Archive for the ‘Tea Party’ Category

Should we ditch the vodka? What we can learn from the turbulent history of boycotts – The Guardian

A couple of weeks into the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Alexei Zimin realised something unfortunate about his London restaurant, Zima: there was a capital Z right above the entrance. Zimin, who comes from a small town two hours north of Moscow, was horrified by the association with the dominant symbol of an imperialist adventure that disgusted him, and he ordered its removal. But it wasnt enough to exempt his business from the boycotts that have become a central feature of western outrage at Vladimir Putins war.

Bookings at Zima, which has recently added chicken kyiv to its menu of Russian staples such as borscht, pirozhki and blinis with sour cream, had already started to drop off. Staff were fielding abusive phone messages from anonymous callers who had concluded that they must be supporters of Putin, and were perhaps unaware that 80% of kitchen staff there are from Ukraine. Zimin didnt really take it seriously, but he put security on the door just in case.

Seeking a way to express his opposition to the war, he posted a series of videos on Instagram of him smoking at his kitchen table as he sang anti-war songs, a gesture that led swiftly to the cancellation of the cooking show he had hosted for 12 years on the Russian broadcaster NTV. It wasnt surprising, but, he reflected as he drank a vodka tonic in the Zima dining room last week, he doesnt think he can go home now. I never wanted to be an emigrant, he said. But Im not a fool. Every action has a reaction.

Zima is donating 10% of its revenues to the Red Cross in solidarity with Ukrainian refugees. Zimin cooked Ukrainian dishes super-delicious, the fattest food in the world for a special fundraising night. All the same, there were those who demanded further clarification of the restaurants loyalties. The food was great! one poster wrote in Russian on Instagram. Unfortunately, Putin spoiled our appetites by invading Ukraine. Stand up to your dictator, stop killing innocent people!

For a gentle, dishevelled chef who has never voted for Putin in his life, all of this is as painful as it is surreal. But even if boycotts are a blunt instrument, Zimin understands why they are happening and knows that his troubles are trivial compared to the devastation wreaked on the residents of Kyiv and Mariupol. While he is not sure what anyone cancelling a booking at Zima would hope to achieve, he recognises the urge to act, the same urge he has wrestled with himself. Its not helpful, exactly. In Russia its the small people who are in pain. But I dont know a different way. You know?

Zimin is describing the central dilemma of boycotts, a tool aimed at bringing about political change that can be extraordinarily effective expressions of disgust precisely because they prioritise impact above fairness. Boycott movements often try to make a distinction between boycotting responsible entities and boycotting individuals, says David Feldman, the director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Study of Antisemitism,University of London, and editor of a history of the subject, Boycotts Past and Present. That is a very fine principle. But in practice its often hard to maintain that kind of distinction.

While government sanctions are a kind of boycott, they are distinguished by their coordination and relative deliberation; boycotts instigated by private citizens, civil society and companies have always been noisier, messier and more expressive. And, even as businesses with a Russian connection in the UK were beginning to feel the impact of anti-Putin campaigns in the past month, something similar was beginning to touch Russian consumers, Russian celebrities and even Russian cats.

A swathe of major brands from Apple to Uniqlo to LVMH shut outlets in Moscow and St Petersburg. British supermarkets dropped Russian products. The new Batman movie and Pixars Turning Red were pulled from Russian cinemas. Russian athletes were barred from international competition, and the World Taekwondo governing body stripped Putin of his honorary black belt.

Netflix halted work on a slate of Russian-produced dramas, from a neo-noir detective drama to a reimagining of Tolstoys Anna Karenina. Comparethemarket pulled its meerkat ads from news bulletins lest Aleksandr Orlovs accent cause offence. Russian artists were asked to disavow the invasion, and in some cases such as that of Valery Gergiev, the greatest conductor alive but also a friend and supporter of Putin dropped from major appearances if they failed to do so. The Cardiff Philharmonic Orchestra removed Tchaikovskys 1812 overture from its programme because of its genesis in commemoration of Russian military success. And the Fdration Internationale Fline banned all Russian-owned competitors from its international cat shows. To critics, it seemed as if 144 million ordinary Russians had been cancelled a claim made on Friday by Putin himself. But to supporters, the sheer breadth of responses was a powerful sign of how widely the invasion of Ukraine had outraged the world.

Boycotts got their name in 1880, but they were a vital tool of dissent for at least a century before that. The Boston Tea Party, wherein 342 chests of imported tea were dumped into Boston Harbor in 1773 by protesters furious at unfair British taxes on the American colonies, was a kind of boycott; a few years later, so was the free-produce movement, a British and American campaign to reject sugar made by enslaved people. Crucially, Feldman writes, these proto-boycotts were both expressive and instrumental, a way of doing something but also declaring who you were. Tactics pursued with the aim of achieving concessions but at the same time [helping] to constitute and consolidate a political identity.

The term we use today was coined in 1880, when Irish tenant farmers facing ruin because of a global agricultural depression sought reductions in rent to English landowners, an end to evictions of those who could not pay it and ultimately the complete removal of the landlords. The president of the Irish Land League, Charles Stewart Parnell, urged supporters to shun anyone profiting from evictions by isolating [him] from the rest of his country as if he were the leper of old.

A week later, an English land agent, Capt Charles Boycott, was targeted over the eviction of 11 tenants who could not pay their rents. He wrote a letter to the Times, complaining that even my laundress has been ordered to give up my washing. Considering what to name the practice over a whiskey with a visiting American journalist, a campaigning local priest, Father John OMalley, proposed: How would it be to call it to boycott him? Two years later, the term was in the dictionary, and spreading rapidly over Europe.

If we tend to view boycotts as a means of punching up a way for ordinary people to pool their resources in opposition to an oppressive policy or regime we should note that they have also been used to more sinister ends. In the US, the far right has sought to boycott businesses that have expressed support for the Black Lives Matter movement. The boycott of Jewish businesses in Nazi Germany was an early manifestation of the hatred that would culminate in genocide.

Still, the campaign that formed our modern understanding of what boycotts can do was one of unimpeachable moral clarity: the anti-apartheid movement. It began with the boycott of potatoes produced in slave-like conditions in the farming town of Bethal in 1959, and grew to a crippling rejection of South African goods, services and cultural output by the time of Nelson Mandelas release from prison in 1990.

Christabel Gurney, who joined the movement in the 60s at the age of 26 and edited the journal Anti-Apartheid News for 21 years, expected it to be like most boycotts: unsuccessful, at least in terms of achieving its formal aims. It was a long game, she said. I never really thought about whether it was going to change the government seemed so strong but it was a way of life. And we felt we were supporting a peoples struggle. The boycotts did not bring about change on their own, she added, but they were a very good campaign tactic, because everyone can not buy South African fruit. It helped to create a more general atmosphere.

The anti-apartheid example is a helpful frame for thinking about boycotts of Russia, Gurney said, more because of the differences than the similarities. It took years to exert the pressure that forced major corporations to ostracise the South African regime; today, in an era in which even the most ruthlessly profit-driven businesses seek to burnish their ethical credentials, many businesses severed their ties to Russia before most of their customers had thought to demand it. We might note another critical difference, one almost unprecedented in the history: ordinarily, boycotters hope to persuade their own governments to change their stances. In this case, boycott and sanction are acting in unity. The question is whether that makes them more likely to succeed, or pointless.

Inspired by the anti-apartheid campaign, the movement for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) which seeks the end of Israels occupation of Gaza and the West Bank and the restoration of the rights of the Palestinian people has a far more contested reputation.

BDS has targeted companies from SodaStream, over a factory in an illegal West Bank settlement, to Caterpillar, for selling the Israeli government bulldozers used to demolish Palestinian homes; it also advocates an academic boycott of Israeli universities and urges artists to refuse to perform there. Supporters say that since the movement began in 2006, it has been instrumental in mobilising global opposition to the Israeli government, as well as communicating to the Palestinian people that they are not alone. On the other hand, critics argue that the campaign has not benefited Palestinians or made a serious impact on the Israeli economy; Israel and its allies say that the campaign is antisemitic.

Feldman is neutral on BDS. The important thing to say is that boycotts are the point at which politics become personal they force painful choices on people, he said. But he argues that while there are those engaged in the movement who are guilty of antisemitism, that is not typical of BDS as a whole and that the sense of many Jews that the movement is antisemitic must be reckoned with, but is not enough to prove the case on its own. The argument he makes can be extended to the boycotts being faced by Russians today: Theres always the potential to slip into racialised forms of enmity, but even when that doesnt happen people who are boycotted feel got at personally. And sometimes, thats what boycotts are meant to do.

In reporting this piece, I contacted seven people in the UK who have faced boycotts in connection to the invasion of Ukraine. Other than Zimin, they all declined to be interviewed on the record. One woman, whose shops name includes the word Russian but also sells produce from Latvia, Lithuania and Ukraine, wished that those who had called her to say that they would not be visiting again had been aware that she is Lithuanian herself. The same man has come in to shout Slava Ukraini glory to Ukraine at her three times. Ive stopped buying from Russian companies, she added. What else can I do? I just run a shop. Another played a recording of a voicemail calling her a Russian cunt and threatening to kill her. A third has recently changed the name of their food business to remove the Russian connection and emphasise the quality of the produce instead.

Against those grim examples is the inescapable fact that as power has become ever more remote from ordinary people, even the most targeted boycott movements have been bound to rely on collateral damage as a means of raising pressure on the real targets. The abusive treatment of individuals whose businesses happen to have the wrong name has little in common with a more concerted campaign against major companies or institutions. And when executed carefully and separated from xenophobia, boycotts have an urgent moral force.

Take Marko Husak, the owner of Bundobust, a chain of Indian street food and beer halls. Husak has family in Ukraine one cousin who has joined the army, another forced to flee the country with her baby son. When the war began, he set about organising a boycott of Russian products among hospitality businesses. Its just a small thing, he said. But its about making a stand, showing solidarity. And showing that to Russians who feel the same way.

The image he shared on Twitter promoting his idea features a crossed-out bottle of Stolichnaya vodka which has a complicated history in Russia, and until recently used grain sourced there. But as the brand has been at pains to point out to its multiple boycotters, the company is owned by an opponent of Putin, produced in Latvia, headquartered in Luxembourg, and has declared its opposition to the war.

Damian McKinney, the companys CEO, said on a Zoom call from his home in Barbados that the impact of the boycott was such that in the first week, it looked like we were going down. Even so, he understands the response. When I saw people pouring vodka down the drain and governors in the US saying were going to boycott, honestly my reaction was, I get it, I dont blame you at all.

McKinney embarked on an urgent round of explanatory phone calls, including one where a British supermarket boss mistook him for the CEO of Grey Goose. Now the Russian grain is being replaced by a Serbian alternative and the company is rebranding as Stoli to emphasise the change. In this situation, boycotts, theres this mob lets all get behind it feeling, McKinney said. He spoke in front of an image of the Ukrainian flag. And I think thats where we need to be a bit calmer and say, making a stand is a good thing, but lets understand why were doing it.

Stolichnayas (sorry, Stolis) story is a parable of the baffling nature of global supply chains for those seeking to make a difference but its response also emphasises that, however messily, boycotts can do exactly that. At Zima, Alexei Zimin took a last sip of vodka before taking me to the bar to meet a group of Russian expats, all of them a little shaken by how they are viewed in the world, but willing to accept that their discomfort may be necessary, or at least inevitable. The problems of the Ukrainian people who lose everything are much worse, Zimin said. I should not be crying in Soho Square. I understand your feelings. I dont believe in collective guilt, but I can understand collective anger.

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Should we ditch the vodka? What we can learn from the turbulent history of boycotts - The Guardian

Princess tea ‘a chance to be with the kids’ – Idaho County Free Press

COTTONWOOD Everybody is having a good time, playing games, and a lot of smiles, said Idaho County Fair Queen Chloe Rowland of Cottonwood.

Princess dreams came to fruition on a Saturday afternoon for dozens of young ladies at the annual Little Royalty Tea Party.

We had close to 70 kids, plus their parents, so quite a few, in attendance, said Rowland. This is quite a few more than we normally get.

Held at the Cottonwood Community Hall, the tea party is organized annually by the fair royalty, and it features snacks, games and activities.

This is just our way to get out in the community, Rowland said, because a lot of times at other events were on a float and we dont really get a chance to be with the kids until the fair. This gives us the opportunity to be around them, and hopefully influence them to be royalty.

She said the party is something kids look forward to each year. Its something she remembers as far back as 10 years ago when she first started in 4-H.

The little kids have always loved this, she said. As a little kid, I always looked up to the royalty. So much so that now that I can be that for them it is exciting for me, and to have that opportunity to give back to the community that did it for me.

Rowland lets the public know the Idaho County Fair is Aug. 17-20, and everyone should come!

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Princess tea 'a chance to be with the kids' - Idaho County Free Press

Amazon will discover e-Commerce in Africa not a tea party – Nairametrics

Feelers indicate that Amazon may now be ready to explore what the continent has to offer on the e-commerce front but the nous and experience of indigenous giants such as Konga will come in handy if it is not to stumble heavily in Africas biggest market

It is no longer news that global e-commerce giant, Amazon is all but set to extend its tentacles to Africa.

Earlier this month, a South African court ordered a halt on the construction of Amazons new African headquarters, a massive 70,000 square metres (17.3 acres) structure. The ruling came after some descendants of the countrys earliest inhabitants said the land it would be built on was sacred.

As reported by Reuters, the Western Cape division of the High Court interdicted the project developer from continuing with works at the Cape Town site until there had been meaningful engagement and consultation with affected indigenous peoples. Among these are the Khoi and the San, two of the earliest inhabitants of South Africa, some of whose descendants had objected to the River Club development, arguing that it lies at the confluence of two rivers considered sacred, the Black and Liesbeek Rivers.

It is important to state, at this juncture, that Amazon has retained a presence in Africa for years. The e-commerce giant has several employees on its payroll working in data hubs located across Cape Town. Notably, the origin of Amazons current expansion into Africa began in 2004 when it set up a development centre in Cape Town. Incidentally, that centre eventually went on to build Amazons first cloud platform, known as the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud which heralded its hugely successful cloud computing arm Amazon Web Services (AWS). Today, AWS is responsible for the lion share of Amazons global operating income.

The firms adventure in Africa is thus intrinsically tied to its long-standing relationship with the South African city of Cape Town, the oldest and second largest city in that country after Johannesburg. As reported by fDi Intelligence, Amazon, in 2000, had gone ahead with plans to hire 3000 customer support staff in Cape Town. In addition, AWS, its cloud business, had plumped for Cape Town to host its first cloud region in Africa. Furthermore, nine of Amazons 19 projects in Africa are located in Cape Town, with five others in Johannesburg. The rest are split between Kenya, Morocco and Egypt.

The foregoing shows Amazon has established its cloud business in parts of the continent. But is it now ready to join the e-commerce race in Africa?

Although still a growing industry, the e-commerce space in Africa has begun to capture the attention and imagination of international investors. Research from Statista indicates that revenue generated via e-commerce in Africa was estimated to be around 27.97 billion U.S dollars in 2020, representing an increase of over $6bn since 2019. Correspondingly, e-commerce revenue in Africa is expected to keep up an upward curve, with estimates projecting the entire e-commerce sector in Africa to reach a value of over $46.1 billion by 2025.

Historically, Amazon is reputed to consider significant expansion into a region only when it becomes commercially viable for its line of business. But despite the fact that the promise of Africa still lies within the realms of potential rather than actuality, e-commerce watchers and analysts are of the view that a budding $46bn market in the next three years or thereabouts is more than enough justification for Amazon to throw its hat into the e-commerce ring.

Stanley Ugboaja, a Ph.D. student and e-commerce enthusiast, captures the prevailing mindset succinctly.

Africas population dynamics naturally makes it a frontier for e-commerce to explode in the next few years. The continent is home to the worlds youngest and second-largest population. Digital literacy and numeracy is also on the rise here, same as internet penetration. Many young Africans are gaining useful exposure, either from flocking abroad for further studies or even from working remotely here for foreign firms or multinationals. When you throw in the rise in the number of fintech platforms further expanding the net of the unbanked and under-banked on the continent, you can see that the trends all tilt towards favourable conditions for e-commerce or online shopping to grow.

So far, on the e-commerce front, Amazon is only present in a solitary African country. That country is Egypt where Souq, an Amazon subsidiary acquired in 2017 for $580m, operates. Souq, initially founded in Dubai, UAE in 2005, was the largest e-commerce platform in the Arab world. With the acquisition by Amazon, the Egyptian site turned into Amazon.eg on September 1, 2021, officially marking the end of Souq.com.

But if, as anticipated, Amazons African adventure will now accommodate playing in the continents major e-commerce markets, Nigeria will be uppermost in its reckoning.

In addition to being Africas most populous nation, Nigeria remains the leading African economy in terms of nominal GDP in 2021, making up 18.4 per cent of the continents $2.7 trillion economy. According to the International Centre for Investigative Reporting (ICIR), Nigerias GDP, which measures how much a country produces in financial terms within a year, grew by 11.89 per cent from 2020 to 2021. Likewise, data from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) revealed that Nigerias GDP went from $429.423 billion in 2020 to $480.482 billion in 2021, making the country the highest contributor to Africas economic output/ GDP and the 29th in the world.

However, cutting it in Nigeria, Africas biggest market, will test the might and resilience of Amazon.

Currently dominated by Konga and Jumia, the Nigerian e-commerce market is a challenging ecosystem that has signaled the death knell of many promising players. Although Amazon especially considering its roaring success in other advanced markets cannot be placed in the same bracket as some of the startups that have quietly exited the market after finding the Nigerian e-commerce space a mountain too hard to climb, it is fitting to call to mind the instructive words of a globally renowned tech leader and Africa Chair for IEEE World Internet of Things (WIoT), Chris Uwaje.

Uwaje, who is widely hailed as the Oracle of the Nigerian IT Industry, had pinpointed the challenge in cracking the Nigerian e-commerce market as one that lies heavily in the approach or business strategy adopted by most players, many of whom fail to situate foreign business models, ideas and strategies within the culture of the people and Nigerias existential realities.

Nigeria remains a fertile business environment, especially for online-focused ventures such as e-commerce companies. It is also a country with peculiar challenges and a very strong traditional approach to retail which requires a deep sense of local know-how and understanding by players. This is one of the biggest hurdles faced by e-commerce start-ups here. Many e-commerce ventures run with foreign concepts and strategies more suited to foreign climes, making it harder for them to survive the difficult terrain that is the Nigerian business space.

But beyond the foregoing, the challenge of making a success out of e-commerce in Nigeria is one that is fraught with huge infrastructural and institutional bottlenecks.

The combination of a frustratingly underdeveloped public transport infrastructure network, absence of a proper addressing system across cities, the still-largely traditional shopping predilection of the average Nigerian and the mega-hurdle of logistics, among others, are not issues that having deep pockets alone or a popular name will solve. During the height of the COVID-19 enforced lockdown, the activities of overzealous state actors saw delivery vans conveying essential items to Nigerians delayed needlessly for days on end, or even sent back in some cases a debacle which almost eroded the gains that accrued from the increased dependence by many Nigerians on e-commerce for safe, contactless shipping during the pandemic and which epitomised the sheer scale of some of the institutional obstacles e-commerce companies may encounter in Nigeria.

Konga, acquired by the Zinox Group from erstwhile majority owners, Naspers and AB Kinnevik, and which has become the first e-commerce company to hit profitability on the continent, may represent a fitting playbook for Amazon to study.

Considering its technology-driven status (a factor that would resonate with Amazon); a revolutionary composite fusion of online and offline which it pioneered and subsequently adopted by other players (including Amazon); the way and manner it has resolved the thorny obstacle of logistics; its massive physical assets strategically located across Nigeria (warehousing, delivery, nationwide physical stores/pick-up locations); penchant for customer service and the confidence it enjoys in the minds of shoppers, among others, Konga stands apart. However, it is in the magic of how it found a way to break the cycle of unprofitability which continues to dog other e-commerce players in Nigeria and Africa transitioning from a business that once posted monthly losses of over N400m to emerging the first profitable African e-commerce venture that Amazon would most admire Konga.

Most importantly, under its new owners, the current management of Konga boasts that keen understanding of successfully navigating the difficult terrain that Africas biggest market represents. It is a strength which has come to weigh heavily in its advantage, making the Konga template arguably the one to beat. Backed by entrepreneurs with over three decades of consistent success in the Sub-Saharan African technology space, Konga has not only thrived where others have failed or are struggling, but the business is now set, as feelers indicate, for a run across other African markets and a much-anticipated listing on major global exchanges, with a glut of external investors waiting.

Succeeding in the continents biggest market, even for a big name like Amazon, may mean seriously considering a partnership with Konga or at least, borrowing a leaf from its strategies.

Amazon would also have to decide if some of the unethical practices it has been accused of would unearth more dire consequences if they were exported to Africa. The e-commerce giant was recently accused of anti-competitive behavior by preventing third-party sellers from offering lower prices for their products on other platforms, including their own websites. The foregoing formed the crux of an antitrust lawsuit filed against Amazon by District of Columbia Attorney General Karl Racine, which was thrown out in court last Friday, according to a report by The New York Times. However, the suit was thrown out partly because Amazon faces a nearly identical lawsuit, in this case, a class action complaint that claims the company pressures sellers into selling products for an equal or lower price than what they offer elsewhere.

Also staring it in the face are allegations of tax avoidance which may land the e-commerce behemoth in hot waters here in Nigeria and elsewhere in Africa. Research reveals that Amazons tax behaviours have been investigated in China, Germany, Poland, South Korea, France, Japan, Ireland, Singapore, Luxembourg, Italy, Spain, United Kingdom, multiple states in the United States, and Portugal. According to a report released by Fair Tax Mark in 2019, Amazon is the best actor of tax avoidance, having paid a 12% effective tax rate between 2010-2018, in contrast with 35% corporate tax rate in the US during the same period. Amazon countered that it had an 24% effective tax rate during the same period.

Africas budding e-commerce lustre may represent an allure too difficult for Amazon to ignore. Nevertheless, it would discover that this ecosystem will tax its wits, determination, and sheer ability to adapt to their very limits.

But in Konga, Amazon can learn from a proven success story.

Tarila Ben-White (Ph.D.), an e-commerce researcher, writes from Bayelsa.

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Amazon will discover e-Commerce in Africa not a tea party - Nairametrics

St. Louis school board races are more political this year – St. Louis Public Radio

At candidate forums and on social media, debates over highly politicized issues, such as masking and how race, history and LGBTQ issues are taught in schools, have dominated some local school board races.

When St. Louis County voters go to the polls on April 5, they will be voting in more contested school board races than in the previous decade, and in some districts, wedge issues have become the focus. Though a number of candidates have said that politics has no place in school board races, groups from both sides of the political divide are creating guides with lists of candidates that align with their viewpoints.

Political debates in education often come in waves, but this is a particularly heated time, said Vladimir Kogan, an associate professor of political science at the Ohio State University.

Whenever educational issues become salient at the national level, the dynamics play out in local elections, because that's what people pay attention to, Kogan said.

Missouri lawmakers have also filed bills that would change the way school board elections are held, by moving them to November or having candidates declare a party. The Missouri School Boards Association has denounced the bills, saying they could make things even more political.

We're very much opposed to that legislation, said Brent Ghan, deputy executive director for the association. We feel that it would create a more partisan atmosphere for school board elections should they be on a November ballot with a lot of other partisan races.

Partisan issues

At a forum in the Rockwood School District in early March, the candidates were divided on issues including health policies and how schools discuss race, history and LGBTQ issues. The room was also physically divided.

But in interviews after the event, most of the candidates said they think the politicization of education has gone too far.

Kayla Drake

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St. Louis Public Radio

I think it's way too political, and we have to figure out how to put something in place to make sure that that's minimal, said Jessica Clark, a candidate for Rockwoods school board whose yard signs include the words Vote Conservative under her name.

Because school boards are elected, they are inherently political, but Ghan said its an issue when boards become mired in partisanship.

We're seeing politics involved in school board races more frequently than we used to, and that's of some concern to us, Ghan said. Sometimes we have groups outside the communities we're seeing that more frequently now that are getting involved in local school board races.

In Missouri, some statewide organizations have been creating lists of candidates that align with their views and sharing them on social media. The Missouri Equity Education Partnership, a grassroots organization that advocates for anti-bias, anti-racist education and has a school board candidate guide. Andy Wells, the Missouri chapter president of No Left Turn in Education, has also shared candidate guides on social media. The national grassroots group advocates against Critical Race Theory, a term that conservatives have applied to a broad range of curricula relating to race and diversity.

The focus on political wedge issues is part of a national effort to win voters in the suburbs, where education issues are particularly salient, said Kogan. Politicians at the national level have also stoked these debates, using rhetoric that inflames already-tense school board races.

President Trump was very divisive in particular, and he had strong opinions on all these issues, Kogan said. I think you have this top-down elite leadership on educational issues, and when you don't have that, you don't see polarization.

National Republican leaders have also spoken openly about this strategy. Steve Bannon, a former adviser to Trump, told Politico the focus on school boards and the fight against critical race theory is, the Tea Party to the 10th power.

But all of this has happened before, Kogan said. In the 1980s, politics was focused on prayer in school. By the early 2000s, the debate had shifted to intelligent design, or how evolution is taught in schools.

I think if you go back really the last 40 years or so, you can find a lot of examples of similar dynamics of whatever the hot issue of the day was, Kogan said.

Election change

In the Missouri legislature, Republicans lawmakers have sponsored bills to move school board elections to November and have candidates declare a party.

The Missouri School Boards Association has voiced its opposition to the proposals, arguing they could deepen the partisan divide over education and make school board elections more political and more expensive.

A November general election ballot is very lengthy; school board races would likely be way down on those ballots and would probably get a lot less attention, Brent Ghan said. They would probably have to raise a lot more money for those campaigns.

Kate Grumke

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St. Louis Public Radio

But some political experts have a different view. Moving the elections to November could increase turnout in the typically low-turnout municipal elections, said Kogan. In St. Louis County last year, about 15% of registered voters weighed in on the election.

Kogan said the current low turnout means special interest groups like teachers unions have greater sway than they would in a higher-turnout election. I think a lot of the opposition to on-cycle elections is really based on that idea, because school interests enjoy a lot of power and don't want to give it up, he said.

Another issue with the way these elections are held is that the April electorate is an older group of voters that doesnt necessarily have kids, Kogan said.

I don't think there's a way to easily change rules to make it less about adults and more about kids because kids don't vote, Kogan said. What you're really talking about is a bunch of adults with adult political agendas, fighting with a bunch of other adults, and they're all claiming that they're doing it for the kids.

Other issues

Despite deepening political divides in some races, not every school district in the St. Louis area is focusing on partisan battles during this years elections. The Normandy Schools Collaborative and Riverview Gardens are directly electing school board candidates for the first time in eight years and 12 years, respectively.

At a recent candidate forum in Normandy, the main topic of discussion was how to improve the districts academics in order to return to fully accredited status. Candidates repeatedly said this years elections are historic after years of state control.

Its those types of issues that make these elections so important, Ghan said.

The decisions that school boards make have more of an impact on our communities and on people's lives and our children's lives than almost any other level of government, he said. People need to pay close attention to school board races and the folks who are running for local school boards.

Follow Kate on Twitter: @Kate Grumke

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St. Louis school board races are more political this year - St. Louis Public Radio

Who is Sarah Palin and her children?… – The US Sun

SARAH Palin gained international renown for her Republican fervor and her controversial views as well as her offspring.

Get to know who Palin is and what has she been up to since she went for the vice presidency.

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Sarah Palin is a high-profile Republican Party politician, author and commentator.

The outspoken 58-year-old served as the ninth governor of Alaska from 2006 until 2009.

She gained international prominence as the vice-presidential nominee on the Republican Party ticket in 2008.

The conservative politician teamed up with Arizona Senator John McCain but eventually lost to Barack Obama.

She was the first Alaskan on the national ticket of a major political party and the first Republican woman selected as the vice presidential candidate.

The mother-of-five was also the youngest person ever to be elected Governor of Alaska.

Since quitting the role in 2009, Palin has continued to campaign for and endorse the Republican Party.

She is well-known in the Tea Party movement and has given her backing to a number of Republican candidatesincluding former President Donald Trump.

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1982: Joined the Republican Party

1992: Elected onto Wasilla City Council

1996: Successfully ran as Mayor of Wasilla on the ticket of introducing abortion, gun rights, and term lengths as campaign issues

1997: Re-elected with a far greater majority

1999: Elected president of the Alaska Conference of Mayors

2002: Palin run for the Republican nomination for lieutenant governor, coming second in a five-way primary

2003: Appointed to the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission

2006: Palin became Alaska's first female governor and the youngest at 42

2007: The first time Palin traveled outside of North America. She visited members of the Alaskan National Guard

2008: Joined Senator McCain as the Republican vice-presidential nominee

2009: Reacting to a huge drop in support, Palin said she would not run for re-election

2009: Released her memoir, Going Rogue

2010: Published her second book, America by Heart

2011: Following speculation, Palin said she would not be running as a presidential candidate

2016: Announced her endorsement of Donald Trump

2017: Filed a defamation lawsuit (later dismissed) against The New York Times for an editorial that accused Palin of "political incitement" in the run-up to the 2011 shooting of Democratic congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords.

April 2018:Palin says she would run for higher office again "in a heartbeat"

August 2021: Palin teases a return to politics in a potential Senate run in 2022

Sarah Palin has five children: Track, Bristol, Willow, Piper, and Trig.

Track is an army veteran and has two children from two different partners. Sarah Palin spoke about how he had suffered from PTSD.

Bristol Palin is a reality TV star and an American public speaker. She has three children and is married to Sergeant Dakota Meyer.

She gained media attention when her mother, Sarah Palin, mentioned her pregnancy as part of her vice-presidential campaign.

The following year, in May 2009, Palin appeared on both the Today show and Good Morning America in recognition of the National Day to Prevent Teen Pregnancy, calling for all teens to abstain from sex.

Her memoir, Not Afraid of Life: My Journey So Far reached #21 on the New York Times best-seller list.

Willow Meyer is a trained hairdresser and announced she is pregnant with a baby boy on November 7, 2021. The couple gave birth to a boy named, Pace Banner Bailey, in March 2022.

Willow and her husband Ricky Bailey welcomed twin girls Banks and Blaise in November 2019.

Piper is currently pursuing nursing school and Trig is in high school.

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Who is Sarah Palin and her children?... - The US Sun