What's Next, Los Angeles? with Mike Bonin
Los Angeles is at a turning point. We are living in a defining moment. What happens next is up to us. Over the past few years, problems and challenges have shaken this city -- and tremendous opportunities for change have presented themselves. How do we rise to this moment and emerge a better place to live? What will it take to create a more just and a more equitable community? Working together, how are we going to create a stronger, forward-thinking Los Angeles? Mike Bonin, writer, teacher, progressive activist and former City Councilmember, looks at the issues and problems facing Los Angeles, examines ideas, and talks with the people who will lead us to a brighter future.
Produced in partnership with LA Forward.
What's Next, Los Angeles? with Mike Bonin
Anti-LGBTQ+ Hate Groups Target Glendale Schools
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You've seen the waves of anti-LGBTQ+ hate in Florida and other places, but did you know it is happening right here in Greater Los Angeles? For the past few years, anti-LGBTQ+ hate has been growing, thanks to the influence of Proud Boys, J6 insurrectionists, and right-wing provocateurs with groups like LibsofTikTok and Gays Against Groomers. And now, two of the leaders of the anti-LGBTQ+ movement, which has been terrorizing parents, students, teachers and school officials, are running for seats on the Glendale School Board.
In this episode, Mike talks about what has happened over the past few years with parent Angie Givant, teacher Alicia Harris and LGBTQ+ activist and GUSD alum Erik Adamian. And then later in the show, Angie and Alicia will join me to talk about the dynamics and the particulars of the school board race.
Further Information
GUSD Parents for Public Schools website
GUSD Parents for Public Schools twitter
GALAS LGBTQ+ Armenian Society
WNLA: Who is Really Behind the Anti-LGBTQ+ protests in LA? (June 12, 2023)
Guardian: ‘Chaos campaign’: how an Armenian enclave became the center of an anti-LGBTQ+ battle
Daily Beast: How Far-Right Extremists Are Targeting Pro-LGBT Schools
Glendale News-Press: Advocates Denounce Hate Speech, Harassment Across GUSD
The Real Jordan Henry: Extremist in Glendale
The Real Aneta Krpekyan
What's Next, Los Angeles? is produced and hosted by Mike Bonin, in partnership with LA Forward.
Hi everybody and welcome to another episode of What's Next Los Angeles. This is Mike Vaughn. Thank you so much for joining me. Picture this for a moment. Outside a school board meeting in a small city, hundreds of protesters clashed, some violently. The crowd includes Proud Boys and January 6th insurrectionists from out of town. Police are in riot gear, helicopters are overhead, eventually arrests are made. This is the result of a controversy fabricated and pumped up by the right wing, stirring up bigotry and hate towards the LGBTQ community. It's dividing residents and neighbors and families. In the months that follow, teachers and school board members and administrators are called groomers and pedophiles on social media. Some even receive death threats. Posters are plasted around the city accusing teachers of being groomers. Video clips and documents are circulated highlighting the names, the photographs, and even the spouses of members of local LGBTQ plus groups. This did not happen in Florida. This did not happen in Texas. This did not happen in some conservative small town somewhere. This happened, in fact, this is happening right here in deep blue Los Angeles County. In Glendale, the idyllic community that is home to the Americana at Brand, to DreamWorks Animation, and to Forest Lawn Memorial. Yeah, it's happening right here in our own backyards. And it is ugly. And now some of the leaders of the anti-LGBTQ campaigns are running for office in Glendale. We'll get into that aspect later in the show in a second segment. But first, since way too few people are paying attention to what's been going on in Glendale, we're going to get into that here and we're going to discuss what's happening. We're going to talk about what's at risk and who's really behind it. And for that discussion, I'm joined by three people who are on the ground and in the thick of it living this scary reality. A parent, a teacher, and an LGBTQ activist. And so I'm going to ask them to join me now and to introduce themselves. And Angie, why don't we start with you?
SPEAKER_02Hi there. I'm Angie Gavant, and I'm a parent in GUSD and an organizer with GUSD Parents for Public Schools.
SPEAKER_03Alicia.
SPEAKER_01First, thank you, Mike, for having us. Yes, I am Alicia Harris, and this is my 25th year as a social studies educator in Glendale Unified School District. I also at BiSchool, where I teach, am one of the co-GSA Gender Sexuality Alliance advisors. And I'm also proudly one of the co-founders of a LGBTQ Plus organization, community organization called Glendale Out.
SPEAKER_00And Eric. Hi, Mike. Thank you so much for having me. My name is Eric Adamien. I use he, him pronouns, and I'm the president of board of directors of Gallus, LGBTQ Plus Armenian Society. And my background is in LGBTQ history, inclusion, and education. Gallus was founded in 1998 by a group of LGBTQ Armenians who were looking for community and support. We're a nonprofit 501c3 organization that does not endorse or oppose political candidates for public office. It's such a pleasure to be here to talk about my personal experience and Gallus' involvement in providing resources to our beloved community.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, thanks all of you for being here. The story is probably new to most listeners, but it's certainly not new to you. Alicia and Angie and Eric, you and students and teachers and parents have been living this for a couple years now. And I I want to excavate the story as much as we can. But I want to start with the demonstrations last summer, because that got a little bit of attention outside of Glendale, certainly not nearly enough. Alicia, why don't we start with you?
SPEAKER_01Sure. So June 6th, you know, is the day. And so at a meeting prior to June 6th, I'm not gonna go too far back, but was sort of the um the swastika moment that we may get into. And this was a really pivotal moment within all of this. Knowing how things got it particularly heated at this May meeting, there was a group of teachers, activists anticipating that the June meeting, recognizing that um pride would be recognized by the school board, that the June meeting was gonna get ugly. That said, this group of folks, Glendale out, teachers within the Glendale Teachers Association, extraordinary parents like Angie, wonderful activists like Eric, we initially, you know, thought, how can we be the bigger people, the better people, not the not the screaming, the yelling. And so we had this concept of quote, the big hug, the big hug. It was lovely. It feels a little naive now, but it was lovely. And we did the big hug. But so arriving to the school board, which I've been many times, it's my place of employment at a certain level. I'm it's just it's just wild. It is just a scene. And the first thing I note, just to speak of how orchestrated this is, is a big kiosk of MAGA merchandise and Blue Lives Matter, shirts, and all of this. So you just kind of understand that something has convened in our community that is bigger than the issue at hand, right? So, okay, this is gonna be different. And get into the parking lot, and very soon you begin to kind of have these two groups gathering. And so you've got the anti-LGBTQ folks and those that are standing for our students and inclusivity and everything, and gathering and people kind of moving towards each other again, kind of ugly. Police set up what I call a big slinky to kind of separate the groups, and it's just yelling and ugly. Um, we do pull off the big hug and saying, you know, love is love, and you know, trying to um elevate that message above the screaming and the pedophile and the groomer and all of the madness. I will share that when there begins to be kind of a movement outside of the area with the police and kind of moving, not staying on side, so to speak, with the slinky, I left. It was just clearly like I am getting in my car. And as I'm getting in my car, there are then helicopters overhead, and I got home as soon as I could. I mean, that was sort of my experience with it. But it was it was, I mean, ultimately, then I get home and it's on television, and it was a a riot, and there were arrests, and as you as you noted, you know, in Los Angeles, right? In Los Angeles.
SPEAKER_03And and take me in into that moment. What were people shouting and how aggressive were they towards uh the the sort of pro-LGBT community and and and supporters?
SPEAKER_01Well, when Eric speaks, he may have more because there was definitely very, very directed harassment at the the Gallus folks. But generally you're hearing a lot of groomers and their their mantra of leave our kids alone, pedophiles. But you know, this is when you begin the groomer, the pedophile. Teach reading, not sex. It just, you know, all this just like kind of mishigas that's being said.
SPEAKER_00So, Eric, what was your experience? To provide an accurate account of what's how we got there, how the Gallus community and our allies got there on the day, I have to back up a little bit and provide a little bit of context on this. So we were made aware of anti-LGBTQ plus sentiment rising in Glendale Unified and the surrounding school districts at this point for a couple of years. So over the last year or so, I will say that we got a lot more concerns about uh LGBTQ plus um students, if you will, and their safety and the safety of the allies. And um it has it had been on Gallus' radar for um more than a year at this point. We were made aware of a protest that was going to take place in Satakoi Elementary in North Hollywood, and uh the local queer activists in North Hollywood were organizing around this, and they said it would be really great if Gallus participates in this. And that's the day that myself and a few other queer Armenian um activists went to Satakoy Elementary. This was the weekend before, it was the Friday before the June 6th protest at Glendale Unified. And um that was the first time, at least I'll speak for myself, that was the first time that I was witnessing such a display of hatred towards LGBTQ uh people in person on such on a topic that um it was mind-boggling to think about at the time of what they were saying. It still is mind-boggling, just to be clear. But uh after seeing this protest take place, um the activists and myself, we were alarmed about what was going to happen in Glendale the following week. Now I want to be clear that Glendale Unified School District has a personal connection for a lot of folks, regardless of currently if they're living there or not. I will speak for myself that on the day of the June 6th um protest at um GUSD building, I was being dropped off at the building, and I realized that the last time that I was personally there was when I had first arrived in uh Los Angeles from Iran. And I was going to take my placement tests. This was my second visit there, and that was a very strange moment for me because I knew that I'm showing up to advocate for who I am and who the amazing LGBTQ Armenian community is that's been growing and becoming uh stronger and stronger over the years. But the context in which this was happening was awful. It's something that we didn't expect would happen in 2023 in Los Angeles. So we got there and um we had organized specifically with the plan to go speak at the board meeting and express our support for Glendale teachers like Alicia and like a lot of other teachers that I personally had the pleasure of getting to know when I was in high school in Glendale. And ultimately to advocate for the safety and well-being of students, queer or allied, uh Armenian, everybody. We made it inside the building. Of course, as Alicia was uh referencing earlier, there were a lot of statements that were being thrown at us, and people were saying all sorts of nonsense. And uh we made it inside, I spoke, a lineup of different LGBTQ and allied folks spoke at the meeting, and we were able to hold it down inside. Now, outside of the building was a completely different story, as Alicia has um talked about.
SPEAKER_03I gotta imagine you you and I grew up a continent apart, decades apart, but we both grew up as uh gay kids in the closet in uh conservative ethnic communities. Uh I just remember you know I would hear people use slurs sort of in an offhand playground environment, right? Man, what a horrifying thing to actually hear people shouting them intentionally, angrily, you designed to do damage and instill fear and hate. That that's gonna be horrible. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it was awful. And as I said, this sort of overt hatred for LGBTQ folks was very strange to witness in Los Angeles County. Um now, this is not to say that discrimination uh does not happen in LA County and that uh all LGBTQ folks are safe and sound all the time, but this sort of just yelling all sorts of slurs and just hatred at us was very alarming and strange, and it causes you to question why is this happening? I know Alicia referenced to this earlier that we realized quickly that this is much bigger than us, that this is not just a bunch of angry parents yelling things. And it was a very organized effort. Um that was evidenced through the symbols that we would we would see around the uh around the GUSD building and the type of you know, really I use this word very cautiously, but yeah, I'm just gonna say organized. That's what it that's what it looked like. And that's what it was, and that's what it is. Yeah. And I'll just leave it there.
SPEAKER_03And Angie, where were you when when this was happening?
SPEAKER_02I was just a couple of blocks away. Um I'd agreed, uh I had had to agree uh to my partner that I wasn't going to attend in person on June 6th because of um the meeting that Alicia alluded to back in April, um, which I don't know how much we want to get into it, but um, it was what I consider the inflection point that led to June 2nd and June 6th, and also had been at that point almost exactly two years in the making. Um but at that meeting I was aware of the escalating um rhetoric, the specific targeting of um several administrators in the district and the retargeting and amplification of targeting of specific teachers. Alicia's one of them. Um and um I was monitoring online as um a group of some parents in the district, primarily people who are not parents in the district, were organizing for the April meeting. Um and so I planned to go and speak in support of inclusive education, access for all families, and in defense of the teachers and the administrators who were being, you know, really viciously defamed. Um when I arrived at that meeting, it was the most packed meeting that I'd attended. It was standing room only. And when I walked into the room, I saw a man holding a swastika. And sitting next to him was the person who was the organizer or the lead agitator of GUSD Parents' Voices. Um I won't speak about his political career right now, but um they were sitting together. I didn't know the man that was holding a swastika, but it was like a kick in the stomach. I'd actually, fortunately in my life, I'd never been in a space where a swastika was displayed by a person. Um, unfortunately, I've been in several since because I think it's becoming normalized, but I was so immediately horrified by it that in something that's not my nature, I actually yelled out about it in the room because I was also aware that it was Yom Hashoa. Um, it was the day that we acknowledge the Jewish victims of the Holocaust. And I knew that walking into the room, and I saw that sign, and I I yelled out, you know, we can't have a swastika in the room. There are children here. This is totally inappropriate. There was already a police presence. And when I called attention to the sign, the whole room, the meeting hadn't started yet. People all shifted, they looked at that meeting. I had planned to speak about the rhetoric that I was seeing online, which I consider to be eliminationist rhetoric, um, the denial of trans individuals, the rejection of the possibility of trans youth, um, you know, more overt calls for violence. And I was extremely disturbed by them. I remained extremely disturbed by them. I spoke in at the meeting, and I used the phrase, and I still I stand by the phrase, I use the phrase the language of genocide. Um and I think I was accurate in describing the rhetoric that we see online as a precursor to you know acts that are meant to eliminate a people. And I've never felt a room turn on me in the way that about half the room turned on me. Um I was followed out of that meeting afterwards. I was very, very grateful that there were um people, there was a strong teachers union presence at that meeting, I should say. Um members of Gwendell Out were there, one of whom made sure that I was safe as I was leaving. But at the same time, Prager U was there with the media team. Um they were documenting, they followed me, they recorded me, they've put out video. I've declined to be interviewed, but there's video with um reference to what I said, my voice. So at that, when I realized that they were there, when I felt that reaction, I had to promise to my family that I wasn't gonna go in person to the meeting because it actually didn't feel safe. Um my video, the video of my public comment was posted online um the next day. My uh my husband was identified. Um, you know, all of the things that people have mentioned, the slurs about grooming, you know, the the things that they use because they don't know about my identity or my sexuality, you know, they say, well, she could never be a parent. Or they say, oh, she must be a communist teacher. You know, there's all of these things. I couldn't just be a parent who cares.
SPEAKER_03I I'm curious, uh Alicia and Eric, what sort of what what sort of vitriol have have you faced as a result of of this issue and your involvement?
SPEAKER_01Well, I'll go back a little bit. Um so really the the ringleader of this um he came on the scene during the pandemic, actually, as far as I recall. And at that time, his concern was, you know, his understanding of CRT, right? All of this anti-CRT, anti-CRT. And um, he would just, you know, every Zoom meeting get on and blah, blah, blah. And he had started all of these Freedom of Information Act requests to dig up whatever he was seeking to find about teachers and administrators. Um at that time, of course, you know, no one was, we weren't seeing the writing on the wall. We weren't seeing, you know, what this was really a part of. And I recall the superintendent at the time asked the union president, who happened to be a social studies teacher, if he could ask a few other social studies teachers to speak about how do we actually teach about the Be it race relations or civil rights movements, you know, like basically how we don't do what they believe to be CRT is not that actual CRT is anything bad. What do we do? And I agreed, okay, I'll say something. And admittedly, I I you know, I poked the bear, I was a little sassy in my comments, and that made me um immediately a target. The next day, um, this guy made a whole YouTube video about me, and I just sort of became a target. And so I don't actually recall then how I went from, you know, commie, I hate white people, viewers at home, I'm a white person. Um, you know, whatever. How I went from that to him then knowing of my connection and advocacy and allyship with the LGBTQ community, but it it happened. So and I so I already was on his radar, I already sort of perhaps was low-hanging fruit. Um so the the vitriol has come in the form of I'm very popular, so to speak, on this, you know, this hateful Instagram page, um, mentioned a lot on various local and national, right, very, very, very far right wing podcasts, um, YouTube. Um, my name will be brought up in their, you know, spewing of nonsense during the school board meetings. Um, before school began, there were these posters, kind of like uh look like wanted posters, groomer alert, and these were up and down, you know, Brand Boulevard, which is really kind of the main drag, so to speak, in Glendale. And my picture was on one of those.
SPEAKER_03Um other teachers as well.
SPEAKER_01Um, all the school board members, and a number of teachers as well as advocates, you know, um activists in the community. So, you know, that that has been the you know, the means of of attack. It just, you know, defamation, um, real willful ignorance, because this isn't about getting to any sort of truth, and you know, so but that those have those have been the the primary tactics again. Social media via again, Instagram, YouTube, um, these, you know, uh crazy podcasts.
SPEAKER_03It it's it's shocking how far and how fast this stuff spreads. Yeah. Right? I mean, I I got some right-wing attacks when I was in office, and all of a sudden I'd be getting stuff from Virginia and New Jersey, and it it it has a nationwide distribution.
SPEAKER_02Can I can I speak to that just for one moment? Because I think it's something that people don't realize if you're not if you're not in that information bubble. And even I think hearing Alicia describe the very real, um, targeted and persistent harassment, it's it's I think hard to understand it because it sounds like, oh, they're doing posts online, they're making hosts. What you know, that doesn't matter or something. But there is um an amplification network that is um it's 365 degrees. It includes everything from the relatively mainstream media like Fox News. Not that I believe that that's mainstream, but you know, something that everybody knows to extremely far right fringe talk radio shows, YouTube shows they're banned from YouTube, they're on Rumble, they're on Telegram, there are networks that have the ability to reach millions of people very, very quickly that these local groups have weaponized. And you can see it in how they post and who they tag in. They have, you know, they have viral accounts that are now more well known, like libs of TikTok, like gays against groomers, and those are the go-tos. Matt Walsh, there's all kinds of people who will take a local story and amplify it to millions of people. So when, you know, when a teacher is being attacked, even though it's baseless and substanceless, it becomes grist for this mill of transphobia. It becomes like part of that constant cycle that's being put out there and convincing people that there is, you know, this secret network of communist teachers transing children.
SPEAKER_03Eric, uh, what has your experience been? I'm I'm assuming that your name has been mentioned or tagged in some of the stuff that has gone national and global.
SPEAKER_00It has. I will say that um after showing up to the June 6th protest, all of a sudden, I'm under radar. And I'm on the radar not only for being there as a representative of Gallus and the work that we do, but also as somebody who quote unquote worked with GUSD years ago on um providing professional development opportunities to teachers in accordance with the Fair Education Act in California around teaching LGBTQ history. So for many of the people who were on the side of the agitators, I was almost a perfect target to attack. Um there were multiple social media campaigns around um getting my sound bites from different interviews or just googling my name and finding out, and basically putting everything that they would find on these videos and everything that they were posting, which also welcomed thousands of really, really disheartening and nasty and dangerous comments under them. Um as a result of these multiple campaigns that were carried out, I had to reconsider my own safety, and I had to take some measures around that. Now I want to mention that I was targeted personally, but I wasn't the only person who was targeted. There were many people who were a part of these campaigns, and my heart specially goes out to all of the Gallus community members and allied LGBTQ community members who may not be in a public speaking position. However, this signaled to them that now they certainly there's much more at stake if they choose to speak out about this.
SPEAKER_03Sure. But the the target's always not just the target, it's also anybody else who who might consider getting engaged.
SPEAKER_00Yep. By association, yes. And um that has been the extent, that was the extent of it during summer. And then Gallus um celebrated its 25th anniversary with a beautiful and successful and very large gala in Glendale. And there were some campaigns that were carried out after that as well, targeted towards how Gallus is um quote unquote desecrating Armenian culture and identity and targeting many of the people who were in attendance at the gala and what was being performed there. And somehow Gallus's program at the gala became a topic of discussion for parents in Glendale Unified. Um and it's all been very surreal. It's all been very disheartening to witness. I know I keep using that word, but at the core of it is that. And personally, I will say that the comments that were the most hurtful to me were the ones that would mention, oh, he's not Armenian, we don't claim him. Whereas in my activism on behalf of Gallus and showing up in different places, I've shown up not only as an LGBTQ person, but as an Iranian-Armenian person. And I've been very loud about it because it's all parts of my identity, and that's how I've wanted to show up. So the vitriol people can say whatever they want to say. Um however, there are certain comments and things that are mentioned among these um claims that they make that carry a really deep emotional wound for a lot of us, especially in the Armenian LGBTQ community.
SPEAKER_03Aaron Powell, I think it's really important for for listeners to understand some of the context is that Glendale is home to one of the largest Armenian communities in the country. It's a huge part of the Armenian diaspora. I think about 40% or more of the Glendale population is of Armenian heritage, and of all sorts. I mean, some families rooted to the area since like the 1890s, and many families having arrived fairly recently. In a lot of the early and even some of the later news reports, many media outlets reported that what was happening in Glendale last summer was a clash between the gay community and woke school officials on one hand and Armenian parents worried about their kids being indoctrinated into some scary gay agenda on the other hand. I know because I've looked into this and done some podcasting on it, the reality is very, very different. Um can you tell us about that and what what's really driving this?
SPEAKER_00If all of this is a clash between the queer community and the Armenian community, then what are LGBTQ plus Armenians? Are we just not there because we are? There's a lot of us. And the way that media treated the issue in the beginning, it was nothing short of playing into racist stereotypes about Armenian communities. Now, as a member of the a very proud member of the Armenian community and specifically the LGBTQ plus Armenian community, reading what the media was putting out about it was maddening in many ways because it felt like not only are we being targeted by our own people, by the Armenian community, which were certainly a part of the agitators, are a part of the agitators, but also we were being dismissed by everybody else that is not Armenian, and they may be even supportive of LGBTQ folks, but we were being continuously erased from the narrative. And the larger implications of this is um essentially an affirmation of the same racist narratives that Armenians have been targeted with historically, and equally as large is the suggestion that LGBTQ plus Armenians are essentially non-existent in the narrative. Yeah. So it was very, very important, and it is very, very important for LGBTQ Armenians and our wonderful allies. I need to mention that because it's not only LGBTQ plus Armenians who are fighting for themselves, it's also a lot of wonderful Armenian allies and LGBTQ allies who are helping us, who are there to support, who are raising uh their voice. Now, it might be a uh growing minority at the moment, but I know that in many ways Gallus and the work that we do with our amazing um volunteers and board of directors is leading the charge on um changing the narrative around what it's what it um what what are we exactly as the Armenian community? Um where do our values lie? Because I can tell you with every confidence that bigotry and hatred and discrimination against one another is not and will never be an Armenian value.
SPEAKER_03Aaron Ross Powell Uh when I first started paying attention to the story last summer, I did a podcast episode that I'll put in the the the show description where I talked to three independent journalists who had been at Satikoy, who had been at Glendale. And while there were clearly some Armenian parents there, uh there were, as they reported, tons of people from outside of Glendale. People who didn't have kids in the system, people who didn't have kids, period. There were people from Bakersfield, there were people from San Diego. Uh as I mentioned in the top of the show, they were January 6th insurrectionists, they were Proud Boys. I know, Angie, you've actually done some research into a lot of the the connecting pieces here, and it's a lot deeper and broader and goes back a ways. Can you talk a little bit about that?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, absolutely. Um, and you know, just to echo Eric, um you know, the the ways that queer Armenians were erased, you know, Armenian families who are inclusive and accepting and not part of the LGBTQ community were also erased. And queer families and queer parents were erased by those narratives. Um, it was as though there were not, you know, thousands of parents who were concerned about the attacks on our schools by anti-trans extremists. Those concerns were never centered. It was always the concerns that were based on lies about curriculum, lies about teachers. So I just I needed to say that because um, you know, there was so much erasure and the queer Armenians were the most targeted. But we also saw our Armenian friends and parent organizers who then fell into that category of recognizing that because of their Armenian identity, if they spoke out as allies, they would be even more viciously targeted. So, you know, and all of this came out of a coordinated and targeted attack that, as Alicia mentioned, began years before. And um, you know, we know now, and there's there's increasingly good reporting now on the national strategy to attack public schools. There are documented instances, and those take the form of playbooks published by organizations like the Heritage Foundation, their Heritage Action Network, um, Turning Point USA, the um Alliance Defending Freedom. Each of these are national, incredibly well-funded think tanks and policy organizations that even those kind of framings don't quite uh encompass everything that they do. Um, but they started to publish training materials for parents. This is how you go to your school board, these are the things to look out for. This is how you um request public records. And while the initial target was, you know, critical race theory, that wasn't very successful. Um, it wasn't successful nationally, although there were you know policy implications. And even in Southern California, Temecula does have a ban against critical race theory in their school district currently. Um, so I can't say that it wasn't successful, but it was a it was more difficult to catch for people, I think. And we saw in real time as the pivot to LGBTQ and specifically trans identities happened. And then this pivot happened, and it happened partially because of this media, this social media and media ecosystem I described, but ultimately because of the targeted efforts of enormous um organizations that operate at a national level but are nimble enough to have um partner organizations and kind of webs of nonprofits, things that are really difficult to actually track. And I'm aware that when I start talking about it, it sounds like a conspiracy theory.
SPEAKER_00Eric, do you want to I don't know if you're not totally, yeah. I wanted to just add on to what you were saying, Angie, that um it is definitely become more and more apparent to us that this is an organized effort across the country, and we've been in communication with different groups from across the United States, and um they are experiencing identical things. So here in Los Angeles we see the Armenian um community being used essentially as as for this purpose, and in other places, you know, in insert instead of Armenian Arab communities, Muslim communities, um, and yeah, that's it's an example.
SPEAKER_02It's an explicit yes. And it and that is, I mean, the experience of recognizing those parallels is um it is the evidence of what was put out in in playbooks, um, in conferences that you know we have seen recordings of in speeches where um you know they recognized that playing only to conservative white Christians who often get the attention as being the people who hold these views, um, that they don't have the voting power. So, and and they also that doesn't play well in the mainstream because they do already have you know problematic racist histories on the right. Um, so they very cleverly and you know with not a lot of secrecy put out that they really needed conservative communities of um who didn't look just like white Christians. And in the Los Angeles area, there are Spanish language newspapers, those have had heavy, heavy buy-ins for op-eds and you know, paid content that advances these narratives. The same with the Armenian language papers and Armenian media platforms. Um it's deliberate, it is playing on you know biases that exist in every community, but it's weaponizing them and it is using a narrative of you know, they're coming for your culture. You know, it's something that it's it's understandable that you know, groups who are new to the country, right, who might be already marginalized, might already feel afraid that their culture they might lose their culture. It's not an irrational fear.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, it's it's manipulation.
SPEAKER_02Yep. And and the ultimate, unfortunately, the thing that is missing from all of this is that these same groups who are being used put forward as the face of this movement, even if they got everything that they think that they want in terms of curriculum changes, the the changes to the funding of public education, the changes to access and equity and equality would disproportionately impact those communities.
SPEAKER_03Sure. Yep. And well, and part of the agenda too is under is of the right is undermine faith in the public school system altogether. D disinvest from that, right? It's a it's a it's a it's big, it's coordinated, and it's fairly successful. And most of us, well, the present company excluded, are really missing what's happening. Um so I we really got to draw some more uh attention to this. Um I wanna shift the conversation uh uh in a moment into uh a deeper direction about uh sort of uh how this is playing out currently in politics. And so I want to uh uh thank Eric and uh say goodbye to him. Uh really appreciate that that he has joined us on this episode and I certainly hope to have him back in the future to talk about how this story develops. Uh anything you want to say uh to to say farewell and uh put a plug in there for Gallus?
SPEAKER_00I just want to end my participation in this podcast by expressing my really my deepest gratitude to Alicia, Angie, and the many parents, educators, allies and community members for their tireless work in ensuring that LGBTQ plus students who are you know in situations similar to what I was in when I went to school in Glendale have the resources and the support that they need to not only survive but also thrive as healthy and happy individuals. Our work is only possible with the commitment of our allies and our dear community members.
SPEAKER_03So really from the bottom of my heart thank you you got us and of course we got you and we're back Alicia Harris and still here and we're gonna continue the conversation and get into some specifics about the election happening in Glendale right now. So as if everything we've heard over the the past segment wasn't enough a couple of the leaders of all of the the the horror and hate that you've heard about are actually running for two seats on the Glendale school board uh in Tuesday's election. So I want to talk very specifically about who they are, what they've done and tell you about who the alternatives are. So uh let's get specific about the people running for school board and their connection to all of this. I'm just gonna say two words and let you take it from there.
SPEAKER_02Jordan Henry So Jordan Henry is the um several times now we've alluded to him as the ringleader um he's an individual who moved to Glendale um sometime around 2020 or late 2020 2021 um and began uh appearing at first at the Committee for Culturally Responsive Education which is a um uh a committee that's connected to the school board made up of stakeholders so it could be parents educators um board members people from the community um and that committee had recently approved the adoption of certain curriculum standards um that are that were um I'm gonna be inarticulate I'm sorry it's getting so late this is difficult so maybe I can just start over. Go for it um Jordan Henry moved uh to GUSD uh in or around 2021 and began very quickly taking issue with formally adopted curriculum standards related to social studies um began early on presenting alternative curriculums from or curricula from an organization called FAIR which was founded by Barry Weiss and uh features a whole uh board that also included Chris Rufo who's sort of the the father of the attacks on CRT public schools trans people um so early on was showing ties to existing organizations that we knew took issue with inclusive education um and uh he was the person who was really a one man culture warrior for um much of 2021 he um did find some community traction with an existing group of parents who had already um been opposed to pandemic protection and safety measures um he sort of latched into that group and in a way that we have seen in districts across the country uh used that um distrust of governments, institutions, um the the paranoia that was growing in those circles and directed it to fears about curriculum and then when that didn't work as well to fears against LGBTQ plus inclusion and what that meant. He created uh what he called anti-woke, anti-CRT Facebook groups um those became the social media channels that we've described that over three years have turned into not just you know the kind of parent social media groups that many of us are used to where you say like oh hey winner soccer tryouts oh you know my kid got this project what does that mean um and instead they turned into forums where every single day there was a new post about something terrible that was happening some awful teacher that was doing something to children um and that was really the work of Jordan Henry for starting in 2021 and really never stopping um we knew from a a right wing group that was focused on you know ending CRT in schools that Jordan had signed a pledge committing to run for school bar board as early as August 2021. And so there was a group of us who was paying attention and prepared um we learned that he moved to an area where he was not eligible to run for school board and he then announced a campaign for city council. So um he had at that point made enough of an impact on the community that there was a fair amount of mobilization against his city council efforts. People did begin documenting and sharing his school board speeches, his social media content because of how extreme it was how much it vilified teachers like Alicia, community leaders and groups like Gallus, like Gwendell out had already been kind of name checked as you know, places that were supposedly radical or extreme. And we were able as a community to prevent him from getting elected to city council but we knew that he was his ultimate target was the school board. Right. He was a trained chaos agent a right wing chaos agent who was looking for a place to land and he's he's picked the Glendale schools and in addition and interconnected oh sorry no go ahead I was I was going to say he was um he was networked with uh reactionary school board candidates and board members in other districts people like Sonia Shaw and Chino Valley who's responsible for the forced outing policy and their book review policy they started to appear at events together um the we realized that they were both being uh promoted and amplified by an organization called the California Policy Center which is connected to the State Policy Network which is a conservative policy making think tank network um Alec the State Policy Network. And in addition to all the stuff you've listed he's also a frequent speaker at the school board meetings right yes yes he began speaking in July of 2021 when school board meetings were remote and has continued um frequently for three years. Aaron Ross Powell And there's some real doozies there I've seen a couple of them oh yeah yeah yeah uh and the other person who's running for the school board uh probably not as as as well known as as as he is uh and slightly more rooted to the community I guess uh Anita Kripekian is am I pronouncing that correctly Anita she well she she she seems to use Anita um in campaigning um Anita Kripekian yes she is as rooted to the community as someone who moved from Monrovia sometime after her child was enrolled could be I mean I I imagine she has other connections um she is someone who was part of that anti-pandemic safety measure cohort it was a very small group of parents who opposed mask mandates opposed testing opposed vaccines opposed all of it and were very very vocal um she's someone who uh like you said has been uh less dramatic um less overt in her self-promotion um Jordan was releasing video recording himself speaking at board meetings and putting them online immediately from very early on creating content out of his school board rants um Anita is somebody who was speaking at the school board meetings um but was not creating content in the way that Jordan was but very quickly was echoing his um his perspectives his talking points and behind the scenes we know that she was um doing a lot of the Public Records act requests and using a lot of the information that they were able to glean from that to target specific teachers so she was kind of behind the scenes but we have seen posts and evidence of her highlighting individual teachers and directing followers to harass those specific teachers.
SPEAKER_03And are they doing any are they doing any joint campaign stuff?
SPEAKER_02Are they sort of a uh most of their campaigning is joint campaigning um they both uh appeared at an event that was sponsored by the California Policy Center in Simi Valley uh in September it was about the time that Anita announced her campaign um they have deep ties both of them to that organization and to um they share a campaign treasurer Lisa Ray who has a very long history of as a campaign treasurer for right-wing candidates and also for campaign finance violations so it will be good to keep an eye on their um on their financial reports to see what's there because if you look up Lisa Ray you can see a dozen different campaign finance scandals locally so stopping Jordan Henry and Anita Kapekian is imperative um and but there are there are alternative candidates um and who are they and why are they good um I can I'm happy to speak about them.
SPEAKER_01Thank you Angie for handling the the um the ugly the ugly side um so you know I I consider Jordan Henry and Anita Carpetian as you know car carpet baggers of sorts because they're really not of the community. Whatever their intentions in moving you know may have been insidious or we just you know left out quote unquote sarcastic insert sarcasm. But they fortunately we have two truly extraordinary people um deeply embedded in the community deeply embedded in the schools that are running in opposition to them. So Jordan Henry's opposition is an extraordinary educator parent in the community named Kelly C. And Telly himself was a 20 year special ed educator. He has two daughters in the schools he is you know has always been in his work he was um he's a labor organizer and has been very involved he was the president of his local um teachers association very also involved in California teachers and had elected a position with the National Education Association and has always been deeply involved in you know inclusive education he's extraordinary his campaign um has been so well run his list of endorsements is you know you just keep scrolling and scrolling and scrolling on his website so he is endorsed far and wide um really proud of him he's got this wonderful group of parents a la Angie um parents and community members who are you know the backbone of this campaign um it and he's been great so he's precisely who even forget remove all of this he's a great school board candidate right in that he is you know he's been a teacher and he's got kiddos in the communities and he just knows all of this on top of this he is a brilliant kind soft spoken man who is not afraid to take on these issues but he's not doesn't need to be belligerent about it like his um opponent um neta Farid is running against Anita and Netta also is has just been around the schools forever. Her son is a graduate of CVHS where I teach um Netta was the PTA the not just at her school but the Glendale Council PTA president um interesting to note should be noted that Netta also was very involved in um Armenian genocide and Armenian education within the schools and kind of making that central to Glendale Unified. So though Netta herself does not have an Armenian background she has been a strong supporter of the Armenian community um also really invested in special ed populations, ELD populations um kind of everybody knows Netta she's she's kind of done it all so again both of these people are again under any set of circumstances would be phenomenal school board candidates now you know it's imperative that they are that they are elected um and and I and I think they will be I I think you know we're we are cautiously optimistic um they have both run excellent campaigns they've got a great deal of support and people understand that they are they're honest they are of the community they are not here to show boat which is how I feel about Jordan Henry um Anita if I'm honest I think she's a little more of a true believer but um but she doesn't bring um the intellect and the um institutional knowledge that Netta brings um to this so Telly C and Netta Farid are the candidates that must get on the Glendale school board.
SPEAKER_02All right and there's just a few days oh go ahead oh I was gonna say you know beyond being the incredible candidates that they are they stepped up at a time when school board members um and candidates are facing some of the most awful harassment and some of the most unpleasant meetings you could possibly sit through. And they're willing to do that for the community because they understand the stakes. They know what we risk if we lose even one seat to people who want to ban books or limit the possibilities for any child's identity. And they're willing to put themselves under that incredible you know microscope that space of scrutiny and do what's right. And for that reason they have the investment and the buy-in of you know the Gwendale Teachers Association of course the union who's endorsed them both but also parents who are and and community members people who have been targeted and threatened and had their lives turned upside down and parents who are working multiple jobs and trying to do homework with their kids and they're still making time to go out and knock doors to make phone calls to make sure everybody gets their ballots in right now it's getting ballots in as early as possible and I I've never seen this level of community investment for races like this.
SPEAKER_03So listeners if you live in or know anyone who lives in the Glendale School District please spread the word call them or email them now not tomorrow now. It's urgent time is short only a couple days left and any reporters or columnists to our listeners and I know there's quite a few of you cover the story let people know what is happening right here in Los Angeles County. We will have a lot more about how you can find out more about all of this and links to a lot of the stuff we've discussed in the show notes on Apple or Spotify or wherever you listen to the podcast. That's all the time we have for now I want to thank my guests Alicia Harris and Angie Gavant uh and also thank Eric Adamion who was here earlier in the show for the previous segment I am grateful all three of you joined me today. That does it for this episode of What's Next Los Angeles thanks again for joining me. Until next time take care and peace