Tag Archives: whitewashing history

Black History Month: Why? BECAUSE …

Posted on by under Black History Month, education, History, Political commentary, Racism & Bigotry, Social commentary

I read yesterday on the Jon S. Randall Peace Page that when they first started publishing posts about Black History Month, there was much criticism by people asking why there needed to be a Black History Month, why not a White History Month.  Thing is, every school child learns “white history” from the first day they enter a schoolroom … it all starts with that sweet little story about the Mayflower and how all those wonderful white people came here from Europe and made such great friends with the Indigenous Peoples (incorrectly called ‘Indians’ by the history books) and life was just so much nicer because of the white people.

Here’s the thing, though … the first thing, that is.  The Mayflower arrived in what is now the United States of America on 11 November 1620.  Every school child can tell you about the Mayflower and the people on it … people fleeing religious persecution and more.  But I’m willing to bet that not a single school child can tell you about a ship that arrived more than a year before that in August 1619, the English ship White Lion, carrying 20-30 enslaved Africans who were traded in exchange for supplies in Virginia.  Or the ship the Treasurer that arrived a few days later carrying still more African slaves to be bartered.  Both ships were owned by a powerful English nobleman, the Earl of Warwick Robert Rich.

And this, my friends, is why I say that YES, we do need Black History Month.  Sadly, if our schools taught history fairly, we might not need such.  As our friend rawgod pointed out several years ago on one of my Black History Month posts, we also need an Indigenous Peoples Month, an Asian History Month, a Hispanic History Month, etc., for our education system either completely shuts out the true history of all but straight white Christians, else it whitewashes that history.

For some of us, true history begins to come to light when we start college, but what about those who never go to college?  Sure, there are books, but how many non-college-educated people are likely to pick up a book about Black history just for the fun of it or study the New York Times’ 1619 Project?

It has always been the case that the schools are putting blinders on our children, failing miserably in their duty to teach them the truth about the beginnings of this country.  Things like slavery are glossed over, and other things such as the Tulsa Race Riots aren’t even given honourable mention.  But today, my friends, it’s even worse.  Today we have states’ governors and parental advocacy groups attempting to get laws passed to actually ban the teaching of true Black history!!!  They claim it makes the children “feel bad” … well fine, let them feel bad!  I feel bad every time I think of Black people being beaten with whips, hung from trees, denied jobs and education, forced to drink from a separate water fountain and more.  LET THEM FEEL THE PAIN and perhaps we will finally be able to break the chain of systemic racism that haunts this nation, that makes us less worthy.  Dammit, white parent – your kid is no damn better than any Black kid!  But your kid won’t grow up cringing every time he sees a police officer, not knowing whether he’ll still be alive at suppertime.

I set out tonight just to write a brief paragraph as an intro blurb to a redux of a former post I planned to do for Black History Month, but … I kind of got carried away.  Sorry, but not sorry, y’know?  I’m passionate about this and it is very much a part of who I am, so I cannot and will not hide that passion.

Those who truly want to “make America great again” should start by working to end racism in this nation, by doing everything in their power to ensure that our children are learning their true history – the good, the bad, and the ugly – and thus will not likely repeat the mistakes of their ancestors.  THAT is the first step in making any nation great – equality for ALL its citizens, not just the straight white ones.  Diversity, Equality, Inclusion.

… And Then There Were Only Two

Posted on by under education, History, Law and justice, Racism & Bigotry, Social commentary, Tributes

I don’t know how I missed this story nearly two weeks ago, but it flew onto my radar this morning and I have to take a few moments to talk about a man named Hughes Van Ellis who died on Monday, October 9th.  The man was one of just three remaining survivors of the Tulsa Race Massacre, which I have written about in years past.  According to the Jon S. Randall Peace Page …

He died a few days ago, on October 9, 2023. He very nearly died 102 years ago. But he didn’t. He survived to become champion to many, and an articulate spokesperson for those who either died or lost everything those 102 years before.

When it happened, he was just months old. He was just a babe in arms when the Black neighborhood of Greenwood in Tulsa, Oklahoma, was attacked by a white mob. It began on May 31, 1921, and continued into the early morning hours of the second day of June—almost 48 hours in total. In just the first 18 hours of that time at least 1,000 homes and businesses were destroyed—and hundreds of people were killed—for the crime of being a Black person in a white America.

The actual number of deaths will never be known, but we know that at least 300 Black residents of Tulsa lost their lives at the hands of a white mob. This is America’s sin, and today there are those trying to whitewash it.

Death was everywhere. Some were burned, some shot, and some would become the “strange fruit” that Billie Holiday would sing about.

Yet somehow a child survived.

The child’s family was not so fortunate. He survived alone—a small child among thousands who were left unhoused after the mob destroyed homes, businesses, churches, schools, and even a hospital—everything that had once been his neighborhood would be destroyed that first night.

The survivors were left with nothing but the clothes they had on their backs when they fled their burning homes. The child was found among the rubble and taken into the night—away from his home and into a world that saw him as a threat.

Hughes Van Ellis was only months old when it happened. He could not have understood how close to death he had come. But with time, understanding came, and with it came activism. Hughes Van Ellis would fight back against systemic racism and demand justice.

For his entire 102 years on this planet, Mr. Van Ellis fought against racial discrimination and was leading the fight for reparations for the survivors and their families … a fight that is still being fought in the courts today.  His biography was published a week after his death …

And this short clip from The Today Show briefly summarizes Van Ellis’ life …

And now there are only two remaining survivors of that horrific racist tragedy:  Hughes older sister, Viola Fletcher, age 109; and Lessie Benningfield Randle, age 108.

In one sense, there can be no justice … EVER … for what was done to the Black community in Tulsa on that horrible day in May 1921.  Reparations help in the sense that the law is finally acknowledging that those violent racist acts were horribly wrong, but no amount of money can bring back the people who died or restore the lives, homes and businesses that were viciously destroyed.  But there can be a certain amount of justice done by promising that we will NEVER FORGET, that we will educate all future generations about the terrible racist events that have taken place in this nation throughout its history.  THAT, my friends, is the only way that even a degree of justice can be done.  Yet today we have many who would prefer to whitewash that history, to sweep such events as the Tulsa Race Massacre under the rug.  In failing to learn the lessons of history, we are dooming ourselves to repeat the same mistakes over and over again.

R.I.P. Mr. Hughes Van Ellis.

The Great Hypocrisy

Posted on by under education, guns, History, Law and justice, Political commentary, Racism & Bigotry, Social commentary

Something occurred to me this morning rather out of the blue.  Isn’t it the ultimate hypocrisy for people to carry their demand for freedom of speech to the nth degree, even to the point of inciting violence, and yet those very same people are the ones calling for book banning, calling for firing of teachers who even dare to say the word ‘gay’, calling for only revisionist history to be taught?  Just think about that one for a minute … the person who says it’s okay for Nazis to tell lies and invoke riots, thinks it’s a crime for children to be taught the true history of their country’s crimes of genocide and slavery.  Hypocrisy?  Double standard?   When I hear the words “free speech”, I have to wonder … WHOSE speech?  Is it only the haters, the bigots and racists who are entitled to freedom of speech?

Basically, it seems that hate speech is highly valued and protected, while truth and facts are to be banned.  It’s okay to condemn people of one group or another, LGBTQ, women, Blacks, Asians, etc., with words that incite people to commit acts of violence against those people.  Yet it is not okay to teach children about equality, that it’s okay to be ‘different’.  What hypocrisy!!!

There are some who even believe that their right to ‘free speech’ extends to actions and not just words.  They consider it a ‘right’ to hold events like the ‘Unite the Right’ rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017 … an even that was nothing more or less than a KKK rally minus the hoods.  But don’t even think about a Drag Show where people come together for music and fun.  Some will tell you that the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers and other right-wing hate groups were only exercising their right to free speech on January 6th, 2021, when they stormed the Capital in an attempt to overthrow the election results, leading to death and destruction.  But shhhhhh … don’t tell children that Black people used to be treated worse than farm animals by their white ‘masters’.

It’s okay to call for death, to let the likes of Kanye West, Nick Fuentes, David Duke and others promote policies that will lead to death, devastation, and possibly the overthrow of our government some day, but it is not okay to teach history, to teach love, compassion, tolerance and equality.  There’s something seriously wrong with this picture if you ask me.  I think it’s time we start re-thinking the boundaries of free speech.  In fact, I think it’s past time we start re-thinking several of the first ten amendments, such as the 2nd Amendment.  The people of the 21st century have tested the limits and it’s time to better define those limits … NOW … before it’s too late.

Is Public Education Even ‘Education’ Anymore?

Posted on by under education, History, Political commentary, Racism & Bigotry, Social commentary

The U.S. has so many critical issues in play today that I can only begin to list them:  the gun culture, encroaching fascism, extreme political divisiveness, healthcare, climate change, wealth inequality, and much more.  But the one that might be at the top of the list is education.  Our system of education is a mess right now … a bloody mess.  States are banning the teaching of diversity, of history, of just about everything young people need to learn in order to be prepared for life in the adult world.  Dan Rather addresses this topic far better than I could, so I’ll turn the reins over to him for a few minutes …

The Battle To Save Public Education

And the soul of America

By Dan Rather and Elliot Kirschner

18 August 2023

It is back to school. Students of all ages flock to campuses and classrooms. Fleeting memories of summer are quickly replaced by tests and textbooks.

Getting into the swing of a new semester has always included an adjustment period, but this is a particularly difficult time for many of our nation’s students and their parents, guardians, teachers, and others entrusted with the education of young minds. 

The pandemic wreaked havoc with the emotional, intellectual, and social development of America’s youth. Dismal test scores provide depressing data of yawning learning deficits. Talk to anyone in or around schools and you hear stories of setbacks and struggle — heaps of qualitative data suggesting a staggering scale of generational loss. 

As usual, those who were already the most marginalized have paid the heaviest price. The pandemic exacerbated existing disruptions and placed greater strain on finances and time, particularly in large urban districts and small rural ones tasked with educating children from families struggling economically. 

We like to tell ourselves that the United States is a great meritocracy, but wealth and levels of family education continue to play outsized roles in dictating a child’s likelihood of academic success long before she learns her ABCs. The simple truth is that kids come to school from widely different circumstances, and these influence their ability to thrive, independent of whatever innate intelligence or drive they may possess. The pandemic made these differences more acute. 

The United States does possess a system (or more accurately, a collection of thousands of systems) that, if nurtured and respected, could foster greater equality of opportunity. And it is exactly the institution that is now struggling the most: public education. America’s public schools were once the envy of the world as engines of opportunity and upward mobility. If the nation had the will, they could return to that status once again. 

Our public schools certainly weren’t perfect in the past, especially during legal racial segregation, when the lie of “separate but equal” (separate is never equal) helped enshrine white supremacy. The segregated schools of the Jim Crow Deep South were a shameful injustice and a stain on our national identity. They were inconsistent with our founding documents, which spoke eloquently about equality among people. Of course there was (and remains, to some extent) de facto segregation throughout America based on who lives in what neighborhoods. Well-financed suburban schools were often part of the draw of “white flight” from urban districts.

The very ethos of public education should be one of inclusion for America’s diverse population. It should be a place where children of different backgrounds come together to learn both from teachers and from each other. Our schools should be places that allow students to wrestle with what it means to be part of this great country, including understanding America’s uneven and often bloody road to greater equality. 

Sadly, in recent years, we have seen a grave regression from these noble goals. Our schools and school districts have become fiercely contested frontlines in an era of stepped-up culture wars. As reactionary political forces target what we teach our children, it is no accident that truth, empathy, and our democratic values have become casualties. 

A chief concern is how and what we teach about our history, particularly the Black experience, and race and ethnicity more generally. We have written here before about the shameful whitewashing of racial violence and injustice, including slavery, by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. But this effort is not limited to him or that state. There is a national movement to not tell the full — and unfortunately tragic — reality of race in American history and how it continues to shape the nation.

Another serious concern is the othering of LGBTQ+ students and teachers. After years of progress, we see a wave of intolerance spread across America, including in our schools. 

Few institutions in American life are as essential to the continuation of our democracy as the public schools. In a time of ascendent autocracy, attacks on our schools — how they are run, what they teach, what books they have in their libraries — are among the most pernicious, pathetic, and painful assaults on the health of our nation. 

Several months back, Texas Monthly ran a striking piece of journalism with the headline, “The Campaign to Sabotage Texas’s Public Schools.” It tells a story that extends beyond the raucous school board meetings and book banning campaigns that have gotten the most attention. There is a movement afoot, and not just in Texas, to destroy public schools more generally, to privatize education through vouchers and other means. 

In this context, the various culture fights become battles in a larger war over the very future and viability of public education: 

“Taken individually, any of these incidents may seem like a grassroots skirmish. But they are, more often than not, part of a well-organized and well-funded campaign executed by out-of-town political operatives and funded by billionaires in Texas and elsewhere. “In various parts of Texas right now, there are meetings taking place in small and large communities led by individuals who are literally providing tutorials—here’s what you say, here’s what you do,” said H. D. Chambers, the recently retired superintendent of Alief ISD, in southwest Harris County. “This divisiveness has been created that is basically telling parents they can’t trust public schools. It’s a systematic erosion of the confidence that people have in their schools.”

The ideal of quality, integrated public schools for all children in the United States epitomizes the promise of our country’s founding as a place of equality and opportunity for all. It thus makes sense that would-be autocrats and protectors of privilege would seek to undermine our public schools by whatever means necessary. We must see this as what it is: as much a threat to the nation as was the violent storming of our Capitol. 

The future of the United States depends on an educated and empathetic citizenry. It requires us to share a sense of common purpose and recognize our common humanity. It requires an environment that allows every child to thrive and see themselves included in the American story. It requires quality public education. Full stop. 

A historic battle to save this institution and the very idea of good public schools has been underway for some time. It is now intensifying. Attention must be paid.

Wiser Voices Than Mine Speak Truth

Posted on by under education, Free Press Issues, History, Political commentary, Racism & Bigotry, Social commentary

I have written a few times about the current attempts to ‘dumbify’ the next generation of Americans by governors, school boards and others whitewashing, covering up, and downright lying about the history of this nation.  But nobody says it better than Dan Rather & Elliot Kirschner, so here is their take …

Teach The Truth

Ominous lessons from Florida

By Dan Rather and Elliot Kirschner

22 July 2023

Kwame Akoto-Bamfo‘s “Nkyinkim” sculpture, dedicated in memory of victims of the Transatlantic slave trade, at the National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, Alabama (Photo credit: Raymond Boyd)

I was born 66 years after slavery was legally abolished by the 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution. Not exactly ancient history. Today, that’s how long ago the Eisenhower administration was, or Elvis Presley’s first number one hit.

And the legacies of slavery — lynchings, Jim Crow, disenfranchisement — were woven tightly into the American tapestry of my youth. They still echo with us. Loudly and persistently. No matter how much some would want us to ignore the clamor of justice.

As much as we wish American history were different, tragedy is part of our reality. We do a grave disservice to future generations if we sanitize the truth. People can behave horribly. Societies that profess noble values can countenance violent bigotry. We can either look back from whence we have come with clarity, or we can try to muddy the roots of the present and weaken ourselves in the process.

This week, the Florida State Board of Education reworked its standards for teaching Black history. The changes come in response to the state’s so-called “Stop W.O.K.E. Act.” Passed last year, it limits training and education around issues of race, sex, and other criteria for systemic injustice. At its heart is a core belief that has animated right-wing culture warriors: that people alive today should not be made to feel bad or even uncomfortable by the sins of the past. The thinking goes, that was a long time ago.

But of course it really wasn’t. And the legacies of the past live on. And if we don’t learn from history, we are bound to repeat it.

Proponents of these new standards, especially their biggest cheerleader, Governor Ron DeSantis, say they promote teaching positive achievements of Black Americans in history. No problem there. It’s when it comes to the other side of the coin that we have a big issue — the new lessons seem intent on downplaying the horrors of the Black experience. In other words, once again, the truth. The truth revealed by hard facts.

One passage that has gotten a lot of attention is for middle schoolers. It states they should learn that “slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit.” The danger of this narrative is striking. A system that brutalized, raped, and killed human beings while stealing their freedom and denying their humanity is rotten to its core. That enslaved people were able to find resilience and build lives in some form is a testament to their courage and spirit. There is no “other side” to the story of slavery.

It is true that these new standards, as horrific as they are, would have been a great improvement over what I learned in my segregated middle school. We have come a long way. But that was because of the bravery of civil rights leaders and activists who fought, sometimes with their lives, for a full realization of American values. Any receding from progress — as this surely is — represents a threat to our democracy. We have been strengthened as a nation, all of us, by a national movement to right the wrongs of our past.

It is tempting to try to ignore DeSantis. He is a bully. He wants a reaction. He uses cruelty and disingenuity to garner headlines. He feeds off the anger of his adversaries.

But he also has power. And the lessons of history tell us that we should not ignore would-be autocrats.

The generation that lived through the fights over civil rights in the 1950s and ‘60s is passing away, much as the generation that remembered the Civil War did during my own youth. The loss of the earned knowledge of living through and fighting for change is profound.

This makes it all the more important that when we teach history, we teach the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Or as close to it as is humanly possible.

The Gone with the Wind view of slavery

Posted on by under education, History, Law and justice, Political commentary, Racism & Bigotry, Re-blogs, Social commentary

Why bother to even teach history in schools if you’re not going to teach the truth? If you’re going to teach a utopian view of the past rather than the ofttimes ugly reality, then you might as well just have students read “Cinderella” or “Robin Hood”. Most recently, some states are actually outlawing education, banning books and insisting that schools teach an alternate universe version of such matters in our history as slavery, Jim Crow, the Japanese-American internment camps and more. Some even suggest that slavery was a good thing for the slaves! Sigh. Our friend Keith takes a look at all this and concludes with the critical importance of teaching what was, not what we wished was. Thank you, Keith.

musingsofanoldfart

In an effort to continue the white washing of history, the Republican Party has decided that slavery was not so bad. As my World Literature professor said once in reference to Margaret Mitchell’s views on slavery in her classic “Gone with the Wind,” have you noticed how happy the slaves were in the novel?

The gist of his point is Ms. Mitchell was not presenting slavery in an inaccurate light. Of course, I am certain a few slave owners were not horrible, but they were not a day at the beach either. They used force to keep slaves at work.

Vice President Kamala Harris has commented on the latest effort. In an article called: “Kamala Harris condemns Florida over curriculum claim of slavery ‘benefit’,” the “Vice-president decries ‘extremist so-called leaders’ and says new teaching standards will rob children of knowing true US history.”

A few months ago, one history…

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The Inconvenience of Truth

Posted on by under Black History Month, education, History, Law and justice, Racism & Bigotry, Social commentary

What happens when the ‘rights’ of one parent deprive every other child in the school, the district, or even the entire state?  What happens when we lie to our children about everything that embarrasses us?  The classic Renaissance statue David, by Michelangelo, and now the story of Ruby Bridges, the little girl who changed the rules in 1960, all verboten because one or two parents were embarrassed.  Here’s what Charles Blow has to say about it …

A Florida School Banned a Disney Movie About Ruby Bridges. So I Watched It.

By Charles M. Blow

29 March 2023

This month, an elementary school in St. Petersburg, Fla., stopped showing a 1998 Disney movie about Ruby Bridges, the 6-year-old Black girl who integrated a public elementary school in New Orleans in 1960, because of a complaint lodged by a single parent who said she feared the film might teach children that white people hate Black people.

The school banned the film until it could be reviewed. So I decided to review the film myself.

First, here’s a refresher on Ruby: When she integrated that school, she had to be escorted by federal marshals. She was met by throngs of white racists — adults! — jeering, hurling epithets, spitting at her and threatening her life. Parents withdrew their children.

Only one teacher would teach her, so every day that 6-year-old girl had to be in class by herself, save for the teacher, and eat lunch alone.

Ruby became afraid to eat because one of the protesters threatened to poison her. Her father lost his job, and the local grocery asked that her family not come back to the store.

All of this was endured by a Black first grader, but now a Florida parent worries that it’s too much for second graders to hear, see and learn about.

Furthermore, of all the ways Ruby’s story could have been portrayed, the Disney version is the most generous, including developed story lines for Ruby’s white teacher and the white psychiatrist who treated her. And in the end, another white teacher and a white student come around to some form of acceptance.

The movie is what you’d expect: a lamentable story about a deplorable chapter in our history, earnestly told, with some of the sharpest edges blunted, making it easier for children to absorb.

But in Florida, the point isn’t the protection of children but the deceiving of them. It’s to fight so-called woke indoctrination with a historical whitewash.

And the state has given individual parents extraordinary authority as foot soldiers in this campaign: In this case, a single objecting parent is apparently enough to have a lesson about our very recent history questioned or even banned. Remember: Bridges isn’t some ancient figure in a dusty textbook, she’s alive and well today. She’s 12 years younger than my own mother.

Earlier this year, in the same school district, Toni Morrison’s “The Bluest Eye” was banned from all district high schools because a parent complained about a rape scene in the book.

Also this month, a principal in Florida was pressured to resign after students were shown Michelangelo’s statue of David, a biblical figure no less, and three parents complained.

Giving so few parents so much power to take educational options away from other parents and children runs counter to the spirit of democracy and free inquiry, and enshrines a form of parental tyranny of the hypersensitive, the inexplicably aggrieved and the maliciously oppressive.

It portends an era of bedlam in Florida’s schools, all courtesy of extremist state legislators’ and Gov. Ron DeSantis’s quixotic war on wokeness.

What happens if this glove gets turned inside out and minority parents begin to complain about the teaching of other aspects of American history and culture?

What happens if they reject lessons or books about Thomas Jefferson because he raped a teenage girl he enslaved, Sally Hemings, and was the father of her children, including at least one born while she was a child herself. (For the record, I consider all sex between enslavers and those they enslaved rape, because it was impossible for the enslaved to consent.)

What happens if a parent objects to a school celebrating Columbus Day because Christopher Columbus was a maniacal colonizer who sold young girls as sex slaves?

What happens if parents object to books about and celebrations of Thanksgiving because the standard portrayal of the first Thanksgiving as a meeting among friends who came together to share bounty and overcome difference is a fairy tale?

What if they object to the Bible itself, which includes rape, incest, torture and murder?

History is full of horribleness. We do ourselves and our children no favors pretending otherwise.

Learning about human cruelty is necessarily uncomfortable. It is in that discomfort that our empathy is revealed and our righteousness awakened.

These debates continue to center on the discomfort of white children, but seem to ignore the feelings of Black children, discomfort or otherwise.

As I watched the film, I was incredibly uncomfortable, sometimes angry, sometimes near tears as I revisited Ruby’s story.

How did that happen? How do we honor that moment, condemning the cruelty of the racists and exalting her bravery? And how do we address the effect of racial discrimination on the American experience?

If an accurate depiction of white racism and cruelty is a metric by which educational instruction and materials can be banned, how is a true and full teaching of American history possible?

Maybe distortion is the point. It’s the resurrection of a Lost Cause moment in which a revisionist history is crafted to rehabilitate Southern racists.

The wave of censorship we’re seeing also invokes, for me, the “slave” Bible, an abridged text used in the 1800s in the West Indies to try to pacify the enslaved. Passages that evoked liberation were cut and passages that supported slavery were kept. It was a tool of psychological warfare masquerading as sacred text.

DeSantis’s Florida is engaged in similar psychological warfare. Its battlegrounds are race, gender and sexuality, and it is napalming inclusive narratives.

The state’s crusading censors are choosing the comfort of ignorance over the inconvenience of truth.

A Long 20 Months — Some Toons To Relieve The Stress

Posted on by under Bits 'n Pieces, cartoons, education, Environmental Issues, Global Issues, History, Humour, Law and justice, Political commentary, Social commentary

The next presidential election is in just under 20 months, but you’d think it was next week if you looked at the news!  90% of the front page stories have the ‘T-word’ or the ‘DeS-word’ and an alien just dropping in from another universe would be forgiven for thinking the United States is a looney bin!  I tried to avoid every story that was, indirectly or directly, about the election and the two top Republican contenders, which left me only with news of China’s President Xi’s visit to Russia for a photo op.  Okay, so let’s just have a few of the political cartoons I’ve been collecting for this afternoon, as I really don’t feel up to digging any deeper to try to find some actual news.

The Future Of Teaching U.S. History???

Posted on by under Bits 'n Pieces, Black History Month, education, History, Humour, Political commentary, Racism & Bigotry, Social commentary

Alexandra Petri is a satirical columnist for The Washington Post.  This week, she opines on the re-writing of history to suit the racists in Florida, led by none other than Governor DeSantis, and it is both appalling and yet at the same time humorous.  Remember, this is tongue-in-cheek, satire … until it becomes reality.

Excerpts from a civics textbook I assume would be welcome in Florida

By Alexandra Petri

20 March 2023

“Rosa Parks showed courage. One day, she rode the bus. She was told to move to a different seat because of the color of her skin. She did not. She did what she believed was right.”

“Rosa Parks showed courage. One day, she rode the bus. She was told to move to a different seat. She did not. She did what she believed was right.”

— Two versions of a first-grade lesson from Studies Weekly, a publisher whose social studies curriculums are currently used in Florida elementary schools. Studies Weekly revised the lesson more than once, omitting any mention of racism or segregation, to submit for a state review of social studies materials.

American history is full of many heroes, whose accomplishments we will have no problem telling you about in the state of Florida! They fought for justice, which was brave of them, if a little redundant, because there was no specific injustice to fight against. Here are just a few of their stories!

Harriet Tubman is considered an inspiring figure by many because she made many trips on foot, often with other people. She specifically led trips from the South to the North, often at night. At night, you can see the stars! It is great to lead trips. She was a hero.

Frederick Douglass was famous, too! We celebrated him during the Trump administration for being someone “who’s done an amazing job” and whose contributions are still being “recognized more and more.” He also gave a noteworthy speech about the Fourth of July. Who doesn’t love the Fourth of July?

John Brown is regarded by some as a heroic figure. Famously, he went to what is now West Virginia (Wild and Wonderful!). He also grew a luxurious beard. Once, he was very excited to visit a weapons arsenal. We support West Virginia tourism!

Abraham Lincoln was a tall man who did something that was a very important thing to do, and especially at that time. He was president during the Civil War, which was fought from 1861 to 1865 between a group of people whom it was universally agreed would make wonderful, handsome statues and some other people who may have had reasons. He even made a proclamation, probably unnecessarily! He famously went to the same play as John Wilkes Booth, a very talented actor who also loved to exercise his Second Amendment rights! It is nice when actors support the Second Amendment. Too often, woke Hollywood doesn’t.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton and some of her friends went to Seneca Falls, N.Y., and had a conference there. At the conference, she talked about things related to ladies. Seneca Falls is a nice place to visit, especially in the summer!

Jonas Salk was a famous doctor. He invented a vaccine against polio, which was good because it made not being vaccinated against polio a choice, which it had not been before. Giving people choices is wonderful!

Rosa Parks was asked to move to a different seat, but she didn’t. People who sit are heroes! For instance, Thurgood Marshall famously sat on a bench. He was a hero, too.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg was born on March 15, 1933. She spent 71 years of her life on the planet at the same time as Ronald Reagan! This was a big achievement. She also famously sat on a bench. We love it when people sit!

The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. had a dream and told people about it! King made some people upset, probably because it is annoying when people recount their dreams to you at length, but possibly for other reasons. He is no longer with us, but he is still celebrated today because his works provided so many out-of-context quotations for White people to use to explain why it is not important to fight racism any more. (Which was never important to do, because it did not exist.)

John Lewis was a hero! He famously marched across a bridge. This upset some people. People have strong feelings about infrastructure. Have you ever walked across a bridge? He was such a hero that they named a whole road after him and then some people wanted to rename a little piece of it after Donald Trump!

The Little Rock Nine went to school! Some people did not want them to go to school, and there were protests and guards were called in. It is sad: Even today, some people just don’t want other people to learn! They went anyway. It is good to go to school, where you can learn so much about history!

“Protect the Children” They Say … WHICH Children???

Posted on by under education, History, Law and justice, Racism & Bigotry, religion, Social commentary

When I read Charles Blow’s column last night, my breath caught in my throat and I felt tears welling behind my eyes.  I knew it needed to be shared, to be read and thought about far and wide.  Please take a minute to read it and think about the injustice being done to nearly half the children in this nation.   “Protect the children,” DeSantis and others say … but what they really mean is protect the white children and to hell with all others.

The Other Children in the DeSantis Culture War

Charles M. Blow

08 March 2023

ORLANDO, Fla. — It’s midday on Saturday in Orlando’s Greenwood Cemetery, and just up an incline from an algae-covered pond a group of students encircle a grave. Many are holding a book — some clutching it to their chests the way a preacher holds a Bible.

That book, “A History of Florida Through Black Eyes,” was written by Marvin Dunn, an emeritus professor at Florida International University, who is among those gathered. He quiets the group before telling the gripping story of the man beneath the tombstone. The man was Julius “July” Perry, a Black voting rights activist who was killed — arrested, then dragged from jail by a white mob and lynched — on Election Day in 1920 during the Ocoee Massacre, the culmination of a tragic chain of events set in motion, according to accounts, by a Black man attempting to vote.

The stop at the cemetery was part of the second “Teach the Truth” tour, a field trip to historic Black sites in Florida, organized by Dunn in response to the threat to teaching comprehensive Black history posed by the anti-woke hysteria of the Republican governor, Ron DeSantis.

“Teach the Truth” is full of visits to the graves of Black people killed by white racists, cases Dunn told me he focuses on “because those are the ones that are easiest to forget” — the “hard stories” that are, as he says, the ones most in need of preservation.

Marcus Green outside his home in Hialeah, Fla.Credit…Damon Winter/The New York Times

On this tour there are about two dozen students. One of them is Marcus Green, a 15-year-old Black boy, tall and thin, with searching, almond-shaped eyes, a crown of finger-length braids and a quiet, deliberative demeanor that occasionally surrenders a smile.

As we stand under a shade tree waiting for the tour bus, Marcus tells me what it feels like for him to be a student in Florida right now, that he is balancing a sense of empowerment and fear. I asked why he invoked fear, and he said: “Because you can’t help but feel it.”

His mother tells me that she signed him up for the tour because he was frustrated by the feeling that there was so much of his history that he didn’t know.

The next tour stop was in Live Oak, at the graveside of Willie James Howard, a teenager lynched because he wrote a love letter to a white girl. Her father kidnapped Howard from his home at gunpoint, took him to a bluff overlooking the Suwannee River and offered the boy an impossible choice: take a bullet from a barrel aimed at his head or jump — with his hands and feet bound — and take his chances in the water.

The boy chose the river. The river won.

As Dunn told the story of Howard — whom he has described as Florida’s Emmett Till — Marcus’s face rippled as he repeatedly clenched his jaw and furrowed his brow. Howard was then the same age as Marcus is now: 15. As he told me: “That could have been me.”

Dunn called the students forward to touch Howard’s gravestone, which they did, one at a time. Marcus held back, but eventually stepped forward, bent down and pressed his open palm to the stone. He held it there, then slowly released, later telling me that when he touched it, he “felt a sense of serenity.”

As the group made its way to the spot along the river where Howard leapt to his death, a local radio station replayed an interview between DeSantis and Sean Hannity in which DeSantis called the Advanced Placement course in African American studies that he has vocally opposed “garbage” and “neo-Marxist indoctrination.”

The message — like the message in several of DeSantis’s broadsides aimed at academic freedom and so-called wokeness — is a medley of buzz-wordy circumlocution.

Too much of the debate about DeSantis’s cynical censorship craze has centered the opinions of adults, the theories of politicians and the feelings of white children — feelings presumed to be hurt if they encounter, in class, some of our history’s bleakest episodes.

But what about the other children, the roughly 600,000 Black students in Florida’s public schools, like Marcus, searching for a history that includes them — a history of them — who now feel targeted and afraid? Do they not matter in this debate? What about their needs and their feelings?

My conversations with Marcus echo those I recently had with another 15-year-old student from Florida, Adrianna Gutierrez, who identifies as Afro-Latina and as a lesbian, and therefore feels the brunt of both DeSantis’s anti-Black studies and history push and his anti-L.G.B.T.Q. push, including his state’s Don’t Say Gay law.

Adrianna called the situation in Florida “surreal” and said it feels like things are in a “state of chaos,” all of which has pushed her toward activism.

She said the first protest she attended, late last year, was “scary” because although she knew some people didn’t like her for who she was, she had never come face-to-face with hate as intense and concentrated as it was among the counterprotesters who were there.

As she recalled it, many of the counterprotesters brought young children with them, carried signs with slogans about school being a “place to learn and not teach about transgenderism” and they yelled, “Protect our children.”

But who’s going to protect children like Marcus and Adrianna, children who want to know our full history; who want to find themselves and be themselves and deserve to feel safe in the pursuit? Hiding the complexities or harsher truths of the past from them is to rob them of tools they need to navigate and survive in a still-hostile world, one in which horrors aren’t confined to graves nor queer people confined to closets.

On the last stop of the “Teach the Truth” tour, Dunn drove the group down an ivory-colored dirt road in the Rosewood community to a wooded area he’s converting into a remembrance park for the victims of the Rosewood Massacre.

He told the children about a tense encounter in September, when he visited the site with another group, including his son, and the neighbor across the street charged at them in his truck while yelling the n-word and “almost killed my son.” The neighbor was arrested and charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.

As Dunn told the story, a placard next to the neighbor’s fence was visible. It read: “DeSantisland: Land of Liberty.”