By Rep. Marjorie Porter, D- Hillsborough
When I was serving my first year as a school board member in 2009, President Obama announced plans to make a televised address to American school children. His intent was to encourage them to stay in school, work hard, and plan for their futures.
I was totally unprepared for the uproar. Angry parents were demanding their child be exempted from watching. Schools were announcing children needed their parents’ permission to watch, or that they would not be showing the address at all.
Remembering the lasting effect hearing President Kennedy’s inaugural address had on me as a child, I saw no reason not to allow it. Both President Reagan and the first President Bush had also spoken to the nation’s youth in this way. How was this different?
I didn’t understand then, but events over time have taught me.
In 2011, and again in 2013, racist graffiti was painted on the homes of refugees in Concord.
In 2014, a Wolfeboro police commissioner was overheard in a restaurant using the “n” word to describe President Obama. He doubled down on his right to do so but finally resigned after public outcry.
After marching with Nazis carrying torches and chanting, “Jews will not replace us.” Keene resident Christopher Cantwell, the “Crying Nazi” was arrested at the Charlottesville ‘Unite the Right” rally in August 2017.
That fall, childhood “play” in Claremont ended in the hanging of a young bi-racial boy, who was lucky to have escaped with only large welts and bruises on his neck. In Exeter, a child was subjected to racist taunts while riding home on the school bus.
And at UNH, racial slurs were painted on the doors of black teachers.
Armed and outfitted Boogaloo Boys attended a Black Lives Matter rally in Manchester in last June. This far-right self-styled militia has declared its intent is to incite a second American civil war based on race.
During the last election campaign, swastikas were painted on my campaign signs. And that fall, police in Brookline and Milford investigated the proliferation of neo-Nazi propaganda attached to street signs and trail heads in those towns.
Lights were shot out on the menorah display in the Hanover green in December.
And as I write, the NH Attorney General’s office is investigating social media threats made against Nashua Rep. Manny Espitia by the self-described white nationalist group NSC-131. Rep Espitia had decried the appearance of racist graffiti at the Rail Trail in his district the group had laid claim to making.
I know now why President Obama’s speech was controversial.
We can no longer hide from it, and we can no longer deny it. We have a problem with racism here in New Hampshire.
And at the State House? Judge for yourself.
In 2019, then-Representative Werner Horn made national news when he stated owning slaves was not racist.
At a House session held last June at the Whittemore Center at UNH, a large portion of the hall booed and hissed when a speaker at the well mentioned Black Lives Matter.
In September a complaint was filed with the Attorney General’s Office Civil Rights against Rep James Spillane (R-Deerfield), who posted on Facebook that people should feel free to loot and burn houses with Black Lives Matter signs in the yard.He defended himself by saying it was ‘just a joke.’
In January, newly elected Republican Rep Dawn Johnson (R-Laconia) came under fire for sharing an anti-Semitic post from a known neo-Nazi social media site. She said she did not know the site was neo-Nazi, and apologized for sharing from it. But she did not apologize for the content of the post. And although Gov. Sununu condemned what she had done, and there were strong calls for her to resign, she is serving still. She has not been disciplined and sits on the powerful Commerce committee.
Rep. Spillane made the news again when he shared an anti-Semitic meme on his Parler account. The image he shared was so offensive it had been banned in England, but he said he did not know it was anti-Semitic. Speaker Packard did not find it anti-Semitic either. Another Civil Rights complaint was filed, but Rep. Spillane is still serving. He has not been disciplined and sits on the Fish and Game committee.
This brings me to the NH Republican majority’s ill-advised “solution” to the problem of racism in NH—HB 544, the divisive concepts bill. In its original form, the bill prohibited any government agency, school, or business with a government contract, from training or teaching about racism or sexism if it was ‘divisive’ is any way. Modeled after a Trump-administration prohibition at the federal level, similar bills are turning up in state legislatures across the country where Republicans hold control.
The opposition to the bill in NH was swift and widespread. The powerful Business and Industry Association and even the Governor himself opposed it. The bill became so controversial it was tabled before it ever got a vote in the House.
But that has not stopped its conditions from advancing. To get support for the budget from the House’s extreme right-wing, Rep. Weyler, chair of the Finance committee, included its provisions in the budget.
The Senate has the budget now. The language, though softened a bit, is still there.
It’s ironic Reps Johnson, Spillane, and Packard all used the “I didn’t know” defense to excuse themselves from the blame of being racist. But they should have known. It was glaringly obvious to anyone who has paid any attention to history, who has learned anything about how racism rears its ugly head.
George Santayana famously said, “Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”
If the language of this bill, even the softened Senate version, becomes law, it will have a chilling effect on what gets taught both in our schools and in our workplaces.
The language is confusing and vague. Punishment is severe. The softened version makes the waters muddier. Who gets to decide what’s divisive? Is it up to the state, the school, the teacher, the public? Who will be reporting on those who break this new law? A disgruntled student, and angry parent, a dismissed employee?
Teachers will ask themselves, why take the risk. Better to just not teach it at all.
And then where will we be?