Photo via u/bunnyhugger75/Reddit
September 3, 2021, 1:51 pm
Yet another video of a school board meeting going completely off the rails thanks to right-wing anti-maskers and COVID-deniers getting up to the microphone to say some of the most bonkers things you’ve ever heard is currently being upvoted on Reddit, predictably on its “Public Freakout” forum. This clip comes from a CNN report on a meeting in Florida where the caption says that fists flew, but unfortunately doesn’t show anything except a lineup of bug-eyed people spouting conspiracy theories and falsehoods about COVID-19 and school mask mandates.
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“The people of this state and this district are rising up and you have awakened a sleeping beast,” says the first woman in the clip, which is probably the most accurate thing to be heard in the 62 seconds found here.
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Though the school board meeting was supposed to be on the subject of the district mask mandate, something many school districts are re-implementing as COVID-19 cases and deaths surge across the nation, some of those who got up to speak took the time to argue that COVID isn’t even a serious problem.
“Maybe the reason why we have people in the hospital is all this mask-wearing,” asked one woman in a barely-contained fury. “Did we ever think of that? Did we ever think of that?”
We’re no doctors, but we’re pretty sure hospitals do think to write down the reason that people are admitted into the hospital, and none of those recorded reasons have included “all this mask-wearing.” Unless a nationwide conspiracy involving all U.S. hospitals have somehow covered up every case of mask-related illness, there have been no reported cases of someone becoming dangerously sick from wearing a simple face mask.
Somehow, this was not the most absurd thing to be said at this one school board meeting.
“I want to talk about the real pandemic: Child sex trafficking,” said one man. “By putting masks on the kids’ face, you can’t identify any of them.”
Conspiracy theories over child sex trafficking are at the core of the “movement” known as QAnon, which states that Democrats and other world leaders are operating a demonic underground trafficking network that also involves cannibalism, and somehow Donald Trump is going to put an end to it. There is a lot of overlap between QAnon and anti-masker, anti-vaxxer, and COVID-denier groups and theories, and the combination tends to result in bizarre statements like “nobody can recognize a child from the top half of their face alone.”
Next up was a woman who just went straight to accusing the entire school board of hating all children, practically making a freestyle rap about it.
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“They don’t care about your children. As a matter of fact, they hate them,” she said before slipping into an unheard beat. “They hate your kids, they hate my kids, they hate your kids, they hate my kids.”
The final woman featured in the clip seemed to accuse the school board of performing illegal medical experiments on school children, on top of trafficking and generally hating them, because medical experts have sometimes changed their minds about certain things based on new information.
“Science and laws shouldn’t be changing so fast,” she said. “Has Nuremberg taught us nothing of medical tyranny in the past?
This woman was presumably referring to the Nuremberg trials in which Nazi leaders were prosecuted for crimes against humanity, including cruel and horrifying medical experiments on prisoners. These experiments were all much worse on their victims than the slight shortness of breath and straplines caused by having to wear a mask for a few hours at a time.
School board meetings being overrun with people like this, some of which don’t have any children in the district, as part of a specific and targeted campaign to change local policy at this low but very important level. The harassment, threats, and sure absurdity endured by board members is taking its toll as they begin to resign from their posts en masse, opening up spots for far-right individuals including actual white supremacists to run for so that they can promote their own agendas.
“Teachers need hazard pay there,” reads one of the top comments on the Reddit post.
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Not just there, either.
*First Published: September 3, 2021, 1:51 pm
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