Why the “Parents Rights” movement is silent on gun safety.

Ali M Collins
3 min readApr 5, 2023

--

Last week, huge numbers of protesters showed up at the Tennessee State Capitol. This protest for gun safety led by students and parents is largely being ignored by mainstream media. This is what it looks like when constituents show outrage about yet another killing spree brought about by a lack of gun safety laws in our country.

For several years we have been inundated with propaganda telling us that “parents rights” activists are taking back local and state boards of education in order to make schools “safe” from “woke ideology” and “indoctrination” from CRT.

Asra Nomani is a paid provocateur of the Independent Women’s Forum, a right-wing Koch-donor funded organization originally founded to support the confirmation of Supreme Court Judge Clarence Thomas.

When educators and board members reached out for help, after being terrorized by these self-proclaimed “mamabears”, their requests were weaponized by political spin doctors like Asra Nomani. Asra gets paid big bucks as a “comms mom” by the Independent Women’s Forum, an anti-feminist “feminist” organization founded to support the confirmation of Clarence Thomas.

Comms Moms like Asra amplified false narratives that “parents” like her were under attack from the Biden administration. When the reality is, women like her are using groups like Moms for Liberty and Parents Defending education to literally terrorize parents standing up for #transkids and #teachingtruth.

Dr. Carrie Sampson, an associate professor at Arizona State University says that narratives surrounding attacks on “woke” education policy are a part of larger disinformation campaigns meant to dismantle education justice.

Dr. Carrie Sampson is associate professor at Arizona State University. In my interview with her on the Just Talks Podcast, she shared what she is seeing related to national school board attacks. See the full interview.

If self professed “mamabears” really cared about kids, they would be showing up in statehouses across the country to make all our schools and communities safe.

Meanwhile REAL parents are begging for change. They are spending countless hours speaking with legislators and demanding more coverage in the media. Yet, as you can see from the clip, Fox News will do almost ANYTHING to erase their calls for help.

Don’t be distracted by the theatrics. Demand accountability from lawmakers at the state and national level. Demand media coverage that amplifies the voices of REAL parent activists. Not paid actors.

Get educated and take action! See my full interview with Dr. Carrie Sampson on my Just Talks Podcast, a video podcast focused on elevating voices of researchers, educators, parents and activists fighting to protect education equity.

--

--

Ali M Collins

mom of twins. education nerd. public school warrior. reformed cat-lady. amateur urbanist. social justice addict. BLERD. & most recently Board of Ed Commissioner