When a hatemonger passes on (or, America’s most MAGA dad is no more)

I have been writing about racism for over two decades now. When I started back in 2003, I never could have imagined that my occasional submissions for local publications would end up altering the course of my professional trajectory and turn me into a low-level public figure.

It had always been a dream to write and be paid for it. I am forever grateful that my mother, who died in 2004, had the opportunity to see my writing in print. Writing has always been a balm to my soul; I have been writing for as long as I can remember. Journals, attempts at plays, articles, you name it. Writing is how I make sense of the world. Even in my personal relationships, I tend to write out my thoughts and feelings, particularly the hard ones. My last two partners often lamented the fact that when I am upset, it generally turns into a mini novel. Suffice it to say, even if I never publish a book of my own, I am a writer.

However, in finding an audience for my work, I was not prepared for the attention. I wasn’t prepared to become someone who would regularly receive hate mail or harassment so bad at times that I would need to contact the police.

After two decades though, I have learned to sit with it. It’s never comfortable but for most, their threats and attacks never move beyond trolling online. The operative word being “most.” In all my years of being a public figure known for writing about racism—while living in one of the whitest states—there have only been a few instances where I have truly feared for my safety.

The first incident happened several years ago during a live event with my colleague, author Debby Irving, when a young white nationalist-type interrupted the event and I found myself in a room filled with white people who overwhelmingly didn’t know what to do. Only one person moved to place themselves between the white man and me, and for whatever reason I waved them off and decided to let the disruptive man speak. Though honestly the tension grew as he said his piece and the potential for this man to act more overtly aggressive—perhaps violently—increased quickly.

Eventually, the police were called, but I ended up having to leave through the back of the building to avoid the aggressor. It was that event that led to safety protocols, including the fact that I rarely if ever go to any public event alone. There are times when I have had to travel with security, often ex-police officers. The realization that my work literally could lead to my death has weighed heavily on me and my family and was a constant source of friction between my Dad and me before his premature death in 2020. In hindsight, I understand my Dad’s position: Fuck anti-racism work if it meant possibly losing his eldest child and only daughter. My Dad spent the last years of his life learning social media and following white nationalist chatter to keep tabs on me. I almost broke when I learned this.

Which meant, in a weird way, his death in 2020—while heartbreaking—was also somewhat of relief because it meant that Dad wasn’t here to see the worst of the harassment that my work has brought me. In fact, it was when my Dad was dying that the person who would become one of my biggest harassers dropped into my life.

The backdrop to my Dad’s death was the early months of COVID and the national and global protests in the aftermath of George Floyd’s death. As I have publicly shared on several occasions that while I was aware of what was happening, I didn’t have much bandwidth to be active about addressing or dealing with either of those events. I was on a leave of absence from work and maintaining a vigil at my Dad’s bed in a hospice facility. While I would often scroll online, most of it wasn’t registering. It was something to do while waiting for my beloved father, biggest critic, and fierce protector to leave his earthly body.

When I left Maine to go on my emergency leave of absence, I flew out of Maine on a one-way ticket, having told my board and staff at CCI that under no circumstances was I to be disturbed unless it was an absolute emergency.

Which is why when I received a call a few days before Dad passed away, from CCI’s then lead trainer, I was taken aback. I had no idea that call would lead to years of harassment from a particularly virulent and racist white man.

At that time, CCI was doing anti-racism training work for the North Cumberland-Yarmouth, Maine school district, we were working with staff and faculty, not the students. We never worked with kids. It was to be a yearlong project that had kicked off in late 2019 and, by all accounts, it was going well. Until a local father who apparently had been following my social media accounts and work decided after the local school issued a solidarity statement asserting that Black Lives Matter that he had had enough of me—and, well, it was time to activate.

The “concerned father” was a man named Shawn McBrearity. And I say “was” not because he stopped harassing me but because as of a couple of weeks ago, Shawn is no longer taking up residence on this dusty rock—having taken his own life. This after having spent the last four years of his life aggressively harassing a vast array of people and making a national name for himself as one of America’s most MAGA dads.

While Shawn at the time of his death was known for his obsession with young LGTBQ folks and banning books, it isn’t widely known that Shawn got his start as a full-time racist and bigot by harassing me and my organization, Community Change Inc.

Two days before my father died, our lead trainer called me to tell me Shawn McBrearity was protesting the North Cumberland-Yarmouth’s school board decision to work with my organization because my tweets were “not appropriate.” Furthermore, the story was getting picked up by ring-wing talk radio in Maine. To say I was stunned was an understatement. Also, the timing could not be worse. My head wasn’t in the game and I told my staff and others to loop me in but that I was not in the headspace to do anything to counter such nonsense.

In the end, the school superintendent decided to appease McBrearity and stop the work with CCI and look for another group of trainers. The problem with giving into terrorists, though, is that they don’t stop.

McBrearity would go on to complain about all anti-racism work in the district, to the point that he started harassing actual school board members and things went legal. Turns out that his issue may have started with me personally, but it was bigger than that. McBrearity used his newfound platform, helped in part by his growing national notoriety, to be a thorn in my side. At one point, a national right-wing rag called my organization to demand our 990, which by law we are required to supply on demand. It seems that accusations of financial malfeasance had been lobbed at CCI and me. Over the years, Shawn’s favorite accusation was that I was a race-baiting grifter. This man posted about me and essentially low-level stalked me. Lest you think by the end of 2020 he would tire of me, you would be wrong.

In early 2021, I made the decision to run for local office. For a seat on the Portland Charter Commission. Guess who was paying attention. While I handily won my seat with almost 65% of the district vote against two opponents, it wasn’t enough to leave me be.

Nope, this guy was still paying attention to my every move and as I would later find out from a member of my campaign team, there was an actual dossier this man collected of all my activity. (Yes, it actually exists, and I was sent a copy by a trusted source. Sick shit). It seems a few of my tweets really incensed him and he made my tweets known to others who crossed paths with him, including a local middle school principal who was so incensed about my serving on the commission that she wrote elected officials and, well, it became a local brouhaha.

In the end, I had a conversation with the local principal, and she ended up leaving her position and, from what I have heard, her professional image took a hit. All because she decided to take the lead of some asshole who stalked me and who had a knack for taking my words out of context and making me look like an oversexed middle-aged reverse-racist.

After 2021, Shawn more or less left me alone, but there were the occasional posts that would pop up—things I would be tagged in where he would defame my character. But after getting national attention, including appearing on the Tucker Carlson show and with other questionable characters, Shawn set his sights on bigger and more vulnerable targets. School boards, librarians, and LGBTQ youth.

From what I understand, the man left a six-figure job to essentially become a full-time hatemonger who caused many people real emotional and mental harm.

It got to the point that there were a number of folks in the state who monitored his actions. By the last year of his life, he was suing school boards and showing up at local school board meetings ranting like a deranged bigoted lunatic. To say he was a piece of work was an understatement. At the same time, anyone engaged in this type of behavior is not well; after all, who quits a decent job to become a full-time hatemonger?

Well, Shawn’s reign of terror in Maine (and elsewhere) came to an abrupt ending several weeks ago with his suicide. A trusted source contacted me the day before news of his death became official to say that he had died. To be honest, there was a moment of shock but overall a sense of relief—but also sorrow. The man left behind a wife and college-age children. Regardless of how despicable his actions were towards me and many others, there were people who loved the man. As a mother, I can only imagine how hard his death is on his kids and probably even harder is how to grapple with the fact that a beloved family member leaves behind such a messy legacy.

That said, even from the great beyond, I still found myself dealing with the man’s demented comrades when a cryptic, non-identifying message that I posted on Twitter regarding his death was picked up by The Maine Wire, a Maine-based right-wing rag. They screen-shotted my post, which simply read “The universe takes out the trash” and decided to post it with my supposed place of employment as the Communications Director at the Maine chapter of the AFL-CIO (I’ve never worked with them or for them, by the way). I actually know the person who holds that position and apparently they did get calls to fire me. I also had the pleasure of attracting the attention of the conservative whackjobs at Libs of Tik Tok, which resulted in some nasty emails, tweets, and messages.

Ahhh, even in death, Shawm kept on giving and ensuring the vileness continued.

It has been a few weeks since his death and I have done some reflecting. Personally, given the racial shifts in the last decade on a global level and the rise of white nationalism, I think there are more McBrearity types around us than we want to admit. White men who are feeling the shifting world and frankly scared of losing their position in the hierarchy of humanity. Really, this has been going on since the Reagan administration, but the Obama years really jolted these folks out of their slumber. It’s what led to the rise of Trumpism and it’s why Trump, despite being a convicted felon, actually has a strong shot at returning to the White House. He speaks a language that appeals to disgruntled white men; he allows them to feel seen and special in an increasingly diverse world.

These people are not outliers, they are the natural consequence of a white supremacist structure. They are the embodiment of the soul-sucking emptiness inherent in cultural whiteness. What are they without their status as white men? McBrearity was an extreme case. Most of these men are not quitting six-figure jobs to become professional hatemongers, and that’s where I would say that this man almost certainly had some mental health issues.

The thing is that while a hatred of anti-racism work is what activated this man, he is also a reminder of the failure of the anti-racism movement. People like him are seen as less than human and fully deplorable—and too often white anti-racists don’t like to engage with types like him. As a result, these guys are ripe to go full-on hateful. If white anti-racists don’t listen to them and try to work with them, others will—and, as in the case of McBrearity, these folks can get platforms and a degree of notoriety and really a sense of belonging. They can even earn an income.

In the end, a sick hateful man is dead and while I may be breathing a little lighter, ultimately, I take no joy at the loss of anyone’s life. But the sad reality is that a life filled with the type of hate and bigotry that seemed to overtake McBrearity is not a life where wellness and health can thrive. It gets to you, especially at a time when many are struggling with mental health. If anything, this death is a cautionary tale of the downside of a hate-filled life.

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