Well, I just learned something awful today.
Worse than the possible fungal takeover of our minds. Worse than Twitter forcing Elon Musk’s opinions down my throat. It’s about something that I thought was relatively harmless. A yellow bucket. What could be so sinister about a yellow bucket? It’s probably just full of cleaning supplies, right? Or maybe mop water? Cookies if the class behaves really well?
No, no, and no. The reason why classrooms store those yellow buckets is far more sobering. A group of Republicans in our government think that they’ve uncovered the reason. But like they often are, they’re totally wrong.
Oh god … what does the GOP think those buckets are for?
At least 20 Republican politicians claim that the buckets are being used to accommodate “people who identify as cats”.
Cats.
Okay first off, no. Just no. I mean the GOP loves to hit below the belt regarding issues of gender identity, but this is honestly just disgusting. A new low that I didn’t even think was possible. NO ONE, NOT ONE SCHOOL IN AMERICA, IS USING “LITTER BOXES” FOR STUDENTS WHO IDENTIFY AS CATS. But they know that too. How could they not?
It’s such an asinine point of view to take that I don’t even think they are CAPABLE of believing it. It’s just a thinly veiled attack on issues of gender identity and trans students in schools. They are once again spreading straight-up disinformation in order to rally their base and manufacture outrage towards anyone who identifies as a gender that is different to what they were assigned at birth.
Trans kids don’t want litter boxes, trans kids just want to be able to go to the bathroom normally like EVERYONE ELSE. And yet the GOP is hellbent on preventing that. Brendan Shea, a member Ohio State Board of Education and Republican, championed a resolution to oppose civil rights protections for LGBTQ students. While arguing for the resolution in a public meeting, Shea said, “We’ve literally got kids who think they’re cats and dogs using litter boxes in classrooms.”
Meanwhile in Colorado, Republican gubernatorial nominee Heidi Ganahl claimed that students were dressing up and identifying as cats in several recent interviews. Some children, she claimed, would only communicate in barks and hisses, disrupting class. Heidi, I have a cat, and you are full of more shit than her litter box ever could be.
So what are these buckets for?
Teacher and TikToker Larry Lexicon had previously made a TikTok video showing one of these yellow buckets, and many right-wingers on the internet were incensed. One of his students described the comments section as “horrible,” and Larry decided to make a response video that goes into detail about the purpose of the buckets. He begins the video with the Socratic method, asking his class what they think the purpose of the yellow buckets is. They give a variety of answers: earthquakes, floods, even a nuclear bomb. Larry prods the class to think a little harder, asking them what sort of crisis is most likely to happen at an American school. The class is stumped.
Larry gives the answer: school shootings.
It’s telling that this wasn’t the first answer to come to mind. After all, students are so inundated with news of school shootings that many are desensitized to them. Many American students have a “not if but when” mentality towards school shootings, treating them as something that is inevitably going to happen. Whatever the case may be, school shootings are so normalized in America that they are almost mundane. A disaster as common (but far more traumatic and upsetting) as a power outage.
Larry Lexicon spends the next section of the video reminding his students of the grim realities of the violence that takes place within the school system. He opens the lid of the yellow bucket, and takes out the contents. Inside are two rolls of toilet paper, and a variety of different medical supplies. He explains that the buckets are to be used for students to survive while locked in a classroom for a long period of time. The bucket is intended to be used as a makeshift toilet, yes. But not because students identify as cats. It’s because students may spend hours holed up in a classroom while waiting for law enforcement to arrive and subdue the shooter, and will not be able to leave the classroom to use the bathroom during that interval of time.
Larry then pulls out a few small blankets that are included in the supplies. He explains that these blankets are to be used to “cover up bodies.” He goes on to say that the bodies that he will be forced to cover will likely be people that his students care about, and someone that he cares about too. However, he says that using the yellow bucket is a positive thing because it means that his students will be able to remain alive.
He concludes the video by entreating his students to go to house.gov and letting their representatives know that they are “fed up.” The video is hashtagged #NoMoreBuckets and #StopSchoolViolence, and has been reposted across the internet to raise awareness towards gun violence and refute Republican misinformation about the buckets.
In light of this, the lies that conservative politicians are spreading about these buckets are especially disgusting, considering they are responsible for these “go buckets” in the first place. For all the Republican party’s grandstanding about “protecting children,” they refuse to take political action that would actually keep kids safe. Time and time again the GOP has voted against placing restrictions on guns in America, despite the countless mass shootings that have rocked our country. According to the CDC, 45,222 people died from gun-related injuries in the U.S. in 2020, a figure astronomically higher than any other nation in the western world. And yet Republican politicians instead choose to focus their efforts on demonizing drag shows, gutting school libraries of “controversial material”, and banning discussions on gender identity in classroom environments.
It leads me to believe that the greatest danger towards students in America is not gun violence in America, but the Republican party platform itself.
(featured image: larrylexicon on TikTok)
