Did you all see that commentary published March 1 in The Chronicle titled “Sean Swope commentary: Rejecting a misguided celebration of International Women’s Day at college?”
Grandparents Supporting Trans Kids rejects the harmful opinions and views included in Commissioner Sean Swope’s commentary.
Commissioner Swope criticizes the group who organized International Women’s Day.
More concerning is the way the commissioner, especially in relation to people that organized the event, uses buzzwords like undermine, abuse, erase, defy, relentless, insult, disrespect, oppress, discriminate, slap, violence, overshadow, external, distorted and diminish.
Those were published along with phrases like “succumbing to radical ideologies,” “we cannot allow,” “refuse to compromise” and “resist external pressures.”
That language, those specific words, are peppered throughout his manifesto, perhaps in an effort to create division, fear and distrust.
These patterns of “moral and truth narratives” are used by several other hypocritical behavior control groups like Alliance Defending Freedom and Westboro Baptist Church. The same type of language was used by Moms for Liberty Oklahoma School Board members, prior to the beating and subsequent death of a child, Nex Benedict, targeted in a similar fashion.
Our speech has the potential to promote unity. And as we’ve seen, our speech has also had the potential to “green light” violence against others.
It’s important to note that free speech is not absolute and that certain speech can create liability and can be legally actionable. Remember, the KKK, in large part, was taken down not only because of the violent, hateful and racist crimes they committed, but also because of the public speech they used that tied them back to those hate crimes.
Commissioner Swope says that the views he expresses may be contentious, and I agree. However, a commentary supporting women instead of tearing them down would not be contentious. Very basic stuff. Attack and defame women, contentious. Support women, not contentious.
Commissioner Swope, there is no right way to do the wrong thing. Grandparents Supporting Trans Kids asks you to consider not tearing others down, but lifting us all up.
Peace be with you, friends.
Ray Chapman-Wilson
Centralia
