Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement: Building People Power
The annual meeting, an upcoming book tour, and structural violence...
Photo taken at the end of the annual meeting in Ankeny
The Battle
Social justice is a political and philosophical concept that aims to ensure that all people are treated fairly and have equal access to opportunities and resources. It's based on the idea that everyone deserves to be treated equally, regardless of their race, gender, sexuality, or economic status.
Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds and the Republican legislature have taken a wrecking ball to our state’s institutions. Our mental healthcare system was overwhelmed after Medicaid was privatized by her predecessor, abortion rights have been taken away from women, our public school system and AEA’s are being dismantled, she has consolidated power in reorganizing agencies, boards and commissions, has appointed unqualified individuals to head those agencies, given tax breaks to the rich, and taken power away from the auditors’ office.
She and Republican legislators have banned books, attacked our public libraries, the LGBTQ+ community, and immigrants.
Reynolds isn’t alone. This is happening in Republican states across the nation, and if Donald Trump is elected this is just the beginning as Republicans seek to create a white “Christian national” authoritarian state.
This isn’t social justice, and Iowa CCI is standing in their way fighting for us.
The Annual Meeting
Iowa CCI held its annual summer meeting in August in Ankeny. I moderated the “Fearless Truth Tellers” panel. Participants were:
Vanessa Marcano-Kelly A Venezuelan-American, Vanessa is board chair of Iowa Migrant Movement for Justice, a grassroots organization pushing back against politicized attacks on immigrants and new Iowans.
Sara Hayden Parris Founder and President of Annie’s Foundation, Sara helps lead the fight against book bans in Iowa and a fearless champion for the freedom to read and learn without interference from statehouse bullies.
David Cwiertny Professor and Director of the Center for Health Effects of Environmental Contamination at the University of Iowa, David clearly connects the dots between corporate agriculture and Iowa’s clean water crisis.
Here is the video:
The fearless truth tellers shared their stories about how they are defending immigrants, fighting for the freedom to read, and for clean water.
Here are some photos of the meeting:
The keynote speaker was Dr. James E. Ford, a fierce defender of public schools.
Dr. Ford laid out the history of attacks on our public schools, which are rooted in racism.
Dr. Ford projected the above slide to illustrate the billionaires who are attacking public education.
“People Power is How We Win” Iowa CCI.
Want to help win? Join Iowa CCI.
The Education Wars
Iowa CCI is continuing to defend our public schools by hosting a series of conversations with Jennifer C. Berkshire, one of the authors of The Education Wars: A Citizen’s Guide and Defense Manual.
From the book’s website:
The culture war has engulfed our schools. Extremist groups are seeking to ban books, limit what educators can teach, and threatening the very foundations of public education. What’s behind these efforts? Why are our schools so vulnerable all of a sudden? And how can the millions of Americans who love their public schools begin to fight back?
In this concise, hard-hitting guide, journalist Jennifer Berkshire and education scholar Jack Schneider answer these questions and chart a way forward.
Surviving the Education Wars explains the sudden obsession with race and gender in schools, as well as the ascendancy of book banning efforts. It offers a clear analysis of school vouchers and the impact they’ll have on school finances. It deciphers the movement for “parents’ rights,” explaining the rights that students and taxpayers also have. And it reveals how the ostensible pursuit of “religious freedom” opens the door to discrimination against vulnerable children.
Berkshire and Schneider outline the core issues driving the education wars, offering essential information about issues, actors, and potential outcomes. In so doing, they lay out what is at stake for parents, teachers, and students and provide a roadmap for ensuring that public education survives this present assault.
A book that will enrage and enlighten the millions of citizens who believe in their public schools, here is a long-overdue handbook and guide to action.
The Education Wars book talks are October 5-8.
October 5 @ 6pm in Ankeny - RSVP here
October 6 @ 12:30pm in Des Moines - RSVP here
October 6 @ 5pm in Tama - RSVP here
October 7 @ 12:30pm in Iowa City - RSVP here
October 7 @ 6pm in Cedar Rapids - RSVP here
October 8 @ 12:30pm in Cedar Falls - RSVP here
October 8 @ 6pm in Iowa Falls - RSVP here
Please also consider joining Iowa CCI’s three-part Education Wars Book Club starting October 14 at 6 pm on ZOOM.
Iowa CCI is also a part of Public School Strong - a national movement of parents, teachers, students, and community members pushing for honest, equitable, safe, and fully-funded public education. Join them online to learn more and discuss ways to take action to defend and strengthen Iowa’s public schools. The Public School Strong Iowa orientation is Tuesday, October 22 at 6 pm: RSVP here.
“We talk, we act, we get things done.” Iowa CCI.
Structural Violence
We often conceive of the differences between Republicans and Democrats to be differences in policy. It’s that to be sure, but it is also more than that. Republicans are engaging in structural violence, a form of violence wherein some social structure or social institution may harm people by preventing them from meeting their basic needs or rights.
Defunding public schools, not feeding hungry school kids, demonizing immigrants, our LGBTQ+ population, letting corporations foul our air and water, and rejecting the right to read is structural violence. I’ve written more about it here.
Please consider attending one or more of the events and joining Iowa CCI. Let’s fight together.
I’m a proud member of the Iowa Writers’ Collaborative. Please check out our work here. Subscribe! Become a paid subscriber if you can afford it. Please and thank you. We need you. Thanks for being part of the team! Want to buy me lunch or a cup of coffee? Venmo @Robert-Leonard-238. My friend Spencer Dirks and I have a podcast titled the Iowa Revolution. Check it out! We can get ornery. And have fun!
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Bob, as always I enjoy reading and learning of others thoughts, opinions and respect them. I quite often find that there are many often time don't even begin to respect mine. I like yours as I feel u respect mine.
With that, I am supportive of changing where a family can decide where their children go to school. Over the years I've seen it is right. I first saw it many years ago in a packing town. The amt of in and out weekly of hispanic students caused a educating nightmare for the teachers spending so much extra time with these.. Local families had their children getting shorted and bored, so they sent them to a neighboring small school district where this was not the problem yet. These families were still paying property taxes for the school district they were in, of course the district they sent to got none of it. If families want to send their children to a accredited Christian school why shouldn't part of the state $$ go with them. Will our public schools go down hill? Or, get better? So, I support what the Governor did.
I also support the idea of consolidating state offices as as we look in past the government tends to grow which adds to bureaucracy and waste, in my humble opinion. Just what does burgeoning government do to add to GNP?
I agree we have drinking water problems in Iowa. According to the EPA, I believe was where I saw it, Iowa is not in the top 10 worse states. Now I agree this is not a reason to not address the problem but I wish it would be acknowledged by the ones telling how bad it is.
I beIieve that much of the old Iowa, not old Iowans per say, is not in favor of ultra left leaning politicians.
Oh, on the subject of 2/3, or whatever, of Iowa counties population shrinking. It's been going on for maybe a hundred years. Why wouldn't it? There has always been the migration to the cities where the employment is at. Agricultural production has been consolidating since my Great Grandfather started farming with an 80 acres. It has grown thru the generations because an 80 is not sustainable. growth in farm size has to increase to be able to purchase the machinery and technology produced by the manufactures. And we know the employees of such never want less.
Small rural towns don't offer what some people feel they need today for shopping, recreation and even education for their families.
It seems that a lot of people are too quick to form judgements around fears for which there is no basis. When people who have no formal education in science, religion. history, etc are told something by the media which is often trying to entertain them or make up things to frighten rather than inform them. I grew up reading the Des Moines Reg. and the Pella Chronicle when the layout of those two sources made it easier to distinguish what type of information we were reading. There were just a few radio stations which had well defined broadcasts varying from weather forecasts to soap operas. That did not stop people from making up things and trying to elevate themselves or deliberately try to ruin someone's reputation through conversation with others. Today, however, even well educated people often have a difficult time deciding if various media are feeding us facts or lies. We have a very incomplete history of what humans did when they first appeared on our planet. But in my brief life which began in 1933 this particular time seems the most threatening to me as too many people seem to be clueless both to changes in our planet and/or think there is no danger to our democracy.