Dear Alex Detschelt,

I should go to the school board meeting. I should stand there and look in your face and say all these things because when you choose to run for a school board position, you acknowledge that the people can do that— stand there and tell you how angry you’ve made them— and you have to take it. You have to sit there and listen and no matter how hard you try to close your ears to it, and no matter what internal filter you put up to dilute, distort, misinterpret the words, they are still that. Words.

What are words, Alex? Ugh. I hate even typing your name. I hate giving you even that much. You deserve nothing. But I’m not doing this for me. I’m doing this for all the parents that have emailed, messaged, texted me saying, “You have a platform. Help us.” Maybe one of them can read this to you. I can’t. I’m a writer. I use my written words. Were I to speak these to you, I’d tremble. Not in fear, because you’re nothing to be afraid of. You’re too small to invoke any fear in me. I’d tremble in anger. But you’d just call it self-righteousness. This, Alex, is what we call self-awareness.

What are words? You’re already dismissing these words, but I’m going to write them anyway in hopes I can reach the people who voted for you. The people who somehow have so many spaces in their hearts that they’ve filled with hate and vitriol that they’re open to the hate and vitriol you spew with such glee. Again and again, you see words like compassion. Love. Empathy. Kindness. And you stomp all over them. You light them on fire. You shit on them. You crumple them up and you replace them with words like bigotry, hate, prejudice, rudeness, crassness. You’re nothing but a childish bully, Alex. But you’re a bully who sits on a school board.

You’re a bully on a school board making decisions about children and education, and who posts things like this and doesn’t see a single thing wrong with it for hours and hours until enough people tell you they’re upset and then you dig and dig and dismiss and deny and double down and insult:

Just words. What are words, Alex?

Do you know how I know you learned nothing? Do you know how I know you really use that word regularly and you don’t see anything wrong with it still? Do you know how I know?

Because when we learn something. When we acknowledge true wrongness. When we get new information that supposedly opens our eyes and makes us truly remorseful. We react the opposite of how you reacted. We become introspective. Contemplative. Quiet.

I speak from experience. I underwent a complete political, social, and personal shift. I opened my mind, found myself lacking, found myself ignoring factual information in favor of personal opinion, and I changed my stance based on the information. That’s what we’re supposed to do. As humans. That’s how things get better, not worse.

You won’t do that. I know. You’re set in your ways. You like the attention and honestly, I hate giving you this attention, because you feed on it, but at some point, it has got to come back to you. It just has to. Or what the hell am I doing with my platform? What good is it? I’ll use it to spread good and hope it does one small thing to counter the trash you’ve been spreading about diversity.

My daughter is autistic. She is in your school district. She’s fucking remarkable. So so fucking smart. She has been called the R-word in your fucking school. Do you want me to say that again? She has been called the R-word in your fucking school.

So when the school board member who ran on anti-diversity, lots of hate, and zero empathy uses that same word and THEN FUCKING DEFENDS IT. Well, you understand why I’ve gone sweary mama bear (band name) here, I’m sure.

When the school board member who ran on hate and zero empathy uses that same word and THEN FUCKING DEFENDS IT, I know the truth. He uses that word. He sees nothing wrong with it to the point that he was surprised that so many people had a problem with it that he issued a half-assed insulting apology and took it down. You showed your cards, Alex. You can’t unshow them. We all saw.

They’re just words. What are words? Do they empower others to use your slurs and feel more okay about it? Do you recognize that can happen? Or do you deny that? What if I told you that in a reply to my tweet showing what you posted, a person referred to my daughter’s “retardedness.” Does that change anything for you? I’m sure it doesn’t. You’ve closed your doors so tightly no light will get in. I get it.

But you should apologize. To every single special ed child, parent and family in the schools you represent. You should open your eyes for one single breath and wonder if you’re all that you could be or if you’re going to continue being the least version of yourself you possibly can.

I get it. Continue the insults. The childishness. Continue “triggering the libs” because that’s all you live for anymore. But the problem with that being all you live for is that has now become all. you. are. That’s it, Alex. That’s the totality of your existence. Whatever dreams you had growing up. Whatever you wanted to be. You’re not it. You’re … this. You’re nothing but your hate and you’re nothing but your prejudice and you’re nothing but your gleeful bigotry. The end.

That’s your legacy. It might seem great now, because you narcissistically feed on the attention, but please trust this historian. It’s going to be painted in some much darker, uglier colors at some point down the line and those who gaze upon it will say, “What a waste. What a terrible terrible waste.”

Does that hurt you? To be called a waste?

It’s just a word, Alex, and what are words?

Just words.