Thoughts on anonymity.
Here’s someone’s concern:
My Response.
1. My anonymity is irrelevant to the quality of my ideas. I am criticizing the School Board’s policies. My identity has no bearing on the validity of my arguments. In fact, it may make assessing the arguments easier because the arguments stand on their own, not bolstered or tainted by your feelings about the author delivering the arguments (me!). (Of course, if you knew me, it would most certainly bolster the arguments.)
2. Anonymity is only a problem if I’m making arguments based on personal experience. It’s true, you have no way to validate any assertions I make based on personal experience. Occasionally, I have told personal stories but for the most part, my posts have been a critique of Eanes & AISD school-board policy.
2a. For example, anonymous stories of racism are known to be unreliable. See, e.g., Wilfred Reilly’s research in Hate Crime Hoax (interviewed here by Glenn Loury) or listen to Glenn Loury & John McWhorter (at 38:22) in this podcast.
2b. This is why it’s so questionable that the Eanes School Board chose to spend tens of thousands of dollars and reorder the whole district around DEI, motivated, in part, on anonymous reports of racism. Did the Eanes School Board investigate these stories at all or just take them at face-value?
2c. I think you can tell that the School Board and the DEI guy know that the anonymous reports of incidents of racism were a sketchy justification for overhauling the district to implement DEI. When you read news reports or listen to Gooden talk about the Board’s motivation for implementing DEI, they’re always vague about the specifics. (See excerpt from Gooden’s 2021 report below).
3. Anonymity is cowardly? Hmm. I disagree and stand with Thomas Paine on this one. It’s risky to criticize the government. Thus, America has a long history of anonymous, effective criticism of the government. My anonymity honors and protects my family. Also, my anonymity serves to highlight how incredibly brave the known Eanes parents are who are standing up to the Eanes School Board monolith.
4. You’ve asserted that I’m repeating “fear-mongering rhetoric.” That’s a pretty big unsubstantiated assertion. Do you have specific examples where I’ve repeated “fear-mongering rhetoric”? I’m happy to defend anything I’ve argued.
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Here’s this post in chart form:
Here’s an excerpt from Gooden’s 2021 report. Vague, vague, vague. He didn’t even note that they used anonymous accounts. Why? My guess is that he knows that using anonymous personal stories is sketchy, and he didn’t want to acknowledge these stories as a basis for the District’s DEI initiative.
Finally, it’s possible this is me…
