Centennial School Board candidate Jessica Schwinn suggested white people who quote Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. are racist and accused them of advocating for white supremacy.
Schwinn called a “family meeting” in an undated TikTok video to reprimand white people, calling them racist and uninformed. They are “upholding” white supremacy, she said.
Schwinn is running for school board with a slate of candidates calling themselves “4Centennial,” which includes Andrew Meyer, Laura Gannon, and Kara Schmitz. The Centennial School District encompasses Blaine, Centerville, Circle Pines, Lexington, and Lino Lakes.
The text introducing the video reads: “ATTN: white people: Family meeting time. How are we going to call out our ‘cousins’ who misrepresent and/or misconstrue Dr. Martin Luther King’s words and memory on Monday?”
The video, which is just over a minute long, opens with Schwinn saying, “Hey white people, yeah, you. You’re white.”
Schwinn was endorsed by TakeAction Minnesota, a far-left progressive organization.
“The same grifters who have attacked our democracy, rigged the Supreme Court in favor of the rich and powerful, and sown division in our communities over masks and vaccines are promoting hate in our schools and trying to force our teachers to lie about our history,” the group said in its endorsement.
In the TikTok video, Schwinn says to white people, “We need to have a little chat. So Monday there’s about to be a lot of wild tweets and wild posts quoting Dr. Martin Luther King and the people who are posting these are … mmm … not informed and racist and trying to uphold white supremacy.”
She encouraged others to join her in “calling out” other white people who quote King.
“So it is on us, as white people, to call out our cousins, fellow white people … call ’em out … call ’em out,” Schwinn says in the video.
She concludes the video by saying, “We [white people] cannot put this on people of color and black people. It’s not on them. It’s our turn. We need to take this on. We need to call out … call them out. And we’ll be busy on Monday but it’s what we need to do.”
Equity in schools is a cornerstone of Schwinn’s school board campaign. She was recently criticized online for objecting to the “parental rights movement.”
Meyer, one of her fellow candidates, responded to this criticism, saying “parent concerns are important and should be heard,” but not at the expense of student privacy.
“If a student chooses to share something about themselves with an educator that they wish to remain confidential, and the educator does not think said student is in danger, then they should be allowed to keep that confidential,” he said.
Schwinn also appears to be in favor of keeping sexually graphic books in schools. She said in one Facebook post that she’s against “banning books” and included a list of the “10 most challenged books.” At the top of that last is “Gender Queer,” which includes graphic illustrations of oral sex and masturbation.
According to Parents Defending Education, Centennial School District provides teachers and parents with resources on equity and gender ideology and promotes an organization that helps transgender individuals acquire free “chest binders.”
Alpha News reached out to Schwinn but she did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
Sheila Qualls
Sheila Qualls is an award-winning journalist and former civilian editor of an Army newspaper. Prior to joining Alpha News, she was a Christian Marriage and Family columnist at Patheos.com and a personal coach. Her work has been published in The Upper Room, the MOPS blog, Grown and Flown, and The Christian Post. She speaks nationally on issues involving faith and family.
