Orange County GOP endorses racist, anti-Semitic school board candidate

The Republican Party of Orange County this week endorsed a controversial school board candidate who earlier this year was criticized by the Anti-Defamation League for her “alleged anti-Semitic and racist” social media posts.

Gracey Van Der Mark, a Latina small-business owner from Huntington Beach who is running for the Ocean View School Board, was removed from committees in two local school districts in April after parents and the ADL complained about her online activities and her affiliations with people they alleged “promote white nationalism.”

Reached by phone, Van Der Mark refused to answer questions about the online posts or her affiliations, other than saying, “My words have been twisted.”

Most notably, the ADL accused Van Der Mark of making Islamaphobic statements, on a since-deleted Facebook account, saying that in May 2017 she wrote that the U.S. Department of Education was funding an Islamic indoctrination program.

In Aug. 2017, Van Der Mark attended a protest that disrupted a Santa Monica Committee for Racial Justice meeting. There, 50 protesters chanted that the event was organized by “black supremacists and Jewish supremacists.” Afterward, a YouTube account with Van Der Mark’s name and photo posted that the meeting was “being ran by the elderly Jewish people” and that “the colored people were there doing what the elderly Jewish people instructed them to do.”

Additionally, Van Der Mark has posed for photos with, and protested alongside, people that the Southern Poverty Law Center have identified as members of radical anti-government organizations, including people who have publicly recited neo-Nazi slogans and advocated for violence at rallies.


https://www.ocregister.com/2018/09/20/orange-county-gop-endorses-school-board-candidate-criticized-for-alleged-anti-semitic-and-racist-social-media-post/