In the last couple posts, we’ve looked at how the members of the School Board are being purposely obtuse. Parents are not asking if the theory of Critical Race Theory (CRT) is being taught to students. Instead, parents are trying to find out if CRT is being applied in the District.
But the School-Board members pretend they don’t understand the question: “Of course we’re not introducing Critical Race Theory as theory to students.”
This answer is ridiculously literal and literally ridiculous.
Let’s consider another analogy.
Say your child is allergic to tomatoes. You decide to visit the school cafeteria and see how exposed to tomatoes she’ll be.
Concerned parent: My child is allergic to tomatoes. Do you serve tomatoes in this cafeteria?
School-Board member: No, we absolutely do not serve tomatoes. No tomatoes. Nope, not a one. Not ever.
Concerned parent, pointing to a bowl of red condiment: OK, but what’s that?
School-Board member: Uh . . . ketchup.
Sure, the cafeteria isn’t serving a whole, red, round tomato in its uncut form. In the narrowest definition of the word, they don’t serve tomatoes as whole tomatoes. But because of the danger of the tomato, everyone understands that you’re interested in whether they serve it in any form.
Ketchup counts. Ketchup is made from tomatoes. Ketchup is the practical application of a tomato. You can’t get ketchup without a tomato. Yes, there may be other ingredients thrown in—preservatives and high-fructose corn syrup—but the base is still a tomato.
So you try following-up with the School-Board member.
Concerned parent: Um, aren’t tomatoes the main ingredient in ketchup?
And then things get weird.
School-Board member, with a bizarrely defensive answer: No one—not the Board, Dr. Gooden, teachers, etc.—has brought or intends to bring tomatoes to Eanes ISD! This is a patently false lie that was intentionally created . . . to stoke fear and anger. It’s just not true. Board members, DEI Committee members, and administration have all refuted this 100% untrue storyline. False, fake, and damaging LIE. See this for what it is—a smear campaign.
Um, ok. Sure. Doesn’t it feel like the School-Board member may need to take a breath? Yikes.
The fact remains that that big bowl of ketchup—filled with woke language and a DEI consultant hell-bent on infusing the District from top to bottom with applied CRT—is sitting right there where everyone can see it.
And the School-Board member’s overwrought well-I-never answer delivered in high dudgeon doesn’t change the fact that the ketchup is right there.
Fundamentally, anyone serving ketchup who doesn’t acknowledge its tomato-y origin is either willing to lie straight to your face or is so ill-informed that it borders on malfeasance. For School-Board members—charged with the stewardship of the District—this is inexcusable.
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P.S. You might think I took a little too much liberty in this post and made the School-Board member look unreasonably swirly-eyed, banana-pants crazy with her imaginary answer.
You know, the answer filled with denial but no actual argument.
The answer filled with huffy-puffy indignation but no substance.
The answer fill with overwrought emotion but no sincerity.
The answer just seems a little off, doesn’t it? Maybe I was exaggerating.
And yet . . .
