Mediaboss Marketing

MICHAEL NAVA has set his eighth Henry Rios mystery novel in 1986, a year that seems both distant and familiar. The pandemic raging then was AIDS a virus deadlier than COVID-19, if somewhat harder to catch. What should have been a simple public health emergency became a battlefield in the culture wars, because AIDS initially was seen as a homosexual disease.

While the Reagan administration dithered, longtime foes of gay liberation (Pat Buchanan comes to mind) rushed in to regain ground they had lost in the 70s, proclaiming that the disease was no less than Gods punishment for degeneracy. In 1986, even William F. Buckley Jr., that exemplar of gentlemanly conservatism, opined in The New York Times that everyone detected with AIDS should be tattooed in the upper forearm, to protect common-needle users, and on the buttocks, to prevent the victimization of other homosexuals.

Abandon hope, all ye who enter here.

Also in 1986, an initiative (in reality Proposition 64, but called Prop 54 in Navas novel) appeared on the California ballot, calling for HIV-positive people to be subject to quarantine and isolation statutes and regulations. Born of the widespread, if mistaken, fear that AIDS could be spread through the air or by casual touch, the measure triggered a corresponding panic among gays. Wouldnt it just be an excuse for people who didnt like them anyway to dump them into concentration camps in the desert?

This is the atmosphere in which Henry Rios like his creator, a gay Latino defense attorney in Los Angeles strives to represent an activist group called QUEER that opposes Prop 54. The group claims to be nonviolent, but one of its members, Theo Latour, an HIV-positive drug addict and ex-porn star, is accused of bombing a large fundamentalist church, Ekklesia, killing its pastor, Daniel Herron, who has publicly backed the initiative. Complicating matters is the fact that Rios, a recovering alcoholic who has put his love life on hold while he rebuilds his law practice, is falling for a young man, Josh Mandel, who happens to be Theos roommate.

Also, as it turns out, Herron wasnt as conservative a Christian as QUEER members might have thought. Nava gives us the backstory first: Herron was a former Haight-Ashbury hippie who had a peace-and-love kind of faith before he married the daughter of Ekklesias fire-and-brimstone founder and, with misgivings, yoked himself to the inerrancy of scriptures such as the injunction in Leviticus that any man who lies with another man should be put to death.

In fact, Herron has an explosive secret even bigger than the bomb. He has discovered that a lover from his hippie days, a Black woman in San Francisco, had a son by him. The boy, Wyatt, is HIV-positive and already seriously ill. To Herrons credit, love trumps doctrine, and he desperately tries to get access to drugs that arent approved by the FDA but are available over the counter in Mexico. Without revealing his identity, he asks QUEER for help in smuggling the drugs and even consults Rios about it.

After the bombing, it becomes evident that an old-line faction loyal to Ekklesias founder isnt unhappy to be rid of Herron. After his death, his conflicted widow, Jessica, finds herself a pawn in a power struggle within the church. And because gay people, like Black people, have long memories of official misconduct, Rios begins to suspect that a shadowy anti-terrorism unit of the Los Angeles Police Department has infiltrated QUEER and, to discredit the group and help the Prop 54 campaign, had an agent provocateur encourage Theo to plant the bombs.

In 1986, the Rodney King riots were only six years away and Daryl Gates was still chief of the LAPD, following two other right-wing icons: William Parker and Ed Davis. Nava runs down that history for readers who may have forgotten it. The LAPD wasnt shy about adopting the COINTELPRO tactics of J. Edgar Hoovers FBI for local purposes, using anticommunism as a rationale to attack dissident groups of every kind.

The outstanding thing about Henry Rios, compared to your typical hardboiled literary crime solver, is what a reasonable and decent guy he is a genuine humanist. He believes in his fellow human beings despite having plenty of reasons not to. He lives in a society in which a significant minority, with varying degrees of seriousness, deny that he has a right to exist unless he denies his inborn nature, and he works in a legal system that has always been biased against his kind.

Theres a telling scene in which he and Josh, exploring what both men hope will become a long-term relationship, discuss how Spain expelled Joshs Jewish ancestors while conquering Rioss indigenous ancestors in Mexico. Josh remarks:

History is just one long bloodbath, isnt it, Henry?

I breathed in the warm air, the scent of skin. Well, theres the official history, the one that gets written down, which is mostly a history of cruelty and destruction and then theres the unwritten history, the secret history of kindness.

He smiled. If its not written down, how do you know about it?

By inference. If humans were only cruel and destructive, we would have gone out of business a long time ago. Therefore, the reason weve survived is because the cruelty has been tempered with kindness. Its not as dramatic and the people involved arent usually the ones in charge, so no one bothers to record it. Human history is basically a contest between our better instincts and our worst ones.

Which one will win? Josh asks.

I dont know. All I know is youve got to choose a side.

Rios knows which side hes on, but Nava is obliged to give the other side a hearing, so he writes from several points of view. This sacrifices the suspense of a mystery story we learn who some of the villains are before Rios does for the sake of a thriller structure in which seemingly unrelated narratives converge.

Full disclosure: Im an old straight white guy, and an agnostic. Therefore, Im not the best judge of how accurately Nava portrays the lives of religious conservatives. I can only say whether the parts of Lies with Man that concern the Herrons and other Ekklesia members are convincing to me as fiction. And I must admit that I find them somewhat stiff and forced, despite the authors good intentions. I doubt that many members of similar churches would recognize themselves here. Daniel Herron seems to be the only genuine, feeling Christian in the bunch. Jessica loves her father more than Jesus or her husband, losing her faith and turning to drink when shes left alone to face being ousted by the old guard, who mouth biblical platitudes but seem thoroughly corrupted by worldly power.

On the other hand, Nava is at home in describing gay life in Los Angeles in 1986, at an in-between stage when groups like QUEER exist but the parents of young men like Theo and Josh are still apt to disown them and put them out on the streets, and when icy blasts of AIDS-induced puritanism have withered the bathhouse culture of the 70s. Henry Rios insists that same-sex love is as valid as any other and models responsibility in his relationship with Josh, but he also insists on the importance of gay sex itself and refuses to regret or condemn his own youthful promiscuity or Theos, for that matter. This would have been a brave stance for Rios to take in 1986, and its brave enough today, for puritanism is always the bigots first weapon of choice. Nava isnt afraid to get a little raunchy when his story calls for it.

Where hes really at home is in showing us how a defense attorney thinks and operates. Readers of Lies with Man will get an eye-opening education in the differences between civil and criminal law and the negotiations that go on every day, inside and outside every courtroom, among lawyers, judges, prosecutors, and police.

With such an admirable protagonist, a crime novel needs rough-edged secondary characters, and Nava is up to the challenge. Two stand out. First, there is Freeman Vidor, Rioss trusty investigator, a thin, chain-smoking Black man who is utterly without illusions about humans and human nature, a cynic to the bone. [] As far as he was concerned, we were all specimens he regarded with clear-eyed curiosity and mordant humor. Then there is Marc Unger, an assistant city attorney whose job is to protect the LAPDs reputation and minimize the citys losses from excessive force and wrongful death suits against officers. Unger is a well-dressed, heavy-drinking gay man with a foot in each camp: openly flirtatious with other gays but closeted in his official role.

Rios likes him in a way but cant trust him, because Unger is capable of blatantly lying when Theo is found dead, an apparent suicide, in the county jail. The jail is under the jurisdiction of the Sheriffs Department, not the LAPD, Unger reminds him, and anyway, the police arent murderers. Rios knows this isnt necessarily true. You may think Im a sellout, Unger says when its all over, but [] youre as much a part of the system as I am. Im very good at my job, and sometimes part of my job, like part of yours, is choking back the puke and making the deal. Rios doesnt argue not then but theres no doubt he looks forward to a time when such compromises will no longer be necessary.

Michael Harris reviewed books for the Los Angeles Timesfor more than 20 years. His latest novel,White Poison: A Tale of the Gold Rush, is available on Amazon.

Continued here:
The Secret History of Kindness: On Michael Nava's Lies with Man - lareviewofbooks

When Initiative 19, now Amendment 78, was first filed, the states nonpartisan Legislative Council offered its take on the proposed constitutional amendment. In a March 9 memo to the measures proponents, 49 questions and comments are listed that illuminate numerous potential impacts the proposal would have on how our state government currently operates.

Also read: POINT | Yes on 78; nix exec. branch slush funds

The comments reveal how the measure would do far more than what the proponents purported. Instead of just restricting the governors ability to appropriate emergency dollars, Amendment 78 tries to bring a whole swath of other dollars under the legislatures control. Even if you think restricting our governors authority over emergency relief dollars is a good idea, Amendment 78s reach probably isnt what youre looking for.

Here are just a few of the very serious possibilities the Legislative Council flagged:

Could the General Assembly continuously appropriate any money that currently is otherwise authorized by law?

...Would the amended version of section 33 require that the General Assembly appropriate money for highway projects rather than delegating this authority, by law, to a commission?

...the Department of Health Care Policy and Financing would not be able to use available federal funds to make provider reimbursements until the General Assembly appropriates the money. This may lead to a disruption of services or federal payments. Upon receiving these notes, did Amendment 78s authors slow down and consider the implications of what they proposed? No. Consumed with turning a talking point about the governors spending authority during a public health crisis into a political win on the ballot, they made a few marginal tweaks and steamed ahead.

Colorado is no stranger to unintended consequences on the ballot, but this one may well take the cake. If it passes, Amendment 78 will open our state up to unending shenanigans and showdowns. At a minimum, it will slow down federal relief in times of crisis. At worst, it could bring Washington-style stalemate politics to Colorado.

Right now, there are hundreds of types of dollars that pass through the state treasurers office and to their intended purposes. This is how our government operates throughout the year. Under existing law, state agencies and governmental entities (like our public universities) are already authorized to spend these dollars according to terms dictated by their source. And it isnt just federal dollars that are considered custodial -- its also legal settlement dollars and grants for numerous partnerships that make our state work. Nonprofits throughout the state interact with these funds. Most alarmingly, it puts emergency funds at risk for the Coloradans who need them, fast. When the floods hit in 2013, millions of federal dollars came to our aid, quickly and efficiently. When fires hit, money flows through the state to where its needed. And when a global pandemic struck, our community conduits worked.

But if Amendment 78 passes, this efficiency and speed will end. Well need a special session every time a natural disaster occurs. Beyond simply doubling the work our part-time legislature must do, it will create numerous opportunities for legislators to object to the role federal dollars play in our state. Health care dollars, transportation and transit funding, conservation funding, funding for scientific research -- this is what we are talking about when we talk about the funds affected by Amendment 78.

In a time of debt-ceiling showdowns and culture wars, do we want more opportunities to choke up our most important public systems with political theater? A vote for Amendment 78 is a vote for a recklessly written invitation for dysfunction and disagreement on simple questions that have already been decided. Vote no.

Scott Wasserman is the president of the Bell Policy Center in Denver.

Original post:
COUNTERPOINT | No on 78; it will sow dysfunction | Opinion | coloradopolitics.com - coloradopolitics.com

This week, Idaho political news went national, as the Brad Little-Janice McGeachin feud went nuclear.

It made for irresistible sport, without an obvious winner.

Playing the acting governor card once again, the lieutenant governor played to her base with a short-lived executive order banning schools from requiring COVID-19 vaccines (which they cant do anyway) and outlawing mandatory COVID-19 testing (which is probably more of a legal quandary). While joining fellow Republican governors along the U.S.-Mexican border, and essentially phoning in to rescind the McGeachin order, Little also took heat for political grandstanding.

But while one showdown played out for all of Idaho (and the nation) to see, another one is on hold.

On Thursday, Littles State Board of Education said it would delay again a proposed policy on campus diversity, educational equity and inclusion, or DEI for short. The proposal wont come up at the boards October meeting, and probably wont come up until 2022.

Before we continue consideration of a new policy, we are going to conduct a campus climate survey of students later this fall, State Board President Kurt Liebich said in a statement. It will be a scientific survey conducted by the Board office and independent of the institutions. We should have results back after the first of the year.

And as showdowns go, this one is a big deal. It doesnt have the drama of dueling executive orders and a full-on Twitter feud pitting two statewide elected officials. But hey, you cant have everything.

But this battle should reinforce Littles and McGeachins positions on opposite sides of the campus culture wars. And it could make Littles State Board a legitimate election issue in the May GOP gubernatorial primary.

McGeachin and the State Board have been circling each other suspiciously for months.

All summer, a hand-picked McGeachin task force sought evidence of classroom indoctrination, at the K-12 and higher education levels. Liebich has repeatedly, and publicly, disputed the claims of widespread indoctrination.

Meanwhile, in June, the State Board floated its DEI proposal, which would require Idahos four-year schools to come up with their own campus-specific programs.

Diversity, educational equity, and inclusion are necessary components of educational experiences that challenge individuals to grow, improve critical thinking, refine skills, build character, develop awareness, and engage in freedom of thought and expression, the proposed policy reads, in part. The Board affirms that encouraging and supporting diversity, educational equity, and inclusion is central to academic success, to engendering innovation and creativity, and to fully preparing students to thrive in an increasingly diverse and global workforce.

What has happened since June?

In mid-August, the board delayed a final vote on the DEI proposal, then scheduled for later in the month. At the time, Liebich said the delay was simply an attempt to collect public comment. But the move also averted a political collision course; the Aug. 25 and 26 State Board meeting would have coincided with the fourth and final meeting of the McGeachin education task force, also held Aug. 26.

Meanwhile, dozens of Idahoans have quietly and passionately weighed in.

Idaho Education News filed a public records request for public comments on the State Board proposal: more than 50 in all.

The majority of commenters opposed the proposal. Many of these comments used the loaded words that flowed freely during the four meetings of McGeachins education task force calling the State Board proposal racist, Marxist, socialist, divisive and anti-American.

Not surprisingly, emotions ran high on both sides of this ideological divide, with many of the comments directed at the State Board.

While many comments have kept to tidy ideological lines, there still were a few wrinkles.

Push Back Idaho, a new conservative PAC based in Blaine County, challenged the State Board to add language acknowledging that indoctrination is, itself, a form of oppression and unlawful discrimination. Yet this same group is one of former State Board member Debbie Critchfields biggest supporters, contributing $5,000 to the Little ally, and her campaign for state schools superintendent.

And the Philadelphia-based Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, or FIRE, urged the State Board to reject the proposal, saying its language promoting civility could violate free speech rights. Much uncivil speech is indeed protected under the First Amendment. But this out-of-state group is by no means in the McGeachin camp. In August, FIRE spent hundreds of dollars to obtain redacted comments to McGeachins task force the same comments McGeachin released only after a judge ordered her to do so, and after the Idaho Press Club sought to have her held in contempt of court.

But one comment was not at all surprising. In a Sept. 23 letter, the task force doubled down on its summers work. Asserting that they have found overwhelming evidence of elements of critical race theory on campus, task force members urged the State Board to ditch the proposed policy.

The use of the word equity seeks to guarantee equitable outcomes, which will result in unconstitutional and unlawful discrimination, the task force said, in a letter first obtained not through the State Board, but from McGeachin Chief of Staff Jordan Watters. (On Thursday, State Board spokesman Mike Keckler acknowledged the oversight, saying he had inadvertently omitted the task force letter from the response to EdNews records request.)

The DEI proposal already illustrates a sharp difference between the way Littles State Board and McGeachins inner circle view the campus culture wars. The issue could give the lieutenant governor an avenue to spell out what a McGeachin State Board would look like.

That debate might not go national. But anyone who cares about Idaho higher education should pay attention.

Each week, Kevin Richert writes an analysis on education policy and education politics. Look for his stories each Thursday.

Senior reporter and blogger Kevin Richert specializes in education politics and education policy. He has more than 30 years of experience in Idaho journalism. He is a frequent guest on KIVI 6 On Your Side; "Idaho Reports" on Idaho Public Television; and "Idaho Matters" on Boise State Public Radio. Follow Kevin on Twitter: @KevinRichert. He can be reached at [emailprotected]

View original post here:
Analysis: Another Little-McGeachin education showdown is on hold, but not permanently - Idaho EdNews

An unfortunate recent article by Aaron Gordon for Vice is titled, Walking Places Is Part of the Culture Wars Now. Its centered around a discussion of recent survey results from Pew Research, which appear to show that a majority of Americans prefer a neighborhood with larger homes and yards, but where driving is a must to get to schools, stores, and restaurants, versus a neighborhood where amenities are in walking distance, but the homes are smaller and closer together.

The survey also suggests that the strongest predictor of preferring an auto-oriented neighborhood (larger homes, farther apart) is not age, education, or even urban versus rural location, but rather political identification. Self-identified conservatives are more likely to favor the spread-out, auto-oriented community: 77% to 22%, versus 42% to 57% in favor of the walkable community for self-proclaimed liberals. Hence Gordons Culture Wars title and assertion.

The article is at points smug and condescending, not just toward conservatives but also toward the 42% of liberals whom one would think [are] most concerned about climate change, yet favor less walkable places. The piece and the widespread sharing of it are emblematic of an unfortunate trend I see in my social media circles of jumping on results like this to shore up ones political priors, instead of building bridges and figuring out how to make a better world that all kinds of communities will buy into.

But also, the factual premise of the Vice piece is just wrong. The truth is that surveys like this dont give us much accurate insight into the reasons people choose a home or a neighborhood, or how they might respond if presented with a different set of options. And that is good news for those of us who see an urgent need to change the prevailing auto-oriented pattern of developmentin all kinds of communities.

Image via Unsplash.

The kind of survey that Pew did here is fundamentally flawed, because it attempts to identify preferences in a vacuum, detached from the real-world contexts in which people develop and hold those preferences.

What are you buying when you buy a house (or rent one)? The answer is a bundle of housing and neighborhood attributes. These include the location, nearby amenities, and transportation options; the features of the home itself; the (perceived or real) quality of the school district; the local tax rate; the crime rate and your own subjective feelings of safety or comfort; and a community of people you might find like-minded and agreeable or otherwise.

You dont get to pick these characteristics la carte: they only come bundled. And its nearly impossible for a survey to neatly separate the pieces of that bundle for us, to the point where most respondents would make a dispassionate judgment about something like walkability separate from any other cultural, class, or lifestyle associations they carry in their minds.

The question of price also dramatically influences the relative appeal of different bundles. As Chuck Marohn memorably observes in Strong Towns: A Bottom-Up Revolution, If the government were willing to subsidize lobster to be cheaper than hamburger, Id continuously dine on lobster. More to the point, Id express a strong personal preference for lobster. The longer this subsidy went on, the more entitled my expectations for lobster would become.

Nearly every American alive today has only ever lived in a time when the suburban development pattern was deeply subsidized, while traditional urban fabric has been actively destroyed and disinvested in wherever it hasnt been regulated into scarcity. Its commonunder these conditions of subsidyfor people to casually express sentiments like, In suburbia, you can get more house for your money. Such a belief will absolutely influence a question about where you would live, given the choice.

Image via Unsplash.

Most people dont think deeply, if ever, about development pattern or urbanism or even about the possibility of other ways of getting around. And we simply dont know what we dont know. Many Americans have never experienced living in a walkable urban place. (Data point: I know multiple 30-somethings who have never learned to parallel park.) Even more have never experienced living in a rural place or small town. Most of us have at least some experience with auto-oriented suburbia, because of its inescapability, but we may not have lived in it for long stretches of our lives. Its hard for people who live and breathe urbanism to grasp, but most people, thus, will answer questions like Pews based on gut reactions or emotional associations, not firm opinions grounded in true experience of what its actually like to live in different kinds of places.

Most people do, however, like their own neighborhood. And most people also like the kind of place they grew up. They have fond associations with what is familiar to them.

That factfamiliarityis whats driving these results, and the reason you see them map to political alignment is that there is a divergence in what is familiar that increasingly tracks with partisanship. The prevailing geographic factor that explains partisan alignment is whether a location is urban versus rural. It used to be more about region: North vs. South in particular, with the Midwest playing a swing role. Now its population density. The cities and suburbs go blue, the exurbs and rural areas go red, with few exceptions.

Where there is partisan polarization, its not surprising to see a corresponding increase in polarization around the cultural signifiers of that dividethe things that make you think, These are my kind of people. But its a tall order to claim that cultural hostility to walking places is whats causing conservatives to live in low-density areas. The reality is much more complex and multi-factor. A survey that says that conservatives prefer spread-out environments might simply be reflecting the reality of more conservatives having grown up and lived in such environments.

But this doesnt really tell us, in a constraining sense, what kinds of places people actually would enjoy living, or could enjoy if their lives put them in a context where a different set of choices made sense.

Image via Unsplash.

Even if you do take this studys results at face value, its a stretch to interpret its major takeaway as, Most Americans dont want walkable places.

Most Americans, as I said, have only ever lived in a time in which the suburban development pattern was the subsidized, heavily incentivized, all but mandated default. More Americans than not grew up in single-use residential communities, where trips to work, school, shopping or dining out were almost always made by car.

Despite that, a whopping 39% of respondents to this survey across the board said they would rather live in a walkable neighborhood, even if their home and yard were smaller.

Think about that. What percent of Americans actually live in places where schools, stores, and restaurants are in comfortable walking distance? It is far, far less than 39%. Simply achieving 39% would be a dramatic transformation of this continent.

We could stop building single-family detached homes on large lots tomorrow, and wed still have enough to meet years of demand from the people who strongly prefer them. We could only build walkable infill, and it might still take decades to satisfy the 39% that say they want it.

And by the time we did, I suspect that 39% would have risen, because a lot more Americans would have experienced the option of living in a place where youre not tethered to a car. Maybe its arrogant or too affirming of my own biases to say so. But I dont think so.

Im basing that belief not just on the financial and regulatory deck stacked in favor of auto-centricity, but also on the fact that the actual walkable places that Americans today are most likely to experience have a remarkably unifying appeal. Liberals and conservatives alike have a great time living on college campuses; visiting not just Paris and Rome but also New Orleans and Savannah; hanging out at state fairs and in theme parks literally modeled on traditional Midwestern main streets.

The popularity (and high price tag) of New Urbanist communities that emulate traditional forms and attempt to resurrect the principles of traditional neighborhood development also transcends party or region. Many of these are in fact built in deep red areas, from the Florida Panhandle to Alabama to Oklahoma.

And, of course, the real deal traditional pattern of development that New Urbanism is copying can be found both on thousands of small-town main streets and in neighborhood commercial districts in big urban areas. It has an appeal that transcends political and other cultural divides. Those two kinds of places, I should add, have far more in common with each other than either has with a suburban subdivision or power center.

These may not be the places many of us think are being pushed on us when we hear people talk about urbanism or sustainability or, god forbid, density in a culture-war sense. (Many rural conservatives hear Everywhere should be Manhattan; too many liberal urbanists are eager to confirm the stereotype.)

But thats just the thing. Where Americans have experience with traditional development, they tend to respond positively. Where they dont, they fall back on cultural signifiers and familiar reference points.

The bottom line is if you want people to like a certain style of development or neighborhood, build it. Make it awesome. Show them that they love it. Thats the only way youre going to change minds.

And if youre a local policy maker, please just work to make it legal to do so.

See the rest here:
Walkability and the culture wars - Resilience

A new school year is underway in the United States, highlighted by dueling images of students heading to class in masks and angry parents debating whether those face coverings are necessary.

The latest fights over masks, but also critical race theory and transgender rights are raging in part because they touch on differing views of social values and what it means to be an American, experts say. Such disputes are also driven by a desire to win local victories and to change national narratives. Yet despite the long history of culture wars in U.S. education, the question of whether these wars are really winnable is one thats rarely asked, says Adam Laats, a historian at Binghamton University in New York who studies cultural battles in education. If there is a winner, he says, whoever that is will try and rally the troops under the threat of whatever it is next.

Schools have long been a battle ground for contentious societal ideas. But what does a win look like in todays polarized debates over masks, critical race theory, and gender identity?

In Williamson County, Tennessee, parent and activist Revida Rahman says a win would be coming together to do the work of addressing racism. This is a long process, she says.

Brett Craig, a parent in the same county and a Moms for Liberty volunteer, says,A win to me would be to live and let live. Thats the American bargain.

In a typical back-to-school season, markers and poster board might be on a classroom supply list. This year, theyre also hot items for protesters attending their local school board meetings.

Mask mandates, critical race theory, you name the issue and people want to speak out, says Heath Miller, a high school band directorin Tulsa, Oklahoma, who considers this the most stressful period of his 20 years teaching.

In recent weeks, individuals in Fort Lauderdale, Florida,lit masks on fire outside a school board meeting. Pro-mask protesters in Fort Worth, Texas, staged a mock funeral outside the school board presidents home in August.The critical race theory debate continues to burn after erupting last spring, withnew laws passed ineightstatesbanning teachers from covering divisive topics and multiple other states considering restrictive measures.Loudoun County, Virginia, saw contentious clashes over the districts expansion of transgender student rights.

Schools have long been a battle ground for contentious societal ideas. But what does a win look like in todays polarized debates over masks, critical race theory, and gender identity?

The latest fights are raging in part because they touch on differing views of social values and what it means to be an American, experts say, and are driven by desires to win local victories and to change national narratives. Yet despite the long history of culture wars in education in the United States, the question of whether these wars are really winnable is one thats rarely asked, says Adam Laats, a historian at Binghamton University in New York who studies cultural battles in education.

I think theres a bunch of seeming paradoxes when it comes to winnability, Dr. Laats says. If there is a winner, whoever the winner is will not claim it as a victory but instead try and rally the troops under the threat of whatever it is next.

Conflict over the idea of what America stands for often intensifies during periods of change, says Andrew Hartman, an Illinois State University professor of history who studies culture wars.

It does seem that were in another period of mass reflection on this larger question of what it means to be an American. This stems from the rapid changes in how we think about gender identity, certainly the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement, he says. The current culture wars in schools, particularly with regards to race, critical race theory, sex education, and gender, are stemming from these changes that are taking place not just politically, but in peoples consciousness.

Demonstrators gather outside a Williamson County Schools school board meeting in Franklin, Tennessee, to show support for the district's diversity and equity initiatives on May 17, 2021. The event was organized by One WillCo, a racial equity group co-founded by Revida Rahman.

Polling shows some of the divides. In August, a survey by The Associated Press and NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that 58% of American adults favor mask mandates for students attending K-12 schools in person, with about 30% of Republicans supporting mask mandates compared with about 80% of Democrats. (Support rose to 65% of Americans supporting mask mandates for students in an early Septemberpoll by USA Today/Ipsos; results were not broken down by political party.)

A Morning Consult-Politico survey in June found that less than a majority of Americans knew about critical race theory,a decades-old idea targeted by conservative activists that considers the ways race and racism influence American politics, culture, and law.Among those Americans who are aware of it, Republicans are more likely to view it unfavorably.

Cultural wars around education happen in part because of the role schools play in the parent-child relationship, says Dr. Hartman. By sending your kid to a public school youre conceding in part the raising of your kid to the state, at least in theory or principle. You can see why conflicts would develop over schools for that reason.

Disputes over education in America are as common as reading, writing, and arithmetic from the 1920s Scopes Monkey Trial that dealt with the teaching of evolution to the 1962 Engel v. Vitale Supreme Court case that ruled school prayer unconstitutional, to 1990s battles over proposed national history standards.

Long-term trends in culture wars tend to favor progressive causes, says Dr. Laats of Binghamton University. But conservatives can claim victory over the fact that education still follows a traditional format in most places and that local activists have succeeded at changing curricula, he says.

The sense I get is its more about exerting political influence and illustrating or demonstrating that your group is highly motivated on this issue and therefore a force to be reckoned with, rather than changing others minds, saysNeal McCluskey, director of the Center for Educational Freedom at the libertarian Cato Institute in Washington.

The system is working the way its supposed to, with local control of education and mechanisms to voice concerns through school board meetings and elections,says Robert Pondiscio, a senior fellow who studies K-12 education at the American Enterprise Institute, a right-of-center think tank in Washington.Education is not above the fray, it is the fray, he says. It should surprise no one that in a diverse and divided country, people are going to bring those divisions to their schools in the forms of these heated debates.

Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel/AP

Deputies remove Chris Mink from an emergency meeting of the School Board for Seminole County Public Schools in Sanford, Florida, Sept. 2, 2021. Mr. Mink, the parent of a Bear Lake Elementary School student, opposes a call for mask mandates and was escorted out for shouting.

When Revida Rahman attends school board meetings in Williamson County, Tennessee, shes on the side with people holding posters reading Racism hurts us all. Brett Craig typically sits with people holding up signs like My Child. My Choice.

Both local parents say theyre turning out to urge school leaders to do whats best for kids, but they differ in their ideas about what it means to win.

Winning for us isnt like a football game win, where you make the play and its over. This is a long process, says Ms. Rahman, co-founder of One WillCo, a group that advocates for racial equity in schools.

A win to me would be to live and let live. Thats the American bargain. Youre free to have absolute convictions about whatever you want, but youre not free to impose convictions on me, says Mr. Craig, a public relations volunteer with the local chapter of the conservative group Moms for Liberty. He favors parent choice on masks and removing curricula he sees as politically motivated.

A recent NBC News analysis of school districts where disputes are flaring over critical race theory found that many of the districts are in locations where demographics are diversifying. In Loudoun County, Virginia, the share of students of color in the average white students school has increased by 29.5 percentage points since 1994, above the overall national rise of 11.2 percentage points.

Patti Hidalgo Menders, president of the Loudoun County Republican Womens Club and mother of a high school junior, pushes back on the implication that disputes stem from changing demographics. Shes a daughter of immigrants from Cuba, and she says her parents taught her to assimilate and be proud Americans.

Ms. Mendersorganized recent Education, Not Indoctrination rallies and is involved with an effort to recall six members of the Loudoun County school board. Among other things, shes upset the district has limited what she calls the freedoms of parents and students, such as choices around masks and vaccinations. She feels like her side has not won anything.

Many grassroots activists hope they will win policies advancing their causes, at least on the local level, by attending school board meetings and organizing to elect school board members that represent their values, says Dr. Hartman, the education historian. Some politicians, lobbyists, and members of the media intentionally stir up cultural battles to gain votes, fundraising, or ratings, he says.

Some people profit and benefit and enjoy fighting these culture wars and some see it as more existential and think they can win, says Dr. Hartman.

Ms. Rahman in Tennessee started working to improve her childrens schools after she and her husband chaperoned their sons on field trips to a plantation about five years ago and were dismayed by the lack of information about slavery and the lack of compassion shown by others on the trip.

They were showing empathy for the 12-, 13-year-old [Confederate] soldiers who were fighting, but the same empathy wasnt shown to the slaves that were on the plantation, says Ms. Rahman, who identifies as Black. Ms. Rahman says her two sons and their classmates of color continue to face incidents such as white children using racial slurs on the school bus.

She and other parents went to the district with their concerns and have succeeded in some of their goals, such as having the district start a cultural competency council. She views the latest disputes in Williamson County as less about culture wars and more about long-standing racism in America. She thinks it would be a win for people to continue the reckoning with racism that was started after the death of George Floyd rather than everyone retreating to their corners, as shes seeing now.

Ms. Menders is also trying to get people to come together. She recently gathered friends and acquaintances from a range of political and racial backgrounds to discuss their different positions.

I would love to have more dialogue like that, she says, even though one person in the group decided they didnt want to participate in the future. Our goal was to help each other understand the other peoples point of view.

More:
Can there be a winner in the school culture wars? - The Christian Science Monitor