This Is Very Scary!

This is mob rule!

A small but very vocal minority is terrorizing others into doing their bidding.

Protesters shut down Dearborn school board meeting over LGBTQ books
Detroit Free Press
By Niraj Warikoo
October 11, 2022


Hundreds of protesters packed a Dearborn Public Schools board meeting this week and shut it down with cries of anger over certain LGBTQ books they said are too sexually explicit for children. And now, some community leaders anxiously await a rescheduled meeting set for Thursday night as others call for calm.

A heavy police presence failed to prevent the Monday night meeting from descending into chaos as demonstrators took it over and then various factions within them jostled for control, shouting at each other. Protesters often ignored the requests of police officers to stop interrupting board members.

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Not until Dearborn Police Chief Issa Shahin arrived later did the protesters stop their agitation. Shahin pleaded with the crowd to relax and not embarrass Dearborn. There was concern expressed by some community leaders that the protesters are making the city and its Arab American Muslim population look bad. But others said that as Muslims, they have to stand up for their faith.

It is fundamentalist who want everyone to believe what they believe… “My god is a god of love and peace and I’ll beat you until you believe it.”

I fear for the board members. I fear for the town. I fear for the country. We are spiraling down into anarchy.

"What happened tonight at the school board meeting in Dearborn is very embarrassing and is totally rejected," Osama Siblani, publisher of the Dearborn-based Arab American News and a longtime community leader, wrote on Facebook. "Remember that the loss of any individual's right to express himself/herself is the beginning of the end of all people's rights ... Remember that Islam is a religion of love, peace and tolerance, not a religion of insults, violence and threats."

The tension increased and the room got angrier…

"Some of those books are completely inappropriate for our children to read," Al-Qazwini said. "Some of those books promote pornography. Some of them promote homosexuality. We don't need this. Go and attend this meeting."

For them anything LGBTQ is considered pornographic. You wonder how many actually read the books  or is it that their religious leaders told them that it was therefore it is. And just don’t pin this on Muslims only there are also evangelical Christians who feel and act the same way.

There were some brave teachers that stood up to the tyranny.

Wearing red, AFT union members and leaders who attended the meeting released a joint statement that supported the books, saying: "Everyone believes that our schools and classrooms should be safe, welcoming, and supportive environments that are free from discrimination and bullying of any kind. ... and that includes young people who identity as LGBTQ. Having resources and books in our classrooms and libraries that speak to the diversity of our students and the broader world we share is critical to providing a quality and supportive education."

Then there was a single gay man with a poster…

Brian Stone, who is part of the LGBTQ community, attended the meeting with a poster that displayed two photos next to each other: the one on the left said "1957" with a photo of whites screaming in anger at a Black woman, Hazel Bryan, attending a school in Little Rock, Arkansas that was integrated for the first time; the photo on the right said "2022," with a photo of a man with an angry face giving the middle finger to Sam Smalley, a transgender person who was a counter-protester, at the Sept. 25 rally at the library against the books.

We are descending into anarchy. We are descending into fascism.

This is only one city, but cities and towns across the country are seeing this type of anger, from armed protesters at a drag queen reading to town elections, but their anger is not just directed at us but all those who are different! Right-wing agitators are stirring up people against those who believe in a different god, against those who have slanted eyes or their skin color is different, or they speak a different language, or who love and identify differently. And they yell "Religious Freedom!"

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A week from today I will be giving a lecture at a local college for a class in public heath, I have been giving the class now for close to ten years for the same teacher, so I will doing a rehearse every day until the lecture.

And I have to wonder, how long before someone complains about me?

When I was in grad school, someone in one of the classes was very anti-LGBTQ+ and dropped out of school because it was a “bastion of liberals,” the question that we the students asked ourselves was can a social worker be a racist? Can a social worker by homophobic and transphobic?

How long before someone questions the professor about me or organizations like the Stonewall Speakers?.