Last September, Elana Fishbein chastised me for suggesting that her 15 minutes of fame were up.
Now it looks like Fishbein was right and I was wrong about her renown – past, current and future.
My intent then was to be facetious as I described Fishbein as a World Famous Gladwyne Mom. But now that Elana Fishbein is getting kind of well-known, could we agree that when I was describing her still quite nascent fame, almost a year ago, that I was just being prescient?
I mentioned Fishbein for the first time in an article that I posted on August 14, 2020. A few days earlier, the Washington Free Beacon ran a story by Chrissy Clark that was critical of two books that children at Gladwyne School were required to read. According to Clark – Lower Merion School District, one of the richest in the nation—will require fourth and fifth graders to read Not My Idea: A Book About Whiteness, which claims that white people who relate to police officers or decline to watch the news are complicit in racism.
Clark also wrote that The curriculum also assigns A Kid’s Book About Racism to kindergarten and first graders.
Clark mentioned Elana Fishbein, who had pulled her two young sons out of the Lower Schools because she did not approve of the district’s Anti-Racism curriculum.
On September 17, I wrote about Fishbein’s appearance on Tucker Carlson’s show (September 15).
Fishbein did not appreciate my describing her appearance in terms of “minutes of fame,” and she let me “have it” in the comments section of the article.
Fast forward to July 14, 2021 – a lot more than 15 minutes have passed, and Elana Fishbein is still in the news.The headline of a Washington Post story reads:
How Tucker Carlson became the voice of White grievance
Describing Fishbein’s appearance on Carlson’s show, last September.
Carlson and his Fox News colleagues have devoted many hours to promoting their idea that Democrats are using the academic framework of critical race theory to promote racial divisions. They said it wasn’t just the government and corporations, it was local school boards, and Carlson encouraged a national movement to stop it.
Carlson introduced viewers to a children’s book called “Not My Idea: A Book About Whiteness.” The book’s author, Anastasia Higginbotham, said in an interview that the book was designed to give children information about racism and what they could do to respond to it.
The book depicts a parent telling a child: “Our family is kind to everyone. We don’t see color.” The book then says: “Deep down we all know. Color matters. Skin color makes a difference in how the world sees you and in how you see the world.”
Carlson’s guest on the program that night was Elana Fishbein, who said she had clashed with local school officials in Pennsylvania over what she called efforts to use “Not My Idea” and other works to teach her children about racism. Fishbein pulled two of her children out of elementary school to avoid having them being taught in such a way. At the end of her interview, Fishbein urged viewers to visit online platforms she had set up for her new organization, No Left Turn in Education.
Fishbein told The Post in an interview that by the time she left the Fox studio, her group’s Facebook page views had grown from 200 to about 20,000. By the end of the week, she said, the page had more than 1 million views, an assertion that could not be independently verified. In the following weeks, she said, she used the publicity generated by the Carlson show to create state chapters and challenge local school curriculums.
“I had no idea I was going to be flooded like that after just one appearance, and I was not ready for it,” Fishbein said.
If you had asked me last September, what CRT stood for, I probably would have answered CATHODE RAY TUBE.
Maybe Fishbein, a leading opponent of Lower Merion School District’s Cultural Proficiency curriculum, might have known last September that CRT stood for Critical Race Theory, but when she appeared with Carlson, neither one of them used that term.
However, according to the Post –
Christopher Rufo, a conservative researcher whose criticism of critical race theory during a September 2020 appearance on Carlson’s show prompted Trump to sign an executive order restricting diversity training in federal agencies.
By February of 2021, The Washington Times was writing that Fishbein describes critical race theory in classrooms as “pure poison to children’s souls,” said her group’s chapters in 20 states are beginning to work with lawmakers to craft policies at the municipal, county and state levels to combat racist-focused curricula.
In March of 2021, Fishbein appeared on the Dom Giordano Show. Audacy.com (previously known as Radio.com), describing the broadcast wrote – Dr. Fishbein created her organization, No Left Turn in Education, to fight back against the spread of Critical Race Theory.
Earlier this month, Fishbein told CNN reporter, Elle Reeve – What happened in the summer – it twisted the minds of all kids. My kids can be attacked by Antifa kids, or BLM kids, who are not Black. They are White like my kids. But they are believing – they are indoctrinated, and they internalize this philosophy.
Reeve then asked Fishbein if her children were beat-up by Antifa kids.
Fishbein replied – It’s going to happen if we’re not going to stop it. But we are going to stop it. We are. We are the great majority of this country.
Thank you for close reading. It’s fixed.
Well, I live in Gladwyne, but I am not bigot or afraid of kids hearing the truth about our history. Scary to think that these people are the “great majority” here.
God Bless her. CRT or whatever name it goes by today is racist!