torrey
@Frankensteinbeck:
Yup. The second book in L. Frank Baum’s Oz series, The boy Tip turns into Princess Ozma, to take just one example.
Josie
@Jay:
Sounds like a valuable experience. It’s so important, especially at that age, for every child to have a safe space, if only for a little while. You learn a lot in those informal groups.
West of the Rockies
@Citizen Alan:
As a fellow Californian, welcome!
(And get off on Mulholland where youuu b’long!)
sdhays
@The Kropenhagen Interpretation: Waiting on Clarence and/or Alito. If they “return home”, I’ll make an offering to FSM.
And by “offering”, I mean I’ll eat some pasta.
RaflW
My niece lives in a fairly conservative town in the 60% GOP part of Wisconsin. She’s 16. She has a partnered gay uncle (I’m the partner), and all her friends come to the cabin all the time when we are there, and could not care less.
They have school friends who are lesbian, bi, gender-fluid, etc. They could not care less.
I hope some of them will figure out that the political party of their parents (well, niece’s parents are Dems so skip this case) does care — in a very negative way — and that they break from their parents political affiliation because of it.
Baud
@sdhays:
It’s called transsubstantiation.
James E Powell
@Betty Cracker:
This protest in North Hollywood was put together by some organization. It was not a spontaneous reaction to the school’s assembly or Pride Month which has been going on for years. Cf. The Tea Party.
I don’t know anything about that school or that neighborhood other than that I occasionally visit the Iliad Bookshop. No doubt there were reasons why the organization chose that school.
I’ve never worked in the Valley, maybe things are different up there. But in 17 years, I’ve never heard a single complaint or even a question from any parent about any of these things that these people are protesting.
Matt McIrvin
@Torrey:
From a modern perspective, it is kinda weird–Tip, who became a boy because of a wizard’s curse in infancy, has no memory or sense of being really an Ozma and kind of gets railroaded into transitioning, with a little bit of resistance. But it’s portrayed as entirely positive and Ozma takes to it super quickly, and I understand a lot of little trans people who read that book felt it was speaking to them.
Jay
@Josie:
I made sure it was a safe space, because I didn’t have one at home, sadly like many. I was “safe” in the classrooms, because I was somewhat smart. I was “safe” in the halls, because bullies feared me. I just wanted a space where I could eat lunch in peace, and then, other’s joined me for the same reason. And like kids do, when they know it’s a safe place, they talk. So I got to learn.
Baud
@KayInMD (formerly Kay (not the front-pager)):
No wonder he lost to Nixon so badly.
lowtechcyclist
@Baud:
If that’s the way you want it, baby. :-)
Baud
@lowtechcyclist:
👍
S Cerevisiae
@Frankensteinbeck: What you say about conservatives failing at keeping their kids from learning about sex rings true. My dad always said watch out for the preacher’s daughter which made my hormonal self go hmmmm.
I later found a couple true examples…
Frankensteinbeck
@Matt McIrvin:
I know one trans woman who has a tattoo of Ozma and another who changed her name to Ozma, so… yes. Ozma is a big trans icon.
lowtechcyclist
@Baud:
You saw that XKCD too, huh?
WV Blondie
THANK YOU!!
My county commission has been taken over by three hardcore right-wingers, including one who proudly posed with a couple of “notable” Oath
KeepersBreakers. It passed an ordinance almost two weeks ago banning drag shows, modeled on the TN law that was thrown out the very next day in federal court as unconstitutional. So I’ve been planning to show up at their next meeting Thursday evening, and I’ve been trying to figure out what to say. This was great inspiration!FelonyGovt
Jackie Goldberg is amazing. I saw her in person at an LA County Dems meeting a few years ago. She’s been making a difference in education here for a long time.
eclare
@S Cerevisiae:
PK’s, preachers’ kids, were known to be the wild ones when I was in high school.
Jager
@Betty Cracker: My friend Gary’s kids call his brother’s wife Auntie Mark.
JWR
MTG today, busily solving TFG’s little problem:
Jay
@WV Blondie:
I would “remind them” of the rules they passed,
Cite and read the summary of the Court’s ruling,
Let them know they are Civilly Liable for damages, and there is no way that the “taxpayers” are going to bail them out.
A polite form of “millions of dollars, btch’s!”
They think there are no consequences, there are.
laura
@FelonyGovt: She was also a Kick Ass CA Assemblymember. It’s so refreshing to hear elected officials speak the powerful truth clearly and concisely without apology to the bullies in our midst. Compare and contrast with the performative fuckery that was occurring outside the UTLA meeting by the proud boys and the LAPD who had their backs.
Jerzy Russian
@Matt McIrvin: I thought that book (The Marvelous Land of Oz) was by far the best of the bunch (my daughter and I slogged through all of them circa 20 years ago). It was the only book that did not feature Dorothy.
JWR
Finally, the Wokestigation:
Baud
@JWR:
“I’d like to announce that, but I never learned to write.”
Bostondreams
@WV Blondie:
In all seriousness, ask them if they are going to also ban ‘breastaurants’ like Hooters,a place that is certainly highly sexualized. Then see if they can explain why not.
narya
Okay, I have a theory, based on exactly zero evidence (none; nada; zip): Jack didn’t include all possible documents in the indictment (by “possible” I mean documents that had classification markings, that weren’t returned when they should have been, and that could be revealed in court if necessary) in Florida. That is, he may have enough evidence of FURTHER mishandling, in, say, New Jersey, that he could charge a whole separate raft of fuckery there as well. The case might not be as strong, it might not have the same stepwise progression through the obstruction, it might not have as many elements as the MAL case, but it still would show evidence of serious mishandling of federal documents (a) to which he wasn’t entitled and (b) that he showed to others. I posit that Jack is keeping that in his back pocket in case something goes entirely sideways in the MAL case.
Again, I HAVE NO EVIDENCE AT ALL for this–it is wishcasting of the highest order. But it’s also not outside the realm of possibility.
Baud
Phooey. I never knew any preacher’s daughters when I was in school.
Jerzy Russian
@Baud: Setting aside the “performative fuckery” of all of this (h/t laura), how would this work? The budget of the Justice Department presumably has already been allocated, and has ended up in the DOJ’s checking account. Can Congress actually “recall” previously allocated funds?
Jeffro
More of this (about how schools actually work, in regards to respecting parents’ values) please.
You can review the curriculum and have input in multiple ways there, including supporting candidates for (or even being a candidate for) school board.
You can pull your kid from an assembly or from a ‘family life’ session.
You can even decide that your little Johnny isn’t going to read X or Y, and the school will gladly find him an alternate selection.
What you can’t do is dictate the curriculum, cancel the assembly, or ban the book for everyone.
Jay
@Baud:
I did.
Baud
@Jay: Lucky ducky.
Soprano2
@Alison Rose: They think they have to explain it in explicit detail. That’s why they freak out.
Baud
@Jerzy Russian: I assume, if perchance it’s done right, it would deny funds for the next fiscal year, so the prosecution can’t move forward.
Jay
@Jeffro:
What you can’t do is dictate the curriculum, cancel the assembly, or ban the book for everyone.
Except in certain States, certain school districts, ymmv. For now.
Wingers have imported that “panic” up here, and it’s a PITA.
Jay
@Baud:
yeah, no. Trainwrecks.
Run away as far and as fast as you can.
O. Felix Culpa
@Baud:
Heh. I married the preacher’s daughter. :)
JWR
Is this true? Is that really a photocopier?
Baud
@O. Felix Culpa:
(•‿•)
Roger Moore
@JWR:
It would only solve his problem if it could make it through the House, Senate, and White House. Since it’s going to be DOA in the Senate, it’s just grandstanding, something MTG is much better at than legislating.
BellyCat
I love the part where a little kid said, “I have five grandmas”.
Now THERE’S a kid who looks forward to holidays and birthdays–think of the GIFTS!
Get off my family!
UncleEbeneezer
@JWR: Does it help marginalized groups/people in any way? If yes, it’s “woke.”
Frankensteinbeck
@JWR:
It means anti-bigotry. That’s it. Conservatives know what it means and use it consistently!
sdhays
@Roger Moore: It’s not guaranteed it can even get out of committee, let alone the House.
Scout211
@JWR: Read the comments. The commenters identify it as a short masonry block wall. The “tray” looks more like something behind the wall.
ETA: That doesn’t mean that no copies were made of the classified documents, just that there is no copier in that picture.
Leto
Amazing video, really powerful. In news of the dystopia: Ron DeSantis’ new ad uses fake AI images of Donald Trump & Anthony Fauci kissing
cliosfanboy
WOW. That was powerful.
Brachiator
@Baud:
True. But Trump still only got 34 percent of the California vote. Biden whupped Trump’s ass.
ETA. Yaay, Jackie Goldberg!
Kelly
Big news in Oregon. Pacificorp, my electric utility has lost a lawsuit over liability for the 2020 Oregon Labor Day fires. 17 plaintiffs now with some kinda class action thing to follow. Next phase determines punitive damages and if I understand correctly another phase will determine class action stuff.
https://www.opb.org/article/2023/06/12/oregon-wildfire-verdict-pacificorp-labor-day/
Chris
@The Kropenhagen Interpretation:
The obituaries section hasn’t been this good since Osama Bin Laden, Kim Jong Il, and Muammar Qaddafi all died within a year.
cliosfanboy
Trying to insult someone by calling them “Woke” is nothing more than the new way to call someone a “n***r-lover.”
Jay
James E Powell
@JWR:
It would irresponsible not to speculate.
Ksmiami
@Leto: god, DeSantis deserves to be punched in the nuts. What a waste of human protoplasm.
Jackie
@eclare:
“PK’s, preachers’ kids, were known to be the wild ones when I was in high school.”
That was definitely true when I was in high school in the late ‘60s – early ‘70s!!! I dated one for a short while – he was too “forward” for me, so he dumped me for someone more accommodating.
Roger Moore
@JWR:
From a conservative, “woke” means about the same thing as “socialist”: it helps someone they don’t want helped.
Dopey-o
Sorry, but there are no documents to be found in Bedminster. They went to Saudi Arabia, and I doubt that Jack Smith could get a search warrant there.
However, there are lots of documents not included in the Florida indictment, and lots of future charges possible.
Jay
@Jackie:
Preacher’s kids, Cop’s kids.
First day, new school, mid semester, ( moved across the country), 3 week suspension. A year later, on the Rugby field, a 2 month suspension.
FastEdD
@Brachiator: What blows my mind is that tRump got more votes in CA than he got in TEXAS and still lost by 30%. It is just that CA has that much more population. And of course those votes are mostly rural, outnumbered greatly by the cities. Our 3rd largest city is San Diego which has 4 times the population of the entire state of Alaska.
Alison Rose
@Jay: I’m glad she took the messages to heart. Though…how on Earth did she originally think it was a good idea? And no one at the publisher or agency thought anything of it either, apparently.
Jay
@Alison Rose:
Like many writers, it was probably a project that was “in process” for years.
For the Publisher and the Publicists, probably “well, we have a contract, we will have to pay to postpone or cancel”.
IT’s kinda like the many companies still doing business in Ruzzia. Until it bites their bottom line,……. in the ROW.
Brachiator
@Frankensteinbeck:
When I read Greek myths as a kid, I ran into the story of the blind seer, Tiresias.
I always thought this was kinda cool. Reading about it didn’t cause me any problems.
Ruckus
I met my sister’s black female partner over 50 yrs ago. I knew her for 40+ yrs, she remained my friend after my sister pasted away. BTW she died of sickle cell disease and a shitty doctor. I’ve met a lot of their gay friends, men and women. The vast majority of these people are in the class of best humans I’ve ever personally known. They know what it’s like to be persecuted for being who they are. They know what it’s like to wear a 3 piece suit to work every day and act like you’ve never had one gay day in your life and go home and be themselves. I’m one of the luckiest humans to have been able to met all these people and share time with people that know better than to judge others by some shitty code that no human should ever have to live by and that the people that think they do – really, really don’t live by either.
WaterGirl
@JWR: Wow, good catch David Cay Johnston, whoever you are!
WaterGirl
@Kelly: That is a big victory!
Ruckus
@Jay:
Pretty amazing. And damn, good for her.
Ruckus
@FastEdD:
Los Angeles COUNTY has a larger population than 40 states. It can be difficult to understand the difference from when I was born here in the late 40s to today. The house I was brought home to from the hospital 70+yrs ago was brand new and orange groves spread for miles and miles and miles east of there.
I just found out that the man who founded Outward Bound, a black man, was born in the town I grew up in from 3 days old to 20 yrs. He served in WWII as a Tuskegee Airman, a high school teacher for 37 yrs but not allowed to teach in the town he was born in because he was black. Leroy “Buster” Criss. Some days I really, really hate this world.
NotMax
@WaterGirl
Name really unfamiliar? Notable journalist and author.
KayInMD (formerly Kay (not the front-pager))
@Baud: Lol we didn’t even get to see the bill argued; it snowed that day, so none of the important Senators (the ones with enough money and clout to live in VA or MD) showed up. I think only McGovern’s secretary was in the office. She was probably pissed she had to work and that’s why she turned us in.
Geminid
@James E Powell: There is a “1776 Project” that is agitating against school Pride events nationwide. They also have a PAC devoted to funding rightwing stare legislators and school board candidates.
The way the 1776 Project’s Twitter account reported on the North Hollywood protests and the subsequent Glendale protests in real time makes me think they were instigators.
SiubhanDuinne
@Jay:
Wow! What an impressive and principled decision for her to make. Thanks so much for sharing that link.
JWR
@Scout211:
That’s why I asked if it was what it was claimed to be. TBH, to me it looks more like stacks of printer paper.
SteveinPHX
Just had a chance to view. Had to stop near end for a couple of breaths. Powerful!
evodevo
@JWR: No…if you zoom in, it’s a concrete block partition…