Interview With Sarah Absher, Forsyth County School Board Candidate, PART II
Continuation of discussion on: Critical Race Theory, Gender studies, Social Emotional Learning, guns in schools, Contracting and budgets. +More. This interview has been edited for length & clarity
Full video — If you have trouble, contact Troy Chavez
At this point, someone in the audience interrupts and goes on a diatribe. He was going to be told to save his comments or questions for later, but Sarah responded kindly to his inquiry and let him speak. His name was written on the log sheet, but hard to recognize. It was interpreted as such: Estefan Santa Cruz.
Estefan: Why is it… Well, let's say there's a hierarchy or there's a power structure and some thought… Karl Marx actually did a materialistic theory, which is a little bit different. But talking to the point of the structure or the social structure of the power structure, why is it a bad thing to acknowledge that at the end of the day; like if you're going to play a sport, there are some people naturally bound to be better at it than others. And let's say that in a free market, of course, it's not a representation of how you are as a person, but of your particular skill and sagacity that you have in order to propel yourself within an economic lane. So within that mentality, of course, there's going to be some ones that are better off than others. And of course the ones that are better off due to big government and government intervention will have certain tools for what not to oppress or not, let's say oppressed, but to build a structure to have control over certain individuals. So at the end of the day, because of big government, because of politics, intervention, there is a structure and the structure is there. So why is it bad to acknowledge it? It's not a bad thing. It's a natural thing. I think that Jordan Peterson actually wrote a book on that. And well, he did use this theory from like lobsters and serotonin levels and whatnot, based on psychology and basic human psychology. But there is a structure of what he reasoned with in his book. Why is that bad?
Troy: So I do appreciate your comments, but we will hold more questions and comments till after.
He politely acquiesces
Sarah: And let me just answer that. So I think you're right that, of course, there's always going to be people that are better at certain things than others. That's just the way of the world. But what I don't think we should be telling kids is that it has to do with their race. I think that people worked really hard in the 1960s and even before that, to say the reality is, a kid who grew up in reduced economic circumstances is going to have a harder time reaching a certain level than a kid who grew up in an upper middle class family with an intact family. I mean, that's the reality. Like you were saying. That's the reality we're dealt. The cards we’re dealt. And what we should say to kids is some of you won the lottery and some of you didn't, but all of you have an opportunity and we're going to do everything we can to make sure everybody succeeds. But at the end of the day, we can't do it for you. And so what you do with your opportunities is on you. We need to remind people it's personal. Responsibility has nothing — again, that doesn't mean racism doesn't exist — there’s still racism. But what I think is so amazing is we've gotten to a place now where we're telling kids based on the color of their skin, who they are, without even asking them who they are. That sounds racist to me.
Troy: So on that note, there's an article here that says Winston-Salem parents, activists seek to get ahead of national controversy around critical race theory. In the article, it says, “The basic tenet of critical race theory is that racism results from complex, subtle and systemic dynamics.” So there are parents of all kinds in Forsyth County Schools. There are also parents like Natasha Smith, who is black and whose son is going into sixth grade at Wiley Middle School. And she worries about that. She's worried about people not fully understanding critical race theory. And here is the quote, “They don't want to find out what it means, that critical race theory has never been taught to small children,” says Smith. “We had a terrible thing happen last summer with George Floyd, and the country shifted and people started talking about race in a different way. The conversations were starting to take hold, and it scared people. Enter critical race theory as the perfect bad guy.” She continues, “People are against it because it sounds like something that will make them feel bad, but they don't know what it is.”
Sarah: What I would say to her is the beautiful thing about this country is we have the right to teach our children whatever we want to teach them. So she should teach her son whatever she wants to teach him. But what I don't want is my children to be told that they're bad or good or have less opportunity based on the color of their skin. So if someone says that to my kid, we're going to have a problem, because there are different views. The question again becomes, is it the government's job to navigate all of this? Is it? And I would say no. You know how we can fix that? What Natasha's worried about, we should not even go there. Let's check that at the door. And let's teach our kids math, which is what they need to succeed. And then if Natasha wants to have, like an elective, just like I can have a Christian prayer club at my kid's school; but just because Natasha wants that stuff in the curriculum, should she get it? No, I can't just go and demand that certain things be taught.
Troy: Well, she did mention that it's not even being taught to kids.
Sarah: Right. That's what they say.
Troy: Her worry is more or less that they're using it as a boogeyman to not allow for teachers to talk about race in any sort of way. What do you think of that?
Sarah: I think teachers certainly can and do talk about race. Again, there's a difference. Look, we have a civil rights museum in Greensboro… sure let's talk about how terrible it was, segregation was, but the problem is, if you talk about our history of segregation and you take a field trip to the Civil Rights Museum, and then you segregate the class and you say all the white students go over there and all the black students go over there, and say, now you white students, you're the oppressors. So it's one thing to teach about our history, which sometimes was shameful, but then also teach about the good things we did. But again, they'll say we don't teach CRT. We just want to teach history. And the problem is, if you're talking about now, if you're telling my kid that just by being who they are, they're bad or they have privilege. Yeah, we're going to have a problem.
Troy: Well, to that point, when you said they go to a civil rights museum and they do a simulation, that did actually happen, you know, of course, in this country. Is there a good way to simulate that without saying, you white kids, you are these terrible human beings and then you black and brown kids are in squalor and you've been shoved down your whole life. Is there a middle ground to do a simulation like that?
Sarah: Or just don't talk about who the kids are? Like, don't look at the kids and talk about their lives right now. Say this is something in our past and look how far we've come. What did Martin Luther King Jr say? I have a dream that all children will be judged on the content of their character, not the color of their skin. That's the world I want to live in, and that's the world I want my kids to grow up in. And that's what we should be looking for. But that doesn't mean we can't talk about our past. But what we can do is be proud of how far we've come. But that's not the conversation that's happening.
But that's the big argument, right? That there is no critical race theory. There's no critical gender theory. In fact, I don't want to just focus on race, because I think gender theory is also really an issue. And let me tell you something, I had a mom come tell me at the prayer event in Kernersville that — who I’ll let remain anonymous — said a boy in high school identifying as a woman who is allowed to change in the girls locker room. And I'm going to tell you something right now, that makes my blood boil. A man's biggest fear is that he'll be rejected. A woman's biggest fear is she'll be raped and murdered. And women should feel safe. There should be spaces that no men are allowed in. And I don't think that's unreasonable. We shouldn’t let our children at high school age have a person of the opposite gender in their room with the door closed. I'm not okay with that. And if you say stuff like that, you'll get called a white supremacist, you'll get called homophobic. In fact, I got called a white supremacist when I spoke up against SEL at a school board meeting. The lady did have purple hair, so it was hard to take her seriously.
Troy: Well, on the gender issue, there are students who will be transgender and gay. How do you handle that situation and do you treat it as if they are that? I mean, where's the fine line between freedoms?
Sarah: You make accommodations. And I'm not saying it's a disability or whatever, but, you know, we have accommodations that happen in schools all the time that are individualized learning plans for kids with learning differences. We have children with physical handicaps. We make accommodations and we would just make accommodations on: whether they need a unisex bathroom or whether they would have a time to change in the locker room separately. At the end of the day, if our young girls are not safe, what are we even doing? What are we even doing if we can't even keep our children safe? I don't want anybody telling me I'm fear mongering, because ask Loudoun County, Virginia, where they covered up a sexual assault and alleged sexual assault of a middle school girl in a circumstance where a boy was allowed to use the locker room. And they moved him to another school where he then allegedly sexually assaulted another girl. And so because they covered one up, the other one happened. And so this is not just a boogeyman. This is not just pretend. This is real life consequences. And wasn't it the left just like two years ago, promoting #MeToo, saying at colleges there is a rape crisis. And now they're letting boys in the girls bathroom? Give me a break. Just calling out the left's hypocrisy. I can't help myself.
Troy: So let's go to guns in schools. There is a sheriff in North Carolina, Madison County Sheriff, Buddy Harwood, who has put semiautomatic rifles in each of the county's six schools. What do you think of that? Because there is one UNC-Chapel Hill professor — and it's usually someone from the education field — Dorothy Epsilon, who says, “What's going to happen is we're going to have accidents with these guns just as the presence of an SRO (safety officer) increases violence in the schools, there's more arrest of kids. Why is that they have to have these AR-15s? It doesn't make any sense.”
Sarah: And so I think that whole discussion of whether an AR-15 should be in a school is missing the point. And also I would push back on that statistic about SROs because it's correlation is always causation, right? So you're going to put more of your SROs in schools that are going to have trouble. And so, was is it a chicken or egg issue? But right now in this county. The issue we have is we don't have enough SROs to go around because if you can believe it, they're having trouble recruiting law enforcement officers. It's like nobody wants to be a police officer these days. I wonder why? They're having trouble recruiting. So what we need is our community to step up. And we need veterans. We need dads, we need grandfathers, we need them; armed or unarmed. However, that's something for the General Assembly to decide, and I don't know how these guns are in the schools, because I thought technically schools are a gun free zone and that's the law.
Troy: The SROs have them as safety officers/policemen.
Sarah acknowledges.
Sarah: But more to the point of gun violence in schools, the shooting we had, was not just a disaster waiting to happen. You guys probably know this, but the the two students, the guy who shot the other guy, the victim who got shot, had actually engaged in gun violence with that kid and shot him, prior. And they were at the same school. I'm a nurse. And I was working at the hospital. I worked at Baptist at the trauma center. We would not allow two gang members who got in a fight with gunshot wounds on the same floor. We would give them fake identities. You couldn't even look them up. And that's how seriously we took that, because we knew if it happened once, they might come and try to finish the job. And so the talk about no AR-15s for SROs is a distraction. Metal detectors versus no metal detectors; it's a distraction. Because we need to talk about why these two kids were allowed to be in the school at the same time? That's the conversation needing to take place. And why doesn't every high school have several SRO officers? We know most teachers are women. And so if the majority of your staff are women who are 5’2” and smaller, what are they supposed to do when a fight breaks out with these high school guys? We need manpower.
Troy: So, you would say it's not the weapon on site, it's the communication breakdowns that allow for accidents like that to happen? So it has nothing to do with adding more weapons or SROs?
Sarah: We need more SROs. In my personal opinion.
Troy: That makes sense. You answered that question for sure. I just want to see where you felt on AR-15s (in schools), because (Dorothy Espelage) believes more presence of weapons and more officers actually makes it more like a prison environment and unsafe. Is there any validity in that statement?
Sarah: I think what makes it unsafe is not removing those kids to alternative schooling. And I'm not saying expelled or suspended. I'm saying put in a school with an appropriate level of security. And so if you have a child who's consistently been physically violent, and you've tried other methods — and the left will say, we need restorative justice, or we need to give them a chance and they're only like this because it's not their fault. Nonsense. What about the other kids in the school that haven't done anything wrong? So they need to go to an alternative school with the chance of coming back if they reform. But again, the AR-15 to me is a distraction because we have to talk about the actual issues. It's just a political talking point on both sides.
Troy references that most on the left don’t even know what an AR-15 stands for, and use it as a cudgel to make cases for gun laws. Sarah agrees.
Troy: However, that kind of goes into SEL and a possible bridge between the two sides. The left probably sees rise in violence, means they need to be taught more about emotions, which are the first half of SEL’s core (stated at the beginning of interview), not the ones about white supremacy. And then the other side says they need to punish these kids, rightfully so, when they do something wrong. Is there any valid points in either of that? Because a portion of the new gun legislation recently passed (known as the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act) focuses on mental health.
Sarah: So as somebody who certainly worked with my fair share of mental health patients, when somebody is in a psychotic state, they're not operating with logical and linear thinking. So if somebody is in a psychotic state. Or having mental health issues. That's a whole other conversation. They need help. They need to be removed because they could be a danger to themselves or other children. And again, that's not even a punishment thing. That's just a safety thing for everybody. And by the way, if somebody is experiencing psychosis, are they really learning or an effective student? But at the end of the day, what we need to do is we need to say to children, that these are the expectations. If we have a zero tolerance policy for violence; if you put your hands on a staff member or another student, you will be removed and sent to this other school, which obviously will be more secure. And so if somebody says, oh, well, you're just putting them in school, jail or school prison, what I would say is, actions have consequences and we are not doing kids any favors by not teaching them right away out the gate. Actions have consequences because what will happen, is those kids will keep getting away with breaking the rules and then they'll turn 18 and rob a liquor store and they'll be slapped with 17 felonies and already be considered a habitual felon and their life will be over. And it'll be a shock to them. The reality of life is actions have consequences.
Troy: To be fair, in the statistics of people with psychosis or very severe mental issues, they're actually the lowest people perpetuating gun violence. And so a lot of the people that are in gun violence in general, they're the ones who commit suicide, mostly with guns. That's the problem. So the undergirded mental health issues, people with psychosis can't really be spotted right away, but will be more visibly seen in the near future. But what about the kids that are being awash in unseen mental health problems. Would you think that (SEL) would help them for that?
Sarah: I'd be very skeptical, because would adults paying close attention to children's emotional well-being be effective? Absolutely. But I just don't see buying a curriculum from an outside company and that becoming an actual reality. More adults watching a child and checking in on them would make more of a difference. Look, this goes beyond school board, but this is my personal opinion — hot take maybe — but the amount of antidepressants, though needed like any medication, but if you look at when mass shootings started to really become a thing, occurred when Prozac and other SSRIs were prescribed. There is again, we don't know the causation vs. correlation. I don't know for sure. But I think the mental health industry needs an overhaul. But that's not again, my issue as a school board member.
Troy: To verify that claim, there was a study that said antidepressants really don't treat the underlying issues of depression and that they're kind of more or less a Band-Aid and more of like a sugar pill (speaker is being hyperbolic).
Sarah: Well, and also, if you stop taking your SSRI, you don't taper off actually, there is a time period where statistically you are more likely to hurt yourself or somebody else. These are complicated issues, but what we can do is try to keep majority of students safe. And again, this idea, I love it, because we're told, oh, there's an unprecedented mental health crisis because kids feel disconnected. Well, yeah, you locked them in their house for two years. And just to throw this out there, there is another at-large candidate, who is the chair of the board and presided over that. So they're calling themselves common sense candidates, but yet she voted to keep our schools closed. So, we do have a mental health crisis now, because our kids were kept out of school.
Troy: It is a form of trauma for them to be in that situation.
Sarah: Oh, yeah. I would say they traumatized our kids. Absolutely.
Troy: Well, I wouldn't say they traumatized them. I mean, it was a global pandemic.
Sarah: Who did then?
Troy: The pandemic. I guess we could blame China….
Sarah: Did the virus cause schools and churches to be closed?
Troy: Well, there are reasons for them to be closed. But to that point, what I was trying to say with trauma, shouldn't we help these kids with trauma — and again, the basic tenets of SEL is to teach them when they are not feeling right, because trauma always lives with us.
Sarah: Did DARE (drug prevention program for schools) reduce drugs in schools? Statistically, it's a dead end. Like statistically DARE did not work. That program did not work. So I guess my point is what reduces drugs in school is more adults with their eyes on kids and making sure they know what they're up to. I think the program DARE which had a ton of funding… again, I just remain very skeptical that you can purchase a program that's going to come in and just solve that problem. I mean, these are super complex problems, but the problem is these companies will come in and say, no, no, no, our curriculum will. It'll solve all your problems. Don't you worry. Sign here on this dotted line and fork over the money. I'm just very skeptical of that. So, again, do I think that children need to learn how to control their emotions? Absolutely. I just remain extremely skeptical that these companies proposals will actually fix things.
Troy: Well, then, do you think that (Forsyth County) schools should create their own regional SEL curriculum? Would that be better?
Sarah: Yeah, that'd be a better option, absolutely. We have school counselors. They should be involved in knowing what's going on in schools and talking with the kids and getting them to mentorships and relationships with adults. And hopefully everybody will have graduated from a Forsyth County school knowing one of their teachers positively impacted them. Maybe you're a drama kid and you loved your drama teacher, and actually, Leah Crowley (another Forsyth County school board candidate, at-large) made this point during a school board meeting, that this why sports and after school activities are so important. So if we really want to spend our money on something that'll help reduce violence and keep kids in school, it's going to be sports and after school activities. And if kids aren't into sports because not all kids are, I was never really into sports because I'm kind of awkward, but, I did do other things… but let's have a chess club. Let's make sure those programs are funded. Let's not waste money on this SEL company from California.
Troy: Yes, true. They probably don’t understand North Carolina students.
Sarah: Yeah, and let me tell you, they're only there to mine student data and sell it. They're not there to fix mental health crises’ in our school. Despite what they say, I remain skeptical.
Troy: It's important to be skeptical about third party solutions because you are basically forking out a solution that could remain in-house, like you said. I’m actually from California. California is a different type of society for one living on the other coast. So I guess I understand a little bit about California. They're a lot of differences.
Sarah: Yes there are, and I have to say don't California my North Carolina, Troy. That's my personal opinion.
Troy: We all have our opinions. I wouldn't say they're California opinions or North Carolina ones, their informational opinions.
Sarah: But some are more right than others.
Troy: Though some are just louder…. But let's go to banning books. This has been an issue since the seventies. Constitutionally, public libraries are allowed to put certain books in their schools, but of course, the teachers can't force students to read them. Do you think that that's right? Or should that be re-evaluated? And how far is banning a certain book?
Sarah: So I thought about this at length because I've certainly seen some books. There's one in particular that we do not have in our schools. It's called Gender Queer. Now, the reason I do not think that that should be allowed in our schools is because it's actually pornography. It's the one that Mark Robinson (Lt. Governor of North Carolina) put on the back of the screen (at an event). And actually it violates the law because it's a graphic novel. There's drawings, but it's pornographic. So that violates the decency law. But when we're talking about the written word, as tough as this is to hear, I do not think we should be in the business of banning books. What we should do is make sure we have conservative values books for kids to pick up and read as well, because this is where it gets tough, right? I'm a free speech advocate and it's really easy when it's stuff we like. It’s hard to say, I don't agree with what you say, but I agree with your right to say it. I do think there is a special burden when we're talking about taxpayer money. But, generally, I am not in favor of banning books. I think that’s extremely Draconian. I think it’s not a good business to be in. And again, if it's a written word, because our country was built on freedom of the press, freedom of thought, I say put the words out there and let's discuss them.
Troy: In that case, with race, we should at the least talk about it, because shouldn't schools be a safe place where we engage in these tough topics?
Sarah: Sure, I do agree with that. I do think, though, the issue is the power dynamic in schools. So a teacher is going to have a different power dynamic than the students. And this is what we're seeing. It's this almost social contagion of girls who are 11 and 12 identifying as boys. It's the new anorexia, right? In my day, the big thing was all girls had eating disorders. And so right now the standard is gender affirming therapy. And that is equivalent to me being a guidance counselor and a girl had an eating disorder and saying, hey, you lost 10 pounds; keep up the good work; skip another lunch. That's an example of affirming therapy. That's what they're doing with kids, saying, I think I'm confused — and of course kids are confused at young ages. But if you have an adult who you want affirmation from pushing certain ideologies, that's not a discussion, that's a power imbalance. And so do I think discussion should always be allowed in an appropriate way. Sure. But I do think we have to remember adults have the power in school situations.
Troy: Sure. So in what way should it be taught?
Sarah: Just the facts. That's how we teach it. We say this is what happened. But when you start editorializing history, that's when we get into trouble. And that's up to the parent to do. And again, we're talking about a public service, a government funded school, a taxpayer funded school. And so we just have to try to just focus on academics. And when you're teaching history, just the facts.
Troy: Yes, very true. Because people on the left think kids can decide that they want to be a woman (or man). But like you said, there is a 5% literacy rate in schools.
Sarah: Yeah, let's focus on that.
Troy: Isn't that paradoxical? They think young kids could decide their own gender, which is completely complex, but then they can't even do basic math or English skills.
Sarah: Right. And the idea that a little child can choose their gender, I mean… little children believe in Santa Claus. And actually, this is a big principle of Marxism. The idea that students and teachers should be on the same level. That's very insidious. And a lot of radical educational theories, or pedagogies, talk about that in their literature. They talk about how students and teachers should be on the same level, and that's just ridiculous.
Troy: What do you mean on the same level?
Sarah: Meaning: they're there just to facilitate the discussion. This is because they want to empower the kids to be little activists. It’s very insidious. That's why some schools, more liberal schools will have the kids call teachers by their first name. It’s the minute nuances. But then don't be surprised when the children don't have respect for their teacher.
Troy: I agree. So, let’s move into the final portion of this discussion: During the pandemic, if you were on the school board, what would you say to teachers who had underlying conditions and were nervous to come back into the classroom — especially in the heart of the pandemic?
Sarah: I think it would be a case by case basis when pertaining to someone with an underlying condition, like if they were getting chemotherapy for cancer; obviously they would be high risk. I worked as a nurse until 2021 and we came to work every day. And even before the pandemic, there were certain diseases that you don't want nurses in their first trimester of pregnancy to be around. So we all worked together to say, okay, you're going to take this group of patients and we're going to make sure that this person takes these patients; that's what teamwork is. But you signed up for a job and I understand it was scary. But if Jimmie, who bags groceries at Lowes Foods can go and work, if Sarah, who's a nurse, can go work, if Dr. Smith can go work, and again, I know there's always special circumstances, like teachers who have a weakened immune systems, taking chemotherapy, have Pneumonia or are older. And it would be incumbent on the school to make accommodations just like all the other businesses. But at the end of the day, you have a job to do, and that's the job you picked. And, you know, those teachers certainly went to the grocery store and enjoyed being able to buy their groceries and somebody checked them out. They should have been in the classroom earlier. Again, let me just say if there was a special circumstance, sure, but a lot of these teachers were in their twenties and thirties.
Troy: Well, the grocery store comparison, not everyone stays in longer than maybe 15 or 30 minutes.
Sarah: The guy who bags the groceries does.
Troy: But grocery stores are more spread out than a classroom. These students are with them for hours at a time and more cramped. Would you say there's a difference there?
Sarah: Sure. But, you know, I was also in the hospital for hours at a time, 12 and a half, to be exact. And again, I understand that's the job I chose and I knew what the risks were, but the fear associated with COVID, and had I been on the school board, I would have had other experts come in and advise us so we could have heard better open discussions and debates, instead of having just Dr. Christopher come and advise the board; because, I think it was just a big excuse to not come to work. That's what it became. I'll just be honest with you. I'm not saying every teacher, most teachers wanted to come back — but it was the teachers unions, as we know.
Troy: Sure. So you would say at large, teachers should have been back a lot earlier? Should there have been better contingency plans separating between televised schools or hybrid methods?
Sarah: Yeah. I mean, I think especially for kids, it should have been a choice whether they came back. The virtual thing should have been an option. But again, I'm not trying to get into the epidemiology of it, but a respiratory virus, we should understand, viruses are going to virus. You are not going to stop that thing. So and this is the problem with what we're talking about is, oh, well, should we do this and should we do that, or was it just two weeks to slow the spread? And then here we are a year and a half later…. What happened to keep calm and carry on? And you know during the blitz (World War II) they sent all the kids out to the country. That was their contingency plan. And the citizens of London went on as normal. They would go to work and some of them died in bombings during the blitz. And that was a tragedy. I feel like in our society, it is encouraged to just hide under the covers and be afraid of their own shadow. And that's not the society I want to live in, personally.
Troy: So, you're saying we should’ve just went on with our lives with a disease we didn't fully understand?
Sarah: We understood it after three weeks and then three months.
Troy: What I am trying to say, in the beginning, we should have just kept on carrying on?
Sarah: No, I mean, like I said, they sent the kids away out into the country. I would have been fine with initially shutting down the schools. Maybe. Although, again, given what I know about respiratory viruses, what happened when we shut down colleges, all those kids went back home and they all caught COVID, right? You have a respiratory virus in a closed space. Everybody in that household is going to get it. But either way… and I'm not trying to Monday morning quarterback; I know it was a difficult situation, but there's a difference between shutting down for three months and being shut down for my son's junior and senior year. That's where I have an issue, when the two become conflated. Oh, so you wouldn't have done anything? I mean, I'd be open to discussion, right? We all would have discussed as a school board. But by April of 2020, well, I guess May — definitely going into the 2021 school year, school should have opened for that next year.
Troy: So the variants that kept changing and of course, I mean, it's a disease. So unlike, say, the blitz, we can see German soldiers and German artillery — but you don't see a virus. You get sick and die from it. Did that worry you at all or does that change?
Sarah: I still showed up to work, so I worked on the front lines. Sure, was I worried? I mean, I didn't have any risk factors. I was worried for my parents. Of course, I was worried for people at risk. I definitely knew people that died, sure, but again, it should be a citizen's choice what they do. And what made me extremely uncomfortable was the government; and again, this is less about schools, but it should be a citizen's choice to move about the country freely. It was just way overblown, way escalated, and people bought right into it. And I was horrified. I mean, I think we all knew we were in trouble when they shut down churches. I was pretty shocked that that happened — that they could exhibit that kind of power over the church. And then people allowed it and they were arresting pastors. It was rough times.
Troy: It was a tough situation for sure. And it's very true. The more studies came out, we realized that it's okay to go out in these spaces. So we should, in other words, acted quicker to move kids back into schools?
Sarah: We're a country built on risks, taking risks. We need to stop wrapping each other up in bubble wrap. And especially the kids. How do we expect our kids to transition into adulthood if we continue exhibiting helicopter parent mentalities. I think this really was a symptom of something already brewing. I really do. And if you notice, the people that were really scared or were the people that maybe held the most degrees had a different relationship with danger? If you look at communities where people who are blue collar workers, they weren’t scared. It was the Zoom class people who were scared. And, you know, we could talk all day about that, but I'm not going to.
Troy: To be fair, that would be more rural areas. And urban and rural were different landscapes pertaining to COVID-19.
Sarah: I'm talking about like your electricians, your plumbers in urban areas. It's like the guys that climb the cell phone towers for a living. I'm just saying they have a different relationship with danger. And people of faith, I think also we're not as afraid because, you know, blessed assurance and all that. But we allowed ivory tower, neurotic, upper middle class white people control us… and I shouldn't say white, but upper middle class, neurotic people control us. And I'm just not a fan of that.
Troy: Sure. Well, thank you. I appreciate you taking the time to talk about these very tough topics; because this is basically a simulation of school board meetings. I mean, they've been getting more violent, and I wouldn't say violent enough for the FBI to search their homes… but we're seeing more and more furor happening at school board meetings.