Government By "Don't Think" Tanks and Twitter Trends

My "Running on MT" podcast co-host Matt King and I recently interviewed Wisconsin Senator Melissa Agard (D-Madison) about her Senate Bill 545 which would legalize cannabis in Wisconsin for medical and recreational purposes. Including her time in the Wisconsin State Assembly, Agard has sponsored cannabis legalization legislation for eight consecutive years. Not once has the Republican majority leadership scheduled the Bill for a hearing, even though it's now become common for Wisconsinites to travel to neighboring states for pot purchases and opinion polls show majority support for legalization. 

Interview with Senator Melissa Agard 

We asked Senator Agard how she became passionate about something like cannabis legalization. Her answer was very "old school." She said that while marijuana is not part of her personal culture and she never campaigned on the issue, every time she knocks on citizens' doors or meets voters in other settings, she hears numerous stories of how pot prohibition is harming people. As she told us: 

After I was elected and maybe even before I was elected, as I was knocking on doors and pounding the pavement so to speak . . . I had people coming up to me and sharing with me very personal, compelling stories about how the prohibition of cannabis was harming them and harming the people who they love. Whether it was the mom who was talking to me about her son who lost his scholarship and housing opportunities for college because he was pulled over for a missing tail light on his car and the police found a blunt in the ashtray. Or whether it was how egregious our racial disparities are when it comes to arrest for simple possession in Wisconsin--the fact that black and brown people are between four and seven times more likely to be "invited into" the criminal justice system than white folks. Or people who had left the state of Wisconsin to learn about and become part of the cannabis industry, and wanted to be able to come back and pollinate that knowledge and bring the industry into Wisconsin, but they weren't able to. Or parents with very ill children whose peers in other states were able to provide relief to their kids with access to cannabis . . . The stories could go on and on, but it was really clear to me through these stories that the most dangerous thing about pot in Wisconsin is that it's illegal, and prohibition is not working.

Every single member of the state legislature represents people with pot prohibition stories similar to those Senator Agard hears. No doubt every representative also hears from people with sincere, evidence based objections to legalization. (I personally support legalization based on the evidence I've seen and testimony I've heard, but am very open minded to opposing views.). In a functional, truly representative government, the way to work out the disagreements is to have public hearings on the Bill in the relevant committees. If the Bill makes it out of committee, then schedule debates in and votes of the full legislature. If it passes both Houses, send it to the governor for his signature. That's Civics 101. 

Note that I said "functional" government. State government in Wisconsin stopped being functional a long time ago, to the point where the old school practice of legislation starting at the grassroots level has virtually disappeared. What's replaced it is government by partisan [don't] think tanks and Twitter trends. 

A textbook example of what I'm talking about occurred recently in Wisconsin when the legislature along strictly partisan lines passed an education bill designed to ban Critical Race Theory from schools and mandate the GOP's vision of civics education. Let's compare what happened with Senator Agard's cannabis legislation with the GOP's education bill: 

*The cannabis legislation emerged from grassroots level discussions with citizens hurt by the current policy. The education legislation is part of a national movement spurred on by Fox News and other right wing actors. 

*The cannabis legislation has been filed for eight consecutive years and still has not had a committee hearing. The education legislation was introduced in June of this year and fast tracked through the legislature. 

*The cannabis legislation appears to be a good faith effort to address the real, documented harms caused by the current policy of prohibition. The education bill appears to be the latest episode in the never ending attempt to make hot-button culture war issues the center of attention in election season. (In Virginia, the central claim of Republican Glenn  Youngkin's gubernatorial campaign is that a vote for Democrat Terry McAuliffe is a vote for critical race theory. Youngkin might win.). 

*The cannabis legislation has bipartisan support among the people (83 percent including a majority of declared Republicans support medical marijuana; 59 percent including a majority who "lean Republican" support legalization for recreational purposes). Passing such legislation--or at least giving it an opportunity to be debated in good faith--would be a rare unifying moment across party lines in Wisconsin. In contrast, the education bill is strictly partisan, and its fast tracking and passage appeared designed to enhance divisions across the state. 

Put simply, the legislation to ban "Critical Race Theory" in Wisconsin education is just another example of our state legislature being coopted and exploited by national [Don't] Think Tanks and the Twitter trends they create. Because Don't Think Tanks and Twitter Trends are designed to build support for tribal interests as opposed to sound public policy, legislation that gets passed is often so poorly thought out that the consequences can range from absurd to unconstitutional to just frightening. For example, the education bill passed by the Wisconsin Assembly creates a literal censorship regime in the state's public schools, in which teachers are told that certain concepts violate the Equal Protection Clause of the US Constitution. 

Do you think I'm exaggerating? Last August, Wisconsin Rep. Chuck Wichgers (R-Muskego), one of the co-authors of the critical race theory ban, in testimony before a joint Assembly/Senate education committee meeting outlined a number of terms that would be prohibited subjects in the classroom: 

• Critical Race Theory (CRT)
• Action Civics
• Social Emotional Learning (SEL)
• Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI)
• Culturally responsive teaching
• Abolitionist teaching
• Affinity groups
• Anti-racism
• Anti-bias training
• Anti-blackness
• Anti-meritocracy
• Obtuse meritocracy
• Centering or de-centering
• Collective guilt
• Colorism
• Conscious and unconscious bias
• Critical ethnic studies
• Critical pedagogy
• Critical self-awareness
• Critical self-reflection
• Cultural appropriation/misappropriation
• Cultural awareness
• Cultural competence
• Cultural proficiency
• Cultural relevance
• Cultural responsiveness
• Culturally responsive practices
• De-centering whiteness
• Deconstruct knowledges
• Diversity focused
• Diversity training
• Dominant discourses
• Educational justice
• Equitable
• Equity
• Examine “systems"
• Free radical therapy
• Free radical self/collective care
• Hegemony
• Identity deconstruction
• Implicit/Explicit bias
• Inclusivity education
• Institutional bias
• Institutional oppression
• Internalized racial superiority
• Internalized racism
• Internalized white supremacy
• Interrupting racism
• Intersection
• Intersectionality
• Intersectional identities
• Intersectional studies
• Land acknowledgment
• Marginalized identities
• Marginalized/Minoritized/Under-represented communities
• Microaggressions
• Multiculturalism
• Neo-segregation
• Normativity
• Oppressor vs. oppressed
• Patriarchy
• Protect vulnerable identities
• Race essentialism
• Racial healing
• Racialized identity
• Racial justice
• Racial prejudice
• Racial sensitivity training
• Racial supremacy
• Reflective exercises
• Representation and inclusion
• Restorative justice
• Restorative practices
• Social justice
• Spirit murdering
• Structural bias
• Structural inequity
• Structural racism
• Systemic bias
• Systemic oppression
• Systemic racism
• Systems of power and oppression
• Unconscious bias
• White fragility
• White privilege
• White social capital
• White supremacy
• Whiteness
• Woke

Were it not for the fact that legislation like this is so destructive, the idea that the sponsors cannot see the irony of them rejecting discussions of "white fragility" or "critical self-reflection" would be funny. 

In all seriousness, do the writers of this legislation even know what the majority of these "radical" concepts even mean? Do they have any idea how mindful, dedicated teachers use the concepts? Do they even care? 

I understand that the Governor will probably veto the legislation. I also understand that it is aimed at K-12. But as a university professor, I know that such legislative overreach does have a chilling effect that makes instructors "think twice" before introducing certain concepts into the classroom. And yet how can any serious curriculum in the Humanities or Social Sciences avoid critical discussions of race? 

To provide just one simple example: I teach a sophomore level class in "Rhetoric and Public Advocacy." The course covers dozens of concepts, including a brief mention of "intersectionality." That concept, which has become the new "communism" for bad-faith Republicans, simply refers to the obvious fact that our performance of all identity factors is impacted by other identity factors. For example, a person's  performance of their age is impacted by the performance of social class and race. Middle-aged white men with white collar jobs have different life experiences than middle-aged black men with white collar jobs. Are white people in America really too fragile to consider the possibility that some of those differences in experience are the result of deeply rooted, systemic factors that are rarely talked about? If we don't talk about those factors in schools, then where? When? 

When we get to the intersectionality concept in class, I usually show a provocative ad run by the Procter & Gamble corporation called "The Look." In the ad, we see an African-American man and his son entering spaces filled with predominantly white faces in places like a restaurant, public swimming pool, and an elevator. In all the spaces, the African-American man gets "the look" suggesting his presence in the space provokes fear and suspicion. It is not until the end of the ad that we find out that the African-American man is a Judge; when he is wearing his robe and reaching for his gavel he seems to get the respect denied him in other places. 

Procter and Gamble Ad: The Look

That simple yet effective ad provokes some great discussion in the classroom. If white people are suspicious of the man before they know he is a judge, does the suspicion go away when he puts the robe on? Does the African-American judge have to be "twice as good just to be equal?" If that judge shows up in a predominantly white neighborhood seeking to purchase a home, would he be treated as any other potential home owner?  There are no "right" answers to these questions. The point is that it is impossible to raise such questions seriously without at some point having to introduce concepts like "intersectionality" or "white privilege" or "systemic racism" or any number of concepts that the GOP majority--acting in response to [Don't] Think Tanks and Twitter Trends--seek to censor. 

When it comes to governance in Wisconsin and in the United Stated generally, we are living in disturbing times. Legislation with bipartisan support, like that which would legalize cannabis for medical and/or recreational purposes, cannot get a formal legislative hearing even after eight consecutive years of being introduced. Meanwhile, legislation that is purely the concoction of partisan [Don't] Think tanks and Twitter trends gets fast tracked and passed without the consequences being addressed in any meaningful way. 

What do we do about it? There are no easy answers, but in a Media Rants blog I would be remiss if I did not point out that major media need to do a much better job of calling out the bad faith actors willing to hijack state government for their own partisan political purposes. They also need to call out those members of the legislature who--probably because of intimidation or ignorance--are willing to allow themselves to BE hijacked.