Joe Turner: School board candidate or demagogue?

Joseph Turner, a Southern California white nationalist and leader of the anti-immigrant group Save Our State, is asking San Bernardino voters to choose him to guide the education of San Bernardino children in the Board of Education race there.  On October 7, this aspiring educator sent an apocalyptic, white supremacist message to his Save Our State supporters: 

Our enemies are bloodied and beaten.  We cannot relent.  Our boot is on their throat and we must have the willingness to crush their "throat" so that we can put our enemy down for good.

The sovereignty of our nation and the future of our culture and civilization is at stake.  The United States is a beacon of salvation unto the rest of the world.  Our freedoms, our culture is mans salvation.  If we perish, man perishes.

Like most would-be despots and cult leaders, Turner does not play well with others.  His Board of Education campaign website lumps his school board "opposition," half of the current school board, into a Hall of Shame.  Since the website's inception, only one "opponent" merits explanation--the rest just sit there, with Turner's smear on their pictures.  His campaign  hinges on attacking two school board administrators whose secretaries completed applications for their bosses' membership in professional organizations, the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO) and the Association for Mexican-American Educators (AMAE).

Turner's partner, Alexis Ashley, is also running for school board.

Turner's post-election plan differ from his campaign strategy, and it's not about San Bernardino.  In an email circulated to his supporters on September 27, Turner promised to use a school board seat to target undocumented people through their children:

Most importantly, I can assure you that I will use my position as an elected school board member to introduce create and innovative solutions targeting our illegal alien problem. Similar to my Illegal Immigration Relief Act which is now being copied throughout the nation, you can count on me to replicate this strategic model and initiate discussions on ideas that if not pursued in our district, will be pursued in others.

In a communication to his followers, he was even clearer that continuing his national immigrant-bashing pogram is his real agenda, and a San Bernardino school board seat is merely a expedient means to that end:  "I am going to use the school board as a similar vehicle to propose and initiate ideas for other districts that have the willingness to attack this problem."

Neither education or children's safety are on Turner's education agenda.  Turner bluntly promised the San Bernardino County Sun that he would abolish bilingual programs, making education inaccessible for thousands of children.  Then he would "aggressively target the policies that aid and abet illegal immigration."  According to the Sun, "he also would pursue ways to overturn the U.S. Supreme Court decision that allows illegal-immigrant children to receive free public education from kindergarten through 12th grade." 

Turner has already tried to limit schoolchildren's access to emergency care, with a stunt that could have endangered his own child's safety:

One day my son brought home the emergency information card for school at the beginning of the year a couple of years back. It was urgent that we return this card ASAP.

I couldn't even read the damn thing because they wanted so much information and each line of text was followed by a Spanish translation.

I was furious. So, I fired off a hastily hand-written letter stating that if I wanted to read or speak Spanish, I would take my happy ass to Mexico and that we spoke English in this country. As I am sure you can imagine, I was pretty...er...direct.

I concluded by stating that I wasn't going to send back their emergency card until it was in English-only.

Turner's interest in education may extend beyond barring immigrants from public schools.  This spring, Turner's group, Save Our State, considered protesting a charter elementary school, Académia Semillas del Pueblo, until one of their members reported that parents were guarding their children.  One Save Our State member went so far as to suggest bombing the school.  Turner did not moderate the discussion or publicly reprimand the would-be bomber.

Turner left San Bernardino before high school and returned in July, in time to re-introduced himself to San Bernardino by dividing the city along ethnic lines when solicited signatures to qualify his proposed Illegal Immigration Relief Act for the November ballot.  Although he failed to garner enough supporters, the ordinance would have prohibited renting to or transacting business with undocumented people, it would have required all renters to register their leases with the city, and it would have declared undocumented migrants "public nuisances," subject to "abatement" by other residents.

He is endorsed by three of the city council members who voted for the ordinance, and his boss, California Assembymember Ray Haynes (R-Murrieta).

For the time being, Turner has turned his attention to the education of the children of San Bernardino.  But the dangerous dreams he dreams are turning meglomaniacal, from defying the U.S. Supreme Court's rulings on education to his latest pseudo-Tanakhic epistle.  He told the Ventura County Star in July, "Deep down, I feel like I've been called to greatness.   If not me, who?"  The answer will be up to the parents of San Bernardino.