Red Wine & Blue
How these women are turning talk into action
I’m stunned that I didn’t know about Red Wine & Blue before this week when a friend mentioned it. Finally, the voice for the majority is loud enough to be heard at every school board meeting in America. Most of us don’t want book banning in schools, or a curriculum taken hostage or the needless exposure of students, teachers and staff to Covid.
It’s high time to make this clear, and these women are doing it up front, with a serious sense of humor. I believe it’s a winning strategy for us, right here in our home county.
This grassroots organization of 300,000 American women has the energy and imagination to move us from defense to offense. On their website you’ll find some of these “typical suburban housewives” shown in their homes. But the look in their eyes doesn’t say “typical”.
In 2019 Katie Paris founded Red Wine & Blue “with a plan to engage ‘concerned but unconnected’ suburban voters in local races … to build a road map for Democrats to win back Ohio in the 2020 presidential election.”
Today, Paris leads an active opposition to well-organized groups like Moms for Liberty.
[Paris] believes the only way to fight back is to present a calm face to counter the angry groups that have dominated and disrupted board meetings and in some cases threatened officials.
But the disruptions don’t stop at the school parking lot. Vocal conservative groups are helping far-right political agents to realize their legislative aims across America.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) is pushing a slate of bills called the Stop W.O.K.E. Act that would give nearly anyone the right to sue schools and teachers over what they teach, based on student discomfort. Republican governors Greg Abbott of Texas and Henry McMaster of South Carolina have called for investigations into school library books, and Virginia’s newly sworn in Gov. Glenn Youngkin made parents’ frustration with public schools a hallmark of his upset victory in November.
What’s going on in our own state? From Education Week:
State: North Carolina
Status: Bill has been vetoed, overturned or stalled indefinitely
Details: In September, 2021 Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper became the first governor to veto his state's proposed ban on certain classroom discussions about racism. The bill would have prevented teachers from promoting 13 concepts related to race or sex, including that meritocracy is racist or sexist, or that the United States was created to oppress members of one race or sex.
You can see by this that our job is to help protect Governor Cooper’s veto, by electing Democrats to the NC Legislature and in our state and local races in November.
The Values of Red Wine & Blue, below, inspire me because they sing out with everything we’ve always known but were keeping secret.
We exist to lift each other up.
We’re optimistic and unafraid.
We believe everyone has a role to play.
We are not saviors. We are simply doing our part.
We believe trust-based relationships are the foundation for everything.
We stand on the shoulders of local groups, local women. We do not exist to replace or supplant the work of local women and groups. We exist to make you stronger and more effective. We succeed when you succeed.
Value #6 defines our purpose here and now.
I could warn you, “Don’t be tempted by Red Wine & Blue’s ‘Troublemakers Training’.” But that’s pointless. Everything about them says, “Go there!”
That makes me feel HOPEFUL! Thanks
If you like listening to podcasts, be sure to check out The Suburban Women Problem which is a Red, Wine & Blue podcasts. Lots of good stuff there. Rachel Vindman, yes the wife of that Vindman, is one of the 3 co-hosts. Really good.