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Darlene McDonald

@iamdarlenemcd

Jul 22

*Reposting from Facebook*

Some have asked, so I will speak to this historic moment:

Please note, in this post I speak for Darlene and not on behalf of any party or numerous groups I belong to. This message is from U.S citizen, Darlene McDonald.

First, at the moment, I’m grieving. Yes, I’ve shed many tears today. I’m grieving how President Joe Biden was pushed out and a feel that human pain of loss and anger that he and his family must be feeling in this moment. It is not a matter of whether or not he SHOULD have resigned, it is a matter of allowing myself to feel the very real human emotion of loss. #JoeBiden

It is MY opinion that President Joe Biden WILL be recorded as one of the most successful presidents in American history. With that comes policies that I personally agreed with and DID NOT agree with. He will be recorded as the most successful president in American history, period. He has the numbers to prove it.

Second, we cannot ignore what the eyes see and in the world of reality television, it is exacerbated. President Biden has aged and he presents as an elderly man. He stumbles on words. He rambles. His voice trails off. All are signs of a life well lived. That has always been the case. He walks slow, as what comes with aging and shows the signs of recent and old injuries. It does not matter that his mind is sharp. This I know, personally. When we see President Biden, we see an elderly man and what we see, we cannot unsee.

Read 10 tweets

Darlene McDonald

@iamdarlenemcd

Apr 21

Let’s talk about this. Cari Bartholomew is a District 13 Republican State Board of Education candidate. It's speculated that she, along with husband ‘podcaster’ Adam Bartholomew, play a large role in the recent “Furries” faux-rage in order to bolster her campaign. #utpol #USBE

Full Disclosure: I have a history with Cari. It’s safe to say that I do not hold her in high regards. Cari is bi-racial (black and white). Her social and political views toward Black people, culture and history are deeply troubling and align with those of the recently ousted right-wing love child Candace Owens. In fact, Cari once bragged about writing Owens' anti-CRT script. She and Owens exhibit extreme internalized racism that’s harmful and exploited by organizations like Utah Parents United and Turning Point USA and people like Natalie Cline and Charlie Kirk.

People incorrectly believe that I have a problem with African Americans who are Republicans. I do not. I can say that there are a few Black Republicans that I hold in high esteem. I call them friends. There is a very key difference between them and Ms. Cari and even @BurgessOwens.

The allegiance with your political party shouldn’t be dependent upon your embrace of white supremacy and anti-blackness. I am very critical of and hard on Black people who exhibit anti-black racism. I make no apologies for that. None. I call them out without resorting to the usual derogatory name-calling of so-called ‘sell-outs.’ I do not agree with that. We are not monolithic voters. At the same time, an allegiance to a political party shouldn’t be at the expense of those that happen to look like you, while you claim you are not them; you are ‘better.’

History shows us this never ends well.

Read 17 tweets

Darlene McDonald

@iamdarlenemcd

Apr 3

You can put lipstick on a pig, but it’s still a pig. The #utleg dressed up Florida’s antidiscrimination bill by changing a few words and called it the #Utahway.
A 🧵

There's nothing different about #HB261 nor Utah's approach to DEI and antidiscrimination. Utah is being led by the same people with the intention to dismantled antidiscrimination and civil rights laws and protections.

HB261 substitutes 'race, color, sex, or national origin' for 'personal identity characteristics.' By doing so, HB261 includes gender identity.

The Florida's 'Stop Woke Act' placed strict limitations on the topics Florida employers can discuss at diversity, equity, and inclusion ("DEI") trainings and seminars.

The Utah way prohibits mandatory DEI-training and instructional programs by covered institutions that promote #DEI initiatives.

.@johnforutah quotes Maximilian Werner, a University of Utah professor who is a campus co-chair of the Heterodox Academy (HxA) at the UofU.

In November 2023, @GovCox interviewed John Tomasi, President of the Heterodox Academy at an NGA event, where they discussed "how to help college students freely explore new ideas and uncomfortable topics."

This is quite significant. Why? you might ask.

Well, it's all about money💵; where it comes from, who they are giving to, and for what purpose.

Pull up a chair. I'm going to take the scenic route to explain why this is a big deal. #utpol #utleg #crt #HxA

Why is it significant that Cox sat down with John Tomasi?

When the news broke that the Utah state legislature was going to take up anti-DEI legislation during the 2024 Legislative session, in almost every article, Representative Hall notes that she worked with college professors and university presidents on the legislation. Those processors and college presidents are never named. In each article that states a "University of Utah professor" who believes DEI-initiatives go to far, they quote the same University of Utah professor and no one else. Why is that?

Well, it turns out that it's kind of a big deal.

The scenic route.

In 2021, John Warner wrote an opinion article for Inside Higher Ed where he began by quoting another writer that described the newly appointed president of Heterodox Academy, John Tomasi as "One of Charles Koch's "pet professors.""

In addition to being the new President of Heterodox Academy, John Tomasi is also the founder and director of the Political Theory Project at Brown University.

The PTP is described as "an on-campus organization that hosts credit-bearing courses, houses postgraduate fellows and produces original programming around their mission to "investigate the ideas and institutions that make societies free, prosperous, and fair.""

Political Theory Project receives significant funding from libertarian organizations such as the oft-mentioned Charles Koch and the slightly unknown Thomas W. Smith Foundation.
insidehighered.com/blogs/just-vis…

In a Blog entitled, The Obscure Foundation Funding the Uproar Over Critical Race Theory, Diane Ravitch quotes the investigative reporting of Judd Legum and Tesmin Zekeria. I

n an article they published in 2020 on a site called "Popular Information," Legum and Zekeria states, "In 2020, few people outside of law schools had ever heard about CRT."

After delving deeper into the Thomas W. Smith Foundation, they found that the organization has no website and pegs itself as “dedicated to supporting free markets." After examining the foundation's tax records they found that "The person who spends the most time working for the group is not Smith but James Piereson, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute."

💡Does that organization sound familiar? It should.

Senator John Johnson's 2023 #SB283 Prohibiting Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Higher Education and Katy Hall's #HB451 State Entity Restrictions were copied and pasted directly from the Manhattan Institute's Abolish DEI Bureaucracies and Restore Colorblind Equality in Public Universities legislative playbook.

The Manhattan Institute wrote the blueprint for state legislators around the country to use to kill DEI-initiatives in higher education.

And Utah lawmakers such as Senator John Johnson, Rep. Katy Hall, and Rep. Tim Jimenez used it.

Read 16 tweets

Darlene McDonald

@iamdarlenemcd

Jan 26

The psychology of white resentment.

When you study American history and especially America’s periods of racial progress, you will inadvertently study the accompanying white backlash.

“The word came to stand for a topsy-turvy rebellion in which white people with relative societal power perceived themselves as victimized by what they described as overly aggressive African Americans demanding equal rights.”

If/When the Utah State Legislature passed #HB261, they’re willing participants in one of the oldest traditions in American history.

It happened after Reconstruction. It happened before, during, and after the Civil Rights Movement. It happened after the election of Barack Obama. And, it happened after the murder of George Floyd.

What one reporter called “white panic” was driven by fears of “favoritism” and “special privileges” for African Americans—that white “workers would be forced out of their jobs to make way for Negroes,” as one article put it that year, when Jim Crow still prevailed.” #utpol #utleg

On more than one occasion, Rep. Katy Hall testified how people were made to feel ‘uncomfortable’ and how students had turned their backs on a panelist at an Utah university. That panelist turned out to be a bi-racial woman who aligns with Utah Parents United and proudly notes, at every opportunity, that she’s not one of ‘those’ black people (same person made the same declaration during public comment for school board Administrative Rule R277-328). Note: While Conservatives like to quote Martin Luther King Jr., when he lived, he was one of the most hated men in America. Only 75% of Americans approved of King. That means, there were plenty of African Americans and so called progressives who felt he was ’rocking the boat’ or pushing things “too far.”

Knowing this history was one of the reasons watching the legislature discuss #HB261 was so hard. None of it was new. We’ve been here before.

During the Senate hearing, a woman named Marci Campbell gave a very dramatic testimony. She said that she’d approached someone who’d given testimony during the House hearing and that the gentleman had told her he would never have empathy for her because she was white.

le.utah.gov/av/videoClipTe…

Read 8 tweets

Darlene McDonald

@iamdarlenemcd

Jan 24

Monday, we attended public comment during the Utah Senate Education Committee Hearing on #HB261. There were many people speaking for and against the bill. At the end of the hearing, the bill's sponsor, Rep Katy Hall became emotional when she stated, people believe "...that this is just a national agenda. That this is just a push against the 'woke'. I wouldn't bring this bill forward if that's what it was."

Well, as it turns out, much of #HB261 is a copy and paste of Florida's Stop Woke Act , with a minor tweet to wording and phrases, here and there.

See for yourself 1/

(clip Start: 9914 seconds | End: 9941 seconds)
#utpol #utleg #stopwokeact #copyandpaste #dei
le.utah.gov/av/videoClipTe…

STOP WOKE ACT
virtue of his or her race, color, sex, or national origin, should be discriminated against or receive adverse treatment to achieve diversity, equity, or inclusion.

HB261
(C) asserts that an individual should be discriminated against in violation of Title VII
197 and Title IX, receive adverse treatment, be advanced, or receive beneficial treatment because of
198 the individual's personal identity characteristics;

STOP WOKE ACT
An individual, by virtue of his or her race, color, sex, or national origin, is inherently racist, sexist, or oppressive, whether consciously or unconsciously.

HB261
(B) asserts that an individual, by virtue of the individual's personal identity
194 characteristics, is inherently privileged, oppressed, racist, sexist, oppressive, or a victim,
195 whether consciously or unconsciously;

(G) asserts that meritocracy is inherently racist or sexist;

STOP WOKE ACT
An individual’s moral character or status as either privileged or oppressed is necessarily determined by his or her race, color, sex, or national origin.

HB261
199 (D) asserts that an individual's moral character is determined by the individual's
200 personal identity characteristics;

STOP WOKE ACT
An individual, by virtue of his or her race, color, sex, or national origin, bears responsibility for, or should be discriminated against or receive adverse treatment because of, actions committed in the past by other members of the same race, color, sex, or national origin.

HB261
(E) asserts that an individual, by virtue of the individual's personal identity
202 characteristics, bears responsibility for actions committed in the past by other individuals with
203 the same personal identity characteristics;

STOP WOKE ACT
An individual should feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress on account of his or her race, color, sex, or national origin.

HB261
(F) asserts that an individual should feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or other
205 psychological distress solely because of the individual's personal identity characteristics;

STOP WOKE ACT
Florida employers beginning in July 2022 (the effective date of the law) will need to carefully scrutinize the content of any mandatory DEI or non-discrimination training to avoid running afoul of the Act’s prohibitions.

Florida employers should note that the Act restricts the content of mandatory training sessions but does not restrict the content of training that employees attend on a purely voluntary basis.

HB261
(a) "Prohibited training" means a mandatory instructional program and related
532 materials that an LEA requires the LEA's employees, prospective employees, students, or
533 prospective students, to attend that promote prohibited discriminatory practices as that term is
534 defined in Section 53B-1-118.

More information found here 2/
lockelord.com/newsandevents/…

It gets even better.
Rep Tim Jimenez's #HB111 Employment Training Requirement Limitations is an even more egregious copy and paste.
Compare: HB111 vs STOP WOKE ACT 3/

Read 13 tweets

Darlene McDonald

@iamdarlenemcd

Jul 10, 2023

🧵TL;DR
I’m going to tell you a story about my morning and some not pleasant things that’s going on. First, I’d planned to go hiking, but I overslept. Instead, I decided to go on a bike ride with son.

Before leaving the house, I checked my phone and saw that I’d missed called to

inquire if I was still going hiking (SORRY!), and I saw that I had a DM on Twitter from Senator John Johnson @johnforutah. I clicked the link.

Deciding to deal with it later, my son and I went for our 🚲 ride and stopped for breakfast. He also had a yummy strawberry smoothie.

I think he liked it! Back home, I looked at a screenshot of a post by Senator Johnson that was sent to. The lead post asserts that, because he was fighting against the “woke agenda of the left,” he was being called a racist and his employer was being harassed. He followed that

Read 25 tweets

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