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Parting Shot: Spook Scabs By Francesca Fiorentini
SPOOK SCABS
An open letter from Halloween ghouls about the midterms
By Francesca Fiorentini
We, the undersigned, are
ghosts, witches, graveyarddwellers, devils, werewolves, mummies, creepies, crawlies, and birthday clowns. We are fright workers, who make a living scaring the living. Most of us are independent contractors, working in dangerous conditions night after night terrifying children, or lurking for hours in the shadows without bathroom breaks.
We are writing to express our deep concerns about the growing attempts to replace real spooks with living ghouls through the mortal ceremony you call “elections.” It’s bad enough that every two years these pointless dog and pony shows eclipse our sacred All Hallows’ Eve. In late October, mortals are busy “writing letters to voters” and “text banking” instead of holding makeshift séances or exploring haunted houses. Putrid. All because of your elections and your candidates, who are threatening the livelihoods of ordinary zombies trying to make an honest buck. These are nothing more than spook scabs.
While our ghosts take pains to cover their hideousness in shrouds, they’re being made irrelevant by the living, who don’t even bother wearing white sheets. Take Blake Masters, the man running for a Senate seat in Arizona. Masters is a venture capitalist, a white nationalist, and has praised the writings of the Unabomber. He refuses to pick a scare lane, which goes against the basic principles of fright. (You think Dracula doesn’t ALSO want to turn into a wolf when there’s a full moon out?!) Masters’s embrace of “great replacement” theory and calling immigration “an invasion” threatens the hard work of legendary creatures like the Chupacabra, who says no one even mentions her anymore.
Did you know children don’t even say “Bloody Mary” three times into the mirror anymore to summon her mutilated body? No. Now they say “Kari Lake,” Arizona’s GOP candidate for governor. At a rally, Lake said that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has “Big DeSantis Energy,” which when he heard this, made Jason Voorhees vomit inside his hockey mask. How is he supposed to do his job now?
Over in Pennsylvania, the freaks are also out. Republican candidate for governor Doug Mastriano promotes a shadowy cult that worships a dark lord who lies in wait and goes by the name of “Q.” How are we supposed to compete with that? The bogeyman is anonymous too, but when’s the last time Chardonnay-soaked soccer moms set up a Facebook fan page in his honor? We would also mention Dr. Oz, but he scares no one. Plus, John Fetterman is quite literally the same height as Frankenstein, which honestly puts the ole boy on edge. In Georgia, Senate candidate Herschel Walker’s popularity, despite his inability to speak, is a direct knockoff of hard-working mummies. Where are their royalties for his cheap imitation? Meanwhile, J.D. Vance of Ohio stalks the Senate race while offering his head up to the highest bidder—Peter Thiel or the Mercer family. We already have the Headless Horseman! And “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” is a far better read than Hillbilly Elegy. We, the merchants of screams, have had enough. We are the true soulless opportunists who unnecessarily spread fear, and no Republican will replace us! Their scabbing has led to a speedup of scares and nightmares that we ghouls haven’t seen in hundreds of years. We have appreciated the years of support and the opportunities that the living have offered us, from haunted hayrides to never getting rid of that old grandfather clock in your living room. But we are now joining in one bloodcurdling howl to say BOOOOOOOOOOOO. Vote these imposters out and save fright workers everywhere.
Back to school
By Randi Weingarten, President AMERICAN FEDERATION OF TEACHERS
Ihave been crisscrossing the country lately, as students and staff start the new school year. For the first time since March 2020, school feels familiar. There are challenges, of course, including staff shortages and worries about gun violence. But scientific advances and funding from the federal government have given us the tools to address
COVID-19. Educators didn’t need to see declines in test scores to know what to do right now: Focus like a laser on helping our kids recover and thrive. Teach them core skills and knowledge, and to think critically.
Teachers will need all the support we can give them.
In Medina, Ohio, I checked out the Confetti Project. (The name is inspired by the saying “Spread kindness like confetti.”) Eighth-grade teacher Jody Keith started the project in 2021 to help students deal with the strains of the pandemic and the angst of adolescence. Students select books that inspire them on topics such as leadership, grief and overcoming anxiety, and then they are paired with a teacher or another adult mentor from the school district who has read the same book. While, as one student told me, “books are the starting point,” a teacher
I spoke with emphasized that “the conversations with students are the selling point.” The program aims to build relationships—students with adults, students with students, and schools with communities—and it should spread like confetti.
A few days earlier, I was with students and faculty at
Milwaukee Area Technical College. They welcomed
President Joe Biden’s student debt cancellation announcement. But they know that students often must choose between staying in college and paying for their basic needs. MATC faculty have set up the FAST Fund for students experiencing economic emergencies. FAST (which stands for Faculty and
Students Together) provides rapid financial support to help students with food, rent, child care and other necessities so they can remain enrolled. This year alone, MATC’s FAST Fund has assisted 765 students with nearly $220,000 in direct aid, helping 157 students avoid eviction, providing 184 students with tuition or debt payments, and assisting 157 students with book costs or exam fees. An AFT grant will support establishing FAST funds on at least nine higher education campuses in the Midwest.
Closer to home, I visited PS 48 Michael J. Buczek
Elementary School in Washington Heights, N.Y. In one classroom, first-grade students were engrossed in a lesson about germs. “Soap makes germs VANISH,” a very excited student told me. In a third-grade art class, students created collages, inspired by Matisse paintings on the smartboard and soothed by the soft music their teacher plays to create a peaceful atmosphere. The joy of learning was evident throughout this school, which is named in honor of a police officer killed in the line of duty. This is the unheralded work that happens in public schools every day, in every community across America. But, too often, ideologues’ scaremongering and sensational headlines divert attention from educators’ dedication and from what is needed to support high-quality teaching and learning for all children. As extremists are trying to ban books, the AFT is well on our way to giving away 1 million books this year—and we will give another million books to kids and families next year. From Scranton to Socorro, from Nashua to Neshaminy, children are delighting in picking out books of their own. As critics complain about student debt forgiveness, the AFT is working to make higher education accessible without a “debt sentence,” by offering student debt clinics, suing fraudulent loan servicers, and promoting public service loan forgiveness so people can choose professions like teaching without being forever buried in debt. And as extremist politicians like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis make baseless, politically motivated claims that there is “woke indoctrination in our schools” around race and sexuality, educators are doing everything they can to create safe and welcoming environments for students and to help them recover and thrive—academically, socially and emotionally. The AFT’s What Kids and Communities Need campaign is grounded in a simple premise: Teachers want what students need. Those needs are great due to the systemic inequities that have always existed in our schools and society, the trauma and disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the strain of teacher and school staff shortages, and the cynical attacks on educators and schools by extremists. The message from parents is equally clear: They don’t want culture wars infiltrating our schools. They support honest, age-appropriate teaching of history. Polling shows that parents like their public schools and appreciate educators’ herculean efforts to support students during the pandemic. This is the time to bring joy and support into our schools, not politics and hate. This is the time to support America’s largest civic institution—our public schools—to bring our divided country together and nurture our children’s and our nation’s healing. Educators and families are leading the way.
Photo: Pamela Wolfe
Weingarten speaks with participants in the Confetti Project at Buckeye Junior High School in Medina, Ohio, Sept. 13.
