by Gay Adelmann on August 3, 2021
During a recent press conference, hosted by the Kentucky Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression, a heckler began talking loudly to the crowd while one of our local community leaders, Vincent Gonzalez, was speaking. The press conference, which was held at Central High School ahead of the July 27, 2021 JCPS School Board Meeting, focused on our community’s unapologetic support for the teaching of accurate history and the practicing of equity, diversity and inclusion, as well as halting recently proposed legislation that would make doing so illegal. This interruption went on for quite some time, as several individuals from the crowd went over to try to kindly ask the belligerent woman to be respectful, to no avail. My latest blog post, entitled, “Listen to the Black People!,” details the events and dynamics that took place during those tense moments. Thank you for taking a minute to check it out.
In the first slide, you can see “Karen” enter the screen while I am talking. As Vincent, a non-white man, begins to speak, Barbara holds her sign in the direction of the loud woman, as you can see in the far right of the second slide. In the third slide, you see the man in the brimmed hat turn and speak to her. In the fourth slide, the lady on the far left of the screen, passes a sign she is holding to someone next to her and heads toward the woman. In the fifth slide, you can now see Barbara having a conversation with the white disruptor who is asking the same question over and over, “Why don’t you want your children to have a good education?” In the sixth slide, KA Owens, the emcee of the press conference, has now turned toward the woman, and the co-chair of the Kentucky Alliance, Tyra Walker, begins to walk in that direction.
The remainder of the slides are taken from Tom Lally’s Facebook video on WHAS11. In the seventh slide, you can see the woman with her hands in the air, continuing to talk over the speaker. Tyra is comforting Barbara and moving her away from the rude woman. In the eighth slide, the woman who handed over her sign is now gesturing for the woman to come away from the event to talk about it. In the ninth slide, you can see KA Owens hold up his hand in a “stop” gesture. And in the next to the last slide, you see me telling the woman that if she would stop interrupting and start listening, she would know the answers to her questions. I sniped, “Listen to the Black people! Listen!” to which she responded, “I do! They tell ME what they want,” and wandered off, seen in the last slide.
If you know the identity of the white-haired woman in the brown, white and blue flag/eagle shirt, please send tips to moderator@dearjcps.com. Click the link to watch the July 29 episode of Save Our Schools with Dear JCPS podcast, which features the video from which the slides below were taken, along with the public speakers who spoke in favor of science and history and TRUTH. Part 2 will include the anti-science and anti-history speakers, along with commentary from community leaders. Follow our YouTube channel to be notified when it is published.