Could there possibly be anything more outrageous and disgusting than this curriculum? What year is this? 2023 or 1859? Surely the teachers and citizens of Florida are not going to accept this without protest?!!
Could there possibly be anything more outrageous and disgusting than this curriculum? What year is this? 2023 or 1859? Surely the teachers and citizens of Florida are not going to accept this without protest?!!
“I’m an AICE General Paper/ELA teacher in Florida.”
“Though I don’t explicitly teach history, so much literature and current event topics for the courses are often connected. I’m terrified to say the ‘wrong’ thing, share the ‘wrong’ book, allow students to share ideas the state says are ‘wrong’ … in all honesty, I’m just dreading going back August 4th 😔 Florida reminds me of the ways Germany was slipping into fascism in the 1930s.”
—V.H.
“I am incensed that I’m expected to teach my 4th graders about Martin Luther King Jr. without being able to explain what he fought for.”
“What am I supposed to say? He just liked marching? If 4th graders are old enough to experience discrimination, they’re old enough to learn about it.”
—M.R.
“I’m a former Florida teacher turned literacy advocate.”
“I left the classroom last year. I am disgusted by the decisions the Florida Department of Education is making. Book banning, censorship, and the voucher system are ruining public education in this state.”
—J.F.
“This is a cheap and cowardly move from DeSantis to prove his ‘anti-wokeness.'”
“I mean cheap literally—it’s an inexpensive campaign move to make him seem like a trigger-happy sheriff in the Woke Frontier. But I’m sad it comes at the cost of students knowing the truth.”
—J.M.
“I have a long, perfect history of faking compliance.”
“When people with little to no teaching experience roll out these kinds of rules, I’ve learned to pretend. They care far more about the appearance of compliance than actual compliance. This will be no different. I will continue to teach as I always have.”
—A.B.
“I will not be doing that.”
—J.D.
'Andrew Spar, president of Florida’s largest teachers’ union, said the new standards are “a disservice to Florida’s students and are a big step backward for a state that has required teaching African American history since 1994.”
“How can our students ever be equipped for the future if they don’t have a full, honest picture of where we’ve come from? Florida’s students deserve a world-class education that equips them to be successful adults who can help heal our nation’s divisions rather than deepen them.”
'Educators in Florida certainly have their work cut out for them, deciding how to tell a version of the “full truth” that many say is neither full nor true.' (WeAreTeachers) See link below.
'Teachers React to Florida's New Black History Standards'
Thank you Fern. These quotes paint quite a grim picture. Sounds too much like the beginning of an Orwell or Huxley novel.
I choose to believe that there will be a strong reaction to DeSantis and his fascistic agenda - a backlash, if you will. Florida is not a monolith of bigoted "crackers". Just like Texas, it is evolving. DeSantis is looking more and more clumsy every day. Call me naive, but I had my optimistic coffee just now.
You are welcome, Bill. While novels can be gripping and often reflect aspects of reality, these teachers are addressing what is literally happening in Florida now.
According to the US Census Bureau: July 1, 2022, the estimated number of people in Florida was 22,244,823, as of Aril 1, 2020, Black or African American alone, was 17.0%.
There have been some protests, but no one can know what the future will bring. There has been a strong negative response to the new social studies curriculum. At the moment, I do not see any movement to withdraw or change it.
I want Republicans to damage their chances in 2024 while I am concerned and confused at the lack of kickback in Florida and Texas. Are we lacking leadership?
'Are we sheep without a shepherd?' I'm afraid that your question, repeated here in my response, would be an apt statement in too many places in the USA.
You have TX agents refusing water to undocumented migrants. How many more are there like them? Teaching their kids that slavery was a good thing and blacks are inferior would not be a stretch.
Sadly, that last point is correct, christofascism has become a political party. And these are the same folks who sing hymns like "Gentle Shepherd", and "god is love", and the like. Nauseating indeed.
Read "Jesus and John Wayne" by Kristin Kobes Du Mez. It is about exactly that - how Christianity was turned into a (hugely successful) political party.
It is so sad and yet, there are people in Florida that think DeathSantis walks on water...hopefully people who do not share this view will stand up and vote him out when the time comes but then they will have to work very hard to undo the damage he has done.
I, too, think this White shame, shame which, either consciously or unconsciously, leads to feelings of guilt, is what is some of what is driving this. They know, even in their White privileged little hearts, what the truths of Black enslavement really entailed. They're just so afraid that their little dears might actually feel a nanosecond of remorse and shame at what the (and by extension, "THEIR") White forebears inflicted on a race of people. White-washing truths NEVER leads to their eradication. Truth has a funny way of always prevailing, even when at a time its chances appear dim.
Not that I consider myself any perfect example, but I do speak as a White Southerner, a Southerner whose ancestors owned some slaves. (My maternal great-grandfather's family was a very old, established family in NC.) I don't know the exact number, but I don't think it was huge. Looking at wills, the house and personal slaves were part of an inheritance, and some slaves were even given their choice of freedom upon the death of their "owner". Finding this out, I WAS appalled. I WAS ashamed. However, what I resolved to do was to turn that shame I felt into a resolve to ensuring that such a barbaric, horrendous system would be thrown into the dustbin of history, and along with it the whole post-Civil War system of disenfranchisement of the Black race. I grew up with and witnessed the last vestiges of the Jim Crow South, which I believe all the more increased that resolve, because even as a kid, I somehow saw that something just wasn't right about that. (This was surely reinforced because in my early youth we had a Black domestic in our home who was like a second mother to me. I'm sure that contributed to my not comprehending (as much as a child of 6 or 7 could) why there was so much animosity directed to someone Black. I genuinely believe that I carried the love I had for her with me into the rest of my life. She was special.)
A few pangs of shame and remorse for the sins of our forefathers is not at all a bad thing, but it's what we DO with those feelings that matter. We MUST turn that shame into a commitment to seeing that such things never happen again. Hatred, bigotry, racism, misogyny, etc. -- what I call a basic "fear of the 'other'" -- hold us back from evolving as human beings. My ancestors were products of their times and did what was then done. It doesn't excuse or pardon them. If I could I would tell my great-grandfather and other relatives who fought and died for the Confederacy that what they did was just plain WRONG. Glorifying them and their "cause" in this day and time is still just as WRONG. I am NOT proud for what they did, but instead I try and turn that shame into action. Sorry this went on so long . . .
There are a helluvalot of whites who have a helluvalot to be ashamed of. And they know it, but don't want to accept it about themselves or their beloved family members, and are ashamed they cannot cope with it or work to fix things, so out of shame squared, as it were, they deny it and support DeSauron and his ilk.
If he doesn't walk on water, he won't have any place to stand soon enough, as the Gulf and the Atlantic swamp the swamp. And apparently no one can get flood insurance. The vulgarly rich will be okay, not being in need of insurance, but no one else, come the next few hurricanes.
Thanks for putting the teacher’s’ perspective out there, Fern, it’s a vital one. I accept that they’re afraid but also know, historically, that if people give in to fear, things will only get worse. Whitewashed history erases the story of how progress happens: through the actions of a few brave souls that multiplies. We can’t give in or give up! Find the few and join them!
Hi, Fern-Yes, I gathered that you were passing along what you'd seen, which I appreciate! I long for some sort of "Scopes trial" that would put this lunacy on the stand. It would take somebody willing and able to defy the state, but it has been done before. Scopes lost his battle and was fined $100 (although his case was thrown out on a technicality), but you can also argue that the trial helped win something larger! At least temporarily. This fearful, oppressive mentality keeps resurfacing, so we gotta stay vigilant!
My Floridian friends and family tell me this doesn’t concern them because Florida public schools have never been good so they send their kids to private schools. Yikes!
Are these parents taking a close look atthe content of their own kids' schoolbooks? Are their kids' friends also only in private schools? And what happens when their well-educated kids have conversations about race with their non-private-school friends, as must be inevitable in Florida? What happens to these kids when they go out in public, or watch the news, and see or experience first-hand racist activity in their state, or want to or can only get into a Florida state college or university? What happens to your friends and their kids when all these non-private-school-educated unconsciously-indoctrinated kids grow up and vote in individuals like DeSauron (or his successors) because they buy into his lies? Do all these kids intend not to live in Florida? I have no kids, I live in Maine, and this issue affects ME! Frankly, WSJAbraham, I'm incredulous!
I heard an interesting interview with the new head of the Florida Democratic Party, Nikki Fried (it was on Rick Wilson's podcast). As I understood it, Dems in Florida have largely outsourced voter registration to affiliated groups outside of the party, and Florida law says that if a non-party group registers someone, they can't register them as a member of a party, but only as an unaffiliated voter.
It was an interesting interview. She said that they are basically starting from scratch in rebuilding the party in the state, and acknowledged that they have a long way to go.
It's bad right now, and I don't live in Florida, so maybe I'm talking out of my hat, but I just can't believe that the various DeSantis outrages are landing well with most Floridians who have children in school. Yes, there are a lot of conservative retirees there, but the GOP policies towards civil rights, the environment and guns are toxic to young people everywhere--and that has to include Florida. Change can't come fast enough, but we can't give up on a state as big and important as Florida.
Ellen, thank you for your alert, as a result I did some research and voting in Florida has been made more difficult.
'Florida Democrats say they’re spending and organizing to chase down people who vote by mail after election officials across the state canceled all standing mail ballot requests this year.'
'The mass cancellations were to comply with a 2021 election law that added new restrictions to mail-in voting. The legislation — which was celebrated by Gov. Ron DeSantis and slammed by voting rights advocates as discriminatory — cut the duration of mail-in ballot requests in half from four years to two. It also required that existing requests for mail ballots be canceled at the end of 2022, forcing election workers to cancel millions of requests and start their lists of vote-by-mail voters from scratch.'
'In practice, that means that voters who requested mail-in ballots in 2021 or 2022 will have to make such requests again to vote in local races and the 2024 primary and general elections. In previous years, voters would not have had to request a ballot again for four years.'
'Democrats in the state say the change disproportionately affects their voters, who have embraced mail-in voting more than Republicans since 2020, when then-President Donald Trump falsely claimed mail-in voting was rife with fraud. The new law is forcing campaigns to adapt; Democrats say they're organizing aggressively to educate voters about renewing their mail ballot requests, sapping resources from voter registration and other outreach efforts. '
“It’s doing exactly what they intended it to do, which is suppress voters and take resources,” said Nikki Fried, chair of the state Democratic Party. “Instead of focusing our money, resources and time on other endeavors and talking to voters, we’re having to spend resources to get people back on the rolls.”
'Campaigns and volunteers who might have connected with voters once or twice to remind them to return their mail-in ballots may now need to connect with them three and four times to turn out a vote, Fried said.'
“I’ll be very honest with you: In the Black community, it’s very top of mind,” said Shevrin Jones, a state senator who represents part of Miami-Dade County. He runs a group called Operation BlackOut, which focuses on getting Black voters to sign up for mail ballot requests. They are just one of the many groups mobilizing to get voters of color on the mail-in voting list, he said.'
'Election officials, too, say they’re sending out mailers and text messages and reminding voters of the change whenever they get the chance. But in the six months since the ballot requests were canceled, less than a third of voters in three large counties have taken steps to request mail ballots again.'
'Republicans up the personal attacks on Biden and his family
Miami-Dade County received 438,000 mail ballot requests at the end of last year; by July 1, its mail ballot list had more than 92,000 voters. Hillsborough County had 320,000 voters on its list at the end of last year, and now has at least 70,000 voters signed up for mail ballots. Broward County said its records reflect the totals on Election Day in November, when it sent out 428,000 mail ballots to voters. At the beginning of July, Broward had just 35,000 voters set up to receive mail ballots.'
'A significant number of those ballot requests would have required renewal before the 2024 election, but Democratic strategist Ashley Walker said local candidates and campaigns — like in this year’s Jacksonville mayoral race — are feeling the effects this year. High turnout in federal elections can drive turnout in local races, because voters who signed up for mail ballots will automatically receive their ballot in the mail.'
"Do I think it’s gonna affect the presidential race between Joe Biden and Donald Trump or whoever ends up being the ultimate nominee? Probably not. It’s probably your primary elections, your local elections folks that’s going to be impacted most by this decision,” Walker said.'
'Walker said Florida Republicans had long bested Democrats in the state with mail-in voters, but in recent years Democrats invested in promoting mail-in voting.'
"The rule was devised in a way to try to eliminate any kind of advantage that Democrats have gained," she said. "But at the end of the day the task is the same. The task at hand is still the same: you gotta turn people out." (NBCnews) See link below.
Fern, thank you for this share from NBC News, too. Stunning ... The length to which the right wing will go grows like kudzu -- a prolific, fast-growing invasive plant without a single virtue. We in the South are used to it; we gave up decades ago trying to deal with it, now just accommodate it. This analogy needs to end right here: We cannot become accustomed to this evil that is springing up in places like Florida & taking root elsewhere. We cannot.
Good info. Thanks again. Glad to hear the Democratic committee has new leadership. I met a local FL Democratic leader at a party on a recent visit. She and her crew are fired up.
Pennsylvania went to large-scale (no excuse) mail-in voting in 2019 just in time for the Pandemic, but voters have to reapply every year for primary and general election ballots. Ballots are rejected if anyone forgets to sign and/or date the outside envelope. Dating the outside envelope is absolutely meaningless since the ballots are tracked by the SOS on line but was required by the Legislature. Despite these impediments, 2.6 million out of a total of 7 million people voted by mail in the 2022 general election and had their votes counted. The League of Women Voters and several other groups spend a lot of time and effort educating people about how to apply for vote by mail. As activists, we just know, it's what we have to do.
Unfortunately the Rs grew substantially since 2017 and the Ds actually declined while the unaffiliated grew instead. Apparently latino immigrants from right wing countries may have contributed to these changes but voter suppression laws also played a big part.
DeSantis’ reelection was due in large part because it came soon after the hurricane. He was on TV every day taking credit for things the Federal Government was doing. He even appeared with Biden. His opponent got no air time at all.
Yup Fascism loves propaganda. Figures. In Acadia National Park yesterday I watched as a Dad told his three teen/preteens to break the law and lie about it. 🤦🏻♀️ Lying, and law breaking have become normalized.
Make no mistake, here in my beautiful home state we've gotten exactly what we've paid for in this Gang Of Parasites , GOP politicians. Here, small donor contributions to Democrats are historically small. And they are scarce. Small donors of both parties are typically weak. See the NY Times piece describing Biden's team awaiting small donor funds to show up later. Don't hold your breath sir! Until we shed our appetite for apathy our desired outcomes will continue to disappoint us, as well as the rest of the free world. America is no longer a "free country". The millions of dollars our candidates spend in their appeals to us bears out that fact. They are our best, and surest firewall to insulate us from the current madness in our country. I've found means to contribute more by ditching my fancy Belgian ale hab.... er, hobby. Big dollars! Small ones count too though. Disparaging oneself, saying 2 dollars won't matter is simply untrue. That, or just plain lazy! Let's all stand up and own this election cycle. Please, let us NOT leave our candidates waiting for the could'uh would'uh, should'uh potential small donorsalong with Joe. This election of Cosmic Proportions would be a sad, and tragic thing to lose.
Jim, I completely agree. Last election I ignored pleas from Adam Frisch only to see him lose to Boebert by 549 votes. I assumed he couldn’t win and then watched in the recognition that I and a few more might have made the difference. Lesson learned. This time I am seeking every to help good candidates and help them now, not waiting until the late weeks prior to the election.
Thank you for the encouragement, Jim. You are right of course. While it's crazy to add up the amount of money I've contributed to campaigns since Trump was elected, I'm in a better position to do so than lots of others so I'll continue to do so. Also writing postcards and letters to voters. Whatever I can do, I feel I must do.
Not surprised that teachers are leaving and will leave. Floridians are effed and the only way out of the mess they have put themselves in is by voting out the fascists they have voted into office. Perhaps they will become a state of retired old folks reveling in living in the past when life was “grand” (not!) to find that everyone capable of doing anything moved out of state leaving them to wallow in their own excrement. The Florida swamp grows.
Christy I am also interested in the accreditation of Florida’s public colleges and universities. DeSantis has shoved non-academic right-wing Republicans into the presidencies of various state colleges, doubled their compensation, and imposed draconian conditions on tenured 1st Amendment-adhering professors.
Shattering academic standards should impact accreditation.
Somebody has to find a way to dismantle the Florida voter suppression and gerrymandering. They are not the majority, just the power brokers who don’t give a damn about governing for the majority but rather holding the majority hostage.
Thank you for reading these quotes, Mike S. Hearing from the students and teachers is crucial; they are the ones most directly impacted by people who erase our history and hide the truth. For this, however, everyone loses, unless we stop the false 'facts' and fascism from poisoning our society.
"I have a long history of faking compliance." is my favorite, I think. I used to hear this from teachers in Texas, who claimed to say what they liked behind a closed door, but the problem is that now I suspect some child, coached by a parent, will snitch. Thanks for sharing these.
Thank you Fern for these quotes from the field. In the progwoman's post I note one of the big problems, that some students will act as snitches. We had this happen in the school where I worked when some of us were suing the principal. As it turned out it was the son of one of the principal's chief buddies who was probably put up to it by his parents. The wife made the complaint. I had something similar happen when I gave a student a very low grade.....I should have given her a F. Her mother went on a campaign against me including calling the parents of my other students one of whom lied and said I hadn't helped their son. These were independent study students and I spent plenty of time with all of them. Of course, I didn't find anything wrong with the student's paper because it is likely that his father wrote it for him. He also turned in his paper without a needed part and I allowed him to add that late. Btw, I had several students thank me for insisting on high standards after they were in college. I can't imagine being the librarian which I was or teaching in today's atmosphere. I am sorry for teachers and children in Florida. In the meantime the christofascists who support Stumpy Boots DeSatan can enjoy being swamped by rising sea levels, stronger hurricanes and tornadoes, baking horrible temps, lack of being able to get home insurance or paying through the nose for it, etc.
Bravo for you! And I have two adult daughters who are teachers. They LOVE teaching and the kids (most of them) love them right back. But the shenanigans that some of them pull--aided and abetted by their parents--it outrageous! I could go on and on, and I sometimes have on this forum.
The unions and teachers have so much power. They need you. Organize and walk out and protest on day one and make a statement. They cannot replace you that fast and the system will be devastated. You will be creating an example for the students.
Small note, Abbutt and years of republicans in charge, have left Texas a “right to work state.” Which means teachers cannot unionize. Hasn’t stopped many from resigning! We lost 17 employees last school year. So many great teachers! But if we walk out, we lose everything! Certification, retirement. I’m two and a half years from retirement. So Texas teachers are really screwed!
Understand. My state, NC, also is a “right to work” state. And many teachers have left public schools in NC, and some have left NC. If walkouts mean too great of a sacrifice -- which that would be in your example -- we need to find other ways to fight back. I’ve referred in some other comments to the “underground” -- inspired by the teacher’s comment in Fern’s post about being well-practiced in “faking compliance.” Use all available weapons that advance the effort but certainly not ones that hurt it.
I notice the list of race riots skips the Chicago Race Riot of 1919 which Carl Sandburg memorialized with the most erudite and elegant record of race and reaction to establishment indifference at a turning point in history of the diaspora from Jim Crow.
In these discussions the fact that slavery begins with the denial of humanity of the victims is not emphasized enough. Slavery is an imposed condition of Slave and Master that Abe Lincoln pointed out is not entirely comfortable by either.
And yes, slavery existed in other places and times, but it was usually by conquest or raids which were not based on race. It was western Europeans who added the element of race.
Thank you Fern for researching these quotes from teachers in Florida. My fear is though, not enough teachers will stand up to teach the truth and they will not be given the tools to teach it even if they want to. New teachers will come into the system and only be given materials that reflect this AWFUL decision coming from their idiot governor and his racist board of education. It is just outrageous!
I saw this coming with the fantasy revisioning of CRT--there go the teachers...
These quotes confirm my fears, thank you. Unfortunately, barring some sort of court intervention, here's what I see happening next: I see the tide turning in homeschooling. Up until now it were the Evangelicals that homeschooled their children who will view the new curriculum as "safer" to send them to public school. It is the progressives who now will have no choice but be burdened with homeschooling their children....
Today’s youth and thus students in Florida do not live in a bubble, even though The Florida Board of Education and Governor would like to see that happen. Young people question. They observe. They are resourceful and are able to search for information and find a wealth of it at their fingertips. As a retired educator, I believe the students will be the ones to call out this fraud. I also have hope that national teacher organizations will have ways to support teachers who bring the truth into classroom discussions.
If they are motivated enough (how many are?), and they’ll have to look beyond the school library resources because the materials are no longer there. What a very sad state our country has fallen to. This comment from Mitt Romney often comes to mind: ‘Corporations are people too, my friend.’ Powerful dark money has wrought terrible damage to our democracy.
Most of them and many adults have no idea about evaluating sources, something I taught my students to do. Someone once told me to dig deeper citing Judicial Watch.
Michele: My point is, what is the use of going to school if you are going to question what you are taught and doing your own research? And would that apply to every subject?
I think the key here is evaluating sources in terms of their biases. I think this goes along with critical thinking. There is a difference between indoctrination and education. What is happening in Florida in other places is the former. I want students to question and learn the difference between reliable sources and ideology. One of the exercises in my writing class early on was to look at an internet article and determine its bias and reliability. I did encounter students who thought if it was on the internet, it was true even if it made no sense. Now I encounter adults all the time who just look at sites that reinforce their nonsense. Often i can't get them even to give me a citation.
Thank you for this. It is difficult to get a clear picture of what is going on in Florida from the outside. All I know is that DeSantis was elected by a landslide so that makes it seem like every one goes along with this. I know that’s not true, but it’s so good to hear that straight from Floridians.🙏
You've done it again, Fern. Great quotes and addition to Heather's letter. Yes, MLK Jr. just liked marching! Good for that teacher to call it out! I'd be laughing if what's happening wasn't so outrageous.
All the teachers' quotes hit home, but the one about MLK Jr. felt very personal. Whatever my instinctive connection to civil rights, he was my inspiration.
This is good news, if there is a meaningful revolt. We as citizens are being called to partake in our democracy and to fight for truth and enlightenment..what we believe in that is moral.
We are not a country that is founded upon one religion, or one view, but, as Walt Whitman said, we are multitudes.
Bonnie, I don't know the answer to your question. What we do understand is that the far-right is doing everything it can to control us. There are differences of opinion among us about many subjects, but this is something different. The far-right's agenda is to dictate what we think, what we learn and what we do. Autocracy, a system of government by one person with absolute power, and Fascism, an authoritarian, ultranationalist political ideology and movement, characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, and forcible suppression of opposition. We have seen aspects of both growing in our country. Respect for the facts, the truth and the rights of the people have no place in their movements. I hope that enough Americans see what is happening, while we loose our our rights, bit by bit. The Biden administration is working hard to combat these threats, and there are many Americans working 24/7 to keep Democracy alive.
It all has become so shocking as to the depth of lies, violence, deceptions, hate, and greed.
I have gained so much information and hopefully deeper insight from Heather’s letters and contributions from her readers to the profound misinformation and lack of actually caring (other than for themselves?) that exist in so many Americans.
My focus has tended to be more with environmental concerns over the years, yet, when Obama was running for his first term as President, my interest in politics grew. And has swelled since Trump became the President.
I won’t go on for now. Your response to me is greatly appreciated, Fern.
Bonnie, our exchanges inform and support us. Let us continue to communicate with one another from time to time. This life and time is extremely difficult. Communication between us helps me to figure out how to move forward. Be well.
Exactly, the governor and his new curriculum only reflect strongly held beliefs of much of the citizenry. Fantasy is much more comfortable than a true history.
These whitewashed standards are akin to a German chancellor standing in a concentration camp and denying the history and results of Nazi rule --the Holocaust, costing millions of Jewish lives, millions of deaths from World War II, cities and towns obliterated, families decimated.
FYI--a number of Founding Fathers were NOT Christian. They were Deists, who believed God existed and that was the end of it.
And JennSH, the mythical gods and the mythical Ronald Reagan are all part of the mix. They are living on fantasy and supporting the creation of a dystopian society. Read 1984 and everything happening is explained in a book written in 1946!!! Hard to wrap one’s head around it, but it is our reality.
Charlie Crist was not a strong candidate. He was on the correct side of most issues. A decent guy. But he wasn't going to bring out the votes of young people and people of color. We have family in Florida. Believe me, there will be a backlash at the next election.
Consider that DeSantis has now alienated the farmers and some of the titans of industry in Florida by chasing out desperately needed workers. There are 55 applicants for every 100 job openings in Florida. Things won't get done. Money flows will suffer. Follow the money.
The situation here is bad. MAGA Republicans are in fact the KKK, striving for a white Protestant theocracy, democracy and the democratic process be damned. They don't care for the one person, one vote, majority rule.
One thing that you can do is to work with your local Democratic Party to help Democrats win elections. This helps to dilute the political clout of Florida Republican politicians.
For us here in Florida, we are doing everything - registering voters, working with college students, collecting money to pay for mailings, etc. We are also writing letters to the papers. This one of mine was published in today's Lakeland Ledger:
Editor:
The report, "Is student debt relief still possible?" [7/13/2023] sets in sharp relief the way in which a small minority has managed to manipulate the U.S. economy to its benefit, almost exclusive benefit, as the Middle Class is now close to disappearing. The argument comes down to whether forty million students who have a combined student loan debt of $1.6 trillion should receive any relief. Interestingly, the concerns here, is this a giveaway, do they deserve it, etc. did not phase the minds of Donald Trump, Mitch McConnell and the other Republican politicians when they voted to grant the wealthy and large corporations a $2.0 trillion tax break in 2017, doing nothing for the economy and helping to increase the federal debt $7.8 trillion during Trump's four years in office, a record.
What would $1.6 trillion in the pockets of forty million Americans do to the economy? Here we have a stark contrast between Supply Side Economics and Demand Side Economics. If, instead of giving the wealthy and large corporations an unneeded dole of $2 trillion [Supply Side Economics] Congress had decided in favor of student loan forgiveness, [Demand Side Economics] this would have been a huge boost for the economy, $1.6 trillion going into the checking accounts of consumers. And what do consumers do? They spend that money and that creates economy activity. What did the big corporations and wealthy do with the $2.0 trillion tax break? They bought back their own stock, primarily, doing absolutely nothing to spur the economy and dumping more debt on average Americans. At what point do we start thinking critically and stop being suckers?
Further to the point that I make in my letter, this from a friend of mine in California responding to my letter published in today's edition of the Lakeland Ledger:
The irony and contrast are completely lost on the likes of Trump, DeSantis and team MAGA. They simply look at it as Corporations are deserving because they think of them as “one of them” but consumers are not because they see them as immigrants, black, brown and other minorities getting something that they don’t deserve regardless of the benefit that, you rightly point out, helps the economy unlike the handouts that go to Corporations that do nothing – indeed, I witnessed up close how Cisco took the extra cash handouts from the give backs and the amnesty on cash re-patriating and proudly put 93% of it to stock buybacks and minimal to employees.
OK I must say that the state of Florida has lost its collective mind. I can’t believe that they all agree with this. It’s time to grab the scissors and trim off one of our states. I’m sorry Professor that you had to teach us another extreme lesson of uncommon sense. Thank you, it makes me realize that the fight is on to correct these wrongs and it’s up to all of us to make the change. Thank you. Peace and love always wins out.
With most of Florida underwater... salt water... crawfish thrive... then die. Alligators take over raised areas. Sharks will terrify swimmers. ALL high rise apartment buildings will collapse with rebar rusting within rotting concrete walls, concrete destroyed, killing residents in their sleep, one building after the other, co-ops all, and Disney will never return.
I guess its good that white folks thought black folks could "go to heaven" too since all the white folks I met in the Southern Baptist Church, no matter what nasty stuff they were doing or how they treated others, in their own minds, were all headed to heaven.
And, many of them were quite positive of who was NOT going to heaven (anyone not like them).
My first wake up call to the Southern Baptist Church, as a late adolescent when I started thinking for myself, was when the preacher, after years of scorching our hair off with stories of how easy it was to go to hell, was caught sleeping with one of the deacon's wives (btw, catching a preacher sleeping with someone else wife is one of the most common occurrences in the Southern Baptist Church).
My family was Southern Baptist and I was dragged to church until my late teens when it was apparent I was Agnostic and didn't buy it. I had an uncle in MS, deacon of his Southern Baptist church who not only had extra-marital affairs, which got a divorce from wife #1, but he was also in the KKK. How does one rectify such Hypocrisy? From what I've read of he writings about Jesus, he would not approve.
So Mike, how exactly will you "make the change"? With your pair of scissors! Really sir? Peace , love, AND funding the right candidates might just win out, yes!
'Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is intensifying his efforts to de-emphasize racism in his state’s public school curriculum by arguing that some Black people benefited from being enslaved and defending his state’s new African American history standards that civil rights leaders and scholars say misrepresents centuries of U.S. reality.'
“They’re probably going to show that some of the folks that eventually parlayed, you know, being a blacksmith into doing things later in life,” DeSantis said on Friday in response to reporters’ questions while standing in front of a nearly all-White crowd of supporters.'
'DeSantis, a GOP presidential candidate who is lagging in polls against the front-runner, former president Donald Trump, and is trying to reset his campaign, quickly drew criticism from educators and even some in his party. He has built his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination on attacking what he calls the radical liberal policies of President Biden and the Democratic Party, but the latest remarks could alienate Black voters just as the GOP tries to court them.'
'Former U.S. Rep. Will Hurd of Texas, who announced last month that he was joining the race for the GOP nomination, blasted the idea that enslaved people were able to use slavery as some kind of training program.'
“Slavery wasn’t a jobs program that taught beneficial skills,” Hurd, the son of a Black father and a White mother, tweeted. “It was literally dehumanizing and subjugated people as property because they lacked any rights or freedoms.”
'Civil rights leaders, educators and others have expressed revulsion at the idea that enslaved people benefited from the experience.'
'As Biden’s running mate, Vice President Harris has stepped up her attack-dog role, and on Friday traveled to Jacksonville to assail DeSantis’s policies in his home state. She emphasized that slavery involved rape, torture and “some of the worst examples of depriving people of humanity in our world.”
'Florida State Rep. Fentrice Driskell, a Tampa Democrat who last year became the first Black woman to become House Democratic Leader, called DeSantis’s latest remarks a continuation of DeSantis’s “assault on Black history.”
“Let’s really dissect what he’s saying here,” she said. “He’s saying that to be ripped away from your homelands and brought to another country against your will, or to be born into the atrocity of the dehumanizing institution that was slavery, that those horrors are some way somehow outweighed by the benefit that you get a trade. Are you kidding me?”
'DeSantis issued a statement Friday saying, “Democrats like Kamala Harris have to lie about Florida’s educational standards to cover for their agenda of indoctrinating students and pushing sexual topics onto children.” His campaign did not respond to an email on Saturday requesting comment.'
'Marvin Dunn, a professor emeritus at Florida International University and author of “A History of Florida: Through Black Eyes,” said DeSantis would gain no political advantage from his argument because “it is so outrageous that people are going to reject it.”
“These children know in their hearts and in their minds that slavery was evil,” he said.
“One of the main things about slavery, beyond the physical damage that it did to people of so many generations, was that it prevented people from becoming what they could have become,” he said.'
“So what if you became a carpenter or a blacksmith or a good maid? Your chances of that were not determined by you, it was determined by somebody else. That’s not a rationalization for enslavement.” (WAPO) See link to article below. Sorry, gifting not available.
Fern, you include this piece: "Florida State Rep. Fentrice Driskell, a Tampa Democrat who last year became the first Black woman to become House Democratic Leader, called DeSantis’s latest remarks a continuation of DeSantis’s “assault on Black history.”
Respectfully, Rep. Driskell, it is an all-out assault on democracy, which includes huge lies about our past (including Black history. ) In short, it is what Fascists do. DeSantis is a Fascist. "By their fruits, so shall you know them."
The comparisons to ancient history show that slavery of some sort has been around forever in many societies around the world. The only thing that is common to all examples is the belief that the “other” is less than the enslaver. And it remains so to this day. The enslaved were not given choices about what “job training” they wanted for themselves, nor could they quit a job they didn’t like. This is heartbreaking and public acknowledgment of deeply embedded intolerance of “others” across the centuries and the world. The human condition hasn’t changed much...the cruel and evil injustices are still with us.
And, once separated from their native country and enslaved, these people were then subjected to further separation - husbands from wives, children from parents - at the whim, and for the profit, of their owners.
I was actually going somewhere with this comment and got waylaid. I was thinking how the separation of slave’s families connected to the trump administration’s separation of children from their families at the border.
Fern, first, I want to thank you fir adding this spectacular breakdown to my post. H you ou have taken what I was trying to say and spelled it out rather nicely, scholarly, and understandable. I greatly appreciate that.
There’s not one thing I can add that the other folks that responded haven’t added. I just wanted to thank you gif pointing all this out to us all.
This country has no use gif the lines of Trump, DeSantis, or ANY of the other Republicans who are currently running for ANY public office. State, Federal, Local. None of them. Every one of them needs to be replaced. The Republican Party, as it USED to be is no more. It is gone.
[Our kin were so debased that they were eager to kidnap, murder, steal property and buy and sell people for personal profit, and to this day our kin still think it wasn’t such a bad idea]
• Our kin thought god said it was OK
[God said it was OK – even the evil Muslim one]
• Our kin gave them trade skills for a better life
[Our kin worked people unto death – some of them got pretty good at some sort of forced labor before they died]
{Corollary: Our kin were so unskilled, uneducated and incompetent that they had to force other people at the point of a gun to do their work for them}
• Our kin made certain that the prevailing mercantile system benefited the maximum number of people
[Our kin worked people to death without recourse or compensation, thereby maximizing profit]
• Our kin ended it for them, then we changed our justice system around just for them
[Our kin practically tore apart the nation they professed was the best nation ever, by resisting universal human rights unto death, then, at the point of a gun aimed at us by those nasty Army guys from up north, passed a few simple laws that, once the unpleasantness of 1876 was sorted out, they were quickly able to reverse, and thence to enforce via the proud, brave KKK operatives]
• Despite our kin’s everlasting commitment to maximizing personal freedom and economic security some people still rebelled and committed violence in a misguided attempt to elevated their own individual preferences
[Inexplicably, some people tried to run away from, or fight our kin, and our children today might be upset at the very thought of it]
Ding ding ding, the school bell is ringing. MAGA Parents’ radar across America is on alert as they prepare to move en mass to Florida to get that “good patriotic teachin’ for their youngins”
Some scientists, schooled in the Florida way, are predicting the added weight of such immigration (the good kind) will add to the flooding of some coastal areas but El Duce de Ronni pooh poohed such concern saying “the influx will be good for the service economy helping businesses fill open positions at restaurants, hotels, and landscaping companies that current “Real Floridians” refuse to do”
Tommy Tuberville immediately contacted the Florida School System for a copy of the new teaching instructions to implement in Alabama
I am old enough to have lived through Jim Crow and the civil rights movement of the 60s. Ron DeSantis is not; the Florida Board of Education members are not. I’m not a historian but I know what I saw and what I continue to see, systemic racism and the rise of fascism that are whitewashing our history. As I am an engineer and not a historian, I invite each of you who are historians to write letters, send emails, do what you can to apply your unique knowledge to this disgusting and quite frightening movement. Our kids, grandkids, and great grandkids deserve the truth. Without the truth, positive change is impossible. Mythical belief is not truth, not reality. Please help our next generations.
Another amazing column. I heard and read about the new curriculum time and time again through the lens of the single extraction from the syllabus about “Blacks learning useful skills”. So much so that I began to wonder if this was manufactured outrage with nothing more substantive behind it.
Then Heather wrote. Her analysis of the curriculum is masterful. As a teacher I was fascinated to see how the Reconstruction and Jim Crow periods were bereft of detail and left to the the teacher to “Explain and evaluate”.
What a trap. What Florida teacher with eyes to see and ears to hear is going to Wade into those eras and overturn the sanitation purpose of the rest of the curriculum? Reconstruction and the Jim Crow era will become land mines in the curriculum that could put your job in danger because there will be nothing in the syllabus for you to fall back upon.
I give full marks to the team that wrote (and probably rewrote many time) this document. They have managed to demean and disavow the history of a proud people without producing something cartoonishly ugly as other states have done.
The syllabus is a masterpiece of cunning and treachery - at a level that only people such as Professor Cox Richardson can instantly evaluate for the poison that it is.
Woe to them that they didn’t see the lightning rod that “useful skills” instantly became.
Actually I should probably retract the word “woe”. This flare up is, regrettably a speed bump only. They will wait a bit, announce some “public consultation”, go through the sham of that and then hold another press conference in which they announce “revisions based on a wealth of public input”. Then they will put out a final draft, cosmetically changed - the “skills and trades” sentence gone, and to put more lipstick on the pig a few other non-substantive changes. And then it will hit the schools of Florida.
The document will remain an erasure of Black suffering, filled with false equivalencies - entirely devoid of anything that might hurt the unfortunate white children/parents. Kudos to Florida for a masterclass in treachery.
I hear that the number of millionaires in Florida (refugees from New York taxation) grows daily. If the hurricanes don’t drive them out, they will support this education happily. People are scared. The more money you have, the more money you’ll have to eat (“But where’s the catsup”?) when climate change, which the Republican Party and SCOTUS support with all their ignorance, oil and coal money, takes over. Maybe the Dems can scrape up enough funds to win the state and bring it back to a semblance of sanity, but it will take more than Disney money, from a state reeling from hurricane destruction, to beat the DeSanctus crowd.
In 50 yrs Florida and everything else south of Kansas will be uninhabitable. The bread basket will have moved up to Minnesota. Let’s pray all these idiots just burn up.
Could there possibly be anything more outrageous and disgusting than this curriculum? What year is this? 2023 or 1859? Surely the teachers and citizens of Florida are not going to accept this without protest?!!
'How teachers are reacting:'
“I’m an AICE General Paper/ELA teacher in Florida.”
“Though I don’t explicitly teach history, so much literature and current event topics for the courses are often connected. I’m terrified to say the ‘wrong’ thing, share the ‘wrong’ book, allow students to share ideas the state says are ‘wrong’ … in all honesty, I’m just dreading going back August 4th 😔 Florida reminds me of the ways Germany was slipping into fascism in the 1930s.”
—V.H.
“I am incensed that I’m expected to teach my 4th graders about Martin Luther King Jr. without being able to explain what he fought for.”
“What am I supposed to say? He just liked marching? If 4th graders are old enough to experience discrimination, they’re old enough to learn about it.”
—M.R.
“I’m a former Florida teacher turned literacy advocate.”
“I left the classroom last year. I am disgusted by the decisions the Florida Department of Education is making. Book banning, censorship, and the voucher system are ruining public education in this state.”
—J.F.
“This is a cheap and cowardly move from DeSantis to prove his ‘anti-wokeness.'”
“I mean cheap literally—it’s an inexpensive campaign move to make him seem like a trigger-happy sheriff in the Woke Frontier. But I’m sad it comes at the cost of students knowing the truth.”
—J.M.
“I have a long, perfect history of faking compliance.”
“When people with little to no teaching experience roll out these kinds of rules, I’ve learned to pretend. They care far more about the appearance of compliance than actual compliance. This will be no different. I will continue to teach as I always have.”
—A.B.
“I will not be doing that.”
—J.D.
'Andrew Spar, president of Florida’s largest teachers’ union, said the new standards are “a disservice to Florida’s students and are a big step backward for a state that has required teaching African American history since 1994.”
“How can our students ever be equipped for the future if they don’t have a full, honest picture of where we’ve come from? Florida’s students deserve a world-class education that equips them to be successful adults who can help heal our nation’s divisions rather than deepen them.”
'Educators in Florida certainly have their work cut out for them, deciding how to tell a version of the “full truth” that many say is neither full nor true.' (WeAreTeachers) See link below.
'Teachers React to Florida's New Black History Standards'
https://www.weareteachers.com/florida-black-history-standards/
Thank you Fern. These quotes paint quite a grim picture. Sounds too much like the beginning of an Orwell or Huxley novel.
I choose to believe that there will be a strong reaction to DeSantis and his fascistic agenda - a backlash, if you will. Florida is not a monolith of bigoted "crackers". Just like Texas, it is evolving. DeSantis is looking more and more clumsy every day. Call me naive, but I had my optimistic coffee just now.
You are welcome, Bill. While novels can be gripping and often reflect aspects of reality, these teachers are addressing what is literally happening in Florida now.
According to the US Census Bureau: July 1, 2022, the estimated number of people in Florida was 22,244,823, as of Aril 1, 2020, Black or African American alone, was 17.0%.
There have been some protests, but no one can know what the future will bring. There has been a strong negative response to the new social studies curriculum. At the moment, I do not see any movement to withdraw or change it.
I want Republicans to damage their chances in 2024 while I am concerned and confused at the lack of kickback in Florida and Texas. Are we lacking leadership?
Are we sheep without a shepherd?
'Are we sheep without a shepherd?' I'm afraid that your question, repeated here in my response, would be an apt statement in too many places in the USA.
We may not have many decent shepherds but we sure have an abundance of sheep shearers. Fleecing the sheep is the Republican plan.
But, they have a shepherd. It just happens to be an evil one leading them off an eventual cliff!!
You have TX agents refusing water to undocumented migrants. How many more are there like them? Teaching their kids that slavery was a good thing and blacks are inferior would not be a stretch.
War is Peace, Orwell says. Truth lies. Racism is helpful. Christianity is a political party. This is nauseating.
Sadly, that last point is correct, christofascism has become a political party. And these are the same folks who sing hymns like "Gentle Shepherd", and "god is love", and the like. Nauseating indeed.
Pass the buck so I can get a new jet.
Read "Jesus and John Wayne" by Kristin Kobes Du Mez. It is about exactly that - how Christianity was turned into a (hugely successful) political party.
Have you come across
"The Big Myth" by Oreskes and Conway?
Is very new, may be at your local book store.
If nothing else, suggest reading the 14 page introduction.
You could do that in the store...
"Jesus and John Wayne" just went on my tbr list. Thanks for the rec, Mary Pat.
Thanks MaryPat and Lynn, Really Nauseating. John Wayne in a shoot-out with Jesus?
It is so sad and yet, there are people in Florida that think DeathSantis walks on water...hopefully people who do not share this view will stand up and vote him out when the time comes but then they will have to work very hard to undo the damage he has done.
On the bright side, he probably won't get the nomination (unless trump ends up in jail) and this is his last term as governor.
His last day as governor can't come a day too soon!
Nikole Hannah-Jones attributes all this to white shame. A powerful draw.
I, too, think this White shame, shame which, either consciously or unconsciously, leads to feelings of guilt, is what is some of what is driving this. They know, even in their White privileged little hearts, what the truths of Black enslavement really entailed. They're just so afraid that their little dears might actually feel a nanosecond of remorse and shame at what the (and by extension, "THEIR") White forebears inflicted on a race of people. White-washing truths NEVER leads to their eradication. Truth has a funny way of always prevailing, even when at a time its chances appear dim.
Not that I consider myself any perfect example, but I do speak as a White Southerner, a Southerner whose ancestors owned some slaves. (My maternal great-grandfather's family was a very old, established family in NC.) I don't know the exact number, but I don't think it was huge. Looking at wills, the house and personal slaves were part of an inheritance, and some slaves were even given their choice of freedom upon the death of their "owner". Finding this out, I WAS appalled. I WAS ashamed. However, what I resolved to do was to turn that shame I felt into a resolve to ensuring that such a barbaric, horrendous system would be thrown into the dustbin of history, and along with it the whole post-Civil War system of disenfranchisement of the Black race. I grew up with and witnessed the last vestiges of the Jim Crow South, which I believe all the more increased that resolve, because even as a kid, I somehow saw that something just wasn't right about that. (This was surely reinforced because in my early youth we had a Black domestic in our home who was like a second mother to me. I'm sure that contributed to my not comprehending (as much as a child of 6 or 7 could) why there was so much animosity directed to someone Black. I genuinely believe that I carried the love I had for her with me into the rest of my life. She was special.)
A few pangs of shame and remorse for the sins of our forefathers is not at all a bad thing, but it's what we DO with those feelings that matter. We MUST turn that shame into a commitment to seeing that such things never happen again. Hatred, bigotry, racism, misogyny, etc. -- what I call a basic "fear of the 'other'" -- hold us back from evolving as human beings. My ancestors were products of their times and did what was then done. It doesn't excuse or pardon them. If I could I would tell my great-grandfather and other relatives who fought and died for the Confederacy that what they did was just plain WRONG. Glorifying them and their "cause" in this day and time is still just as WRONG. I am NOT proud for what they did, but instead I try and turn that shame into action. Sorry this went on so long . . .
There are a helluvalot of whites who have a helluvalot to be ashamed of. And they know it, but don't want to accept it about themselves or their beloved family members, and are ashamed they cannot cope with it or work to fix things, so out of shame squared, as it were, they deny it and support DeSauron and his ilk.
If he doesn't walk on water, he won't have any place to stand soon enough, as the Gulf and the Atlantic swamp the swamp. And apparently no one can get flood insurance. The vulgarly rich will be okay, not being in need of insurance, but no one else, come the next few hurricanes.
Thanks for putting the teacher’s’ perspective out there, Fern, it’s a vital one. I accept that they’re afraid but also know, historically, that if people give in to fear, things will only get worse. Whitewashed history erases the story of how progress happens: through the actions of a few brave souls that multiplies. We can’t give in or give up! Find the few and join them!
Thank you, Marla. I am not a teacher but a subscriber as you are. Those quotes by teachers are on the 'We are teachers' site as listed in my comment.
Hi, Fern-Yes, I gathered that you were passing along what you'd seen, which I appreciate! I long for some sort of "Scopes trial" that would put this lunacy on the stand. It would take somebody willing and able to defy the state, but it has been done before. Scopes lost his battle and was fined $100 (although his case was thrown out on a technicality), but you can also argue that the trial helped win something larger! At least temporarily. This fearful, oppressive mentality keeps resurfacing, so we gotta stay vigilant!
When I speak with my Floridian relatives and friends, they just tell
me it doesn’t concern them because their kids go to private schools. I’m horrified.
Might be interesting to find out what history is taught in those private schools, many of which were founded when public schools were integrated.
My Floridian friends and family tell me this doesn’t concern them because Florida public schools have never been good so they send their kids to private schools. Yikes!
Are these parents taking a close look atthe content of their own kids' schoolbooks? Are their kids' friends also only in private schools? And what happens when their well-educated kids have conversations about race with their non-private-school friends, as must be inevitable in Florida? What happens to these kids when they go out in public, or watch the news, and see or experience first-hand racist activity in their state, or want to or can only get into a Florida state college or university? What happens to your friends and their kids when all these non-private-school-educated unconsciously-indoctrinated kids grow up and vote in individuals like DeSauron (or his successors) because they buy into his lies? Do all these kids intend not to live in Florida? I have no kids, I live in Maine, and this issue affects ME! Frankly, WSJAbraham, I'm incredulous!
Look at the party registration stats in Florida. Republican do NOT have a huge majority. And there are almost 4 million unaffiliated voters. https://dos.myflorida.com/elections/data-statistics/voter-registration-statistics/voter-registration-reports/voter-registration-by-party-affiliation/
I heard an interesting interview with the new head of the Florida Democratic Party, Nikki Fried (it was on Rick Wilson's podcast). As I understood it, Dems in Florida have largely outsourced voter registration to affiliated groups outside of the party, and Florida law says that if a non-party group registers someone, they can't register them as a member of a party, but only as an unaffiliated voter.
It was an interesting interview. She said that they are basically starting from scratch in rebuilding the party in the state, and acknowledged that they have a long way to go.
It's bad right now, and I don't live in Florida, so maybe I'm talking out of my hat, but I just can't believe that the various DeSantis outrages are landing well with most Floridians who have children in school. Yes, there are a lot of conservative retirees there, but the GOP policies towards civil rights, the environment and guns are toxic to young people everywhere--and that has to include Florida. Change can't come fast enough, but we can't give up on a state as big and important as Florida.
Ellen, thank you for your alert, as a result I did some research and voting in Florida has been made more difficult.
'Florida Democrats say they’re spending and organizing to chase down people who vote by mail after election officials across the state canceled all standing mail ballot requests this year.'
'The mass cancellations were to comply with a 2021 election law that added new restrictions to mail-in voting. The legislation — which was celebrated by Gov. Ron DeSantis and slammed by voting rights advocates as discriminatory — cut the duration of mail-in ballot requests in half from four years to two. It also required that existing requests for mail ballots be canceled at the end of 2022, forcing election workers to cancel millions of requests and start their lists of vote-by-mail voters from scratch.'
'In practice, that means that voters who requested mail-in ballots in 2021 or 2022 will have to make such requests again to vote in local races and the 2024 primary and general elections. In previous years, voters would not have had to request a ballot again for four years.'
'Democrats in the state say the change disproportionately affects their voters, who have embraced mail-in voting more than Republicans since 2020, when then-President Donald Trump falsely claimed mail-in voting was rife with fraud. The new law is forcing campaigns to adapt; Democrats say they're organizing aggressively to educate voters about renewing their mail ballot requests, sapping resources from voter registration and other outreach efforts. '
“It’s doing exactly what they intended it to do, which is suppress voters and take resources,” said Nikki Fried, chair of the state Democratic Party. “Instead of focusing our money, resources and time on other endeavors and talking to voters, we’re having to spend resources to get people back on the rolls.”
'Campaigns and volunteers who might have connected with voters once or twice to remind them to return their mail-in ballots may now need to connect with them three and four times to turn out a vote, Fried said.'
“I’ll be very honest with you: In the Black community, it’s very top of mind,” said Shevrin Jones, a state senator who represents part of Miami-Dade County. He runs a group called Operation BlackOut, which focuses on getting Black voters to sign up for mail ballot requests. They are just one of the many groups mobilizing to get voters of color on the mail-in voting list, he said.'
'Election officials, too, say they’re sending out mailers and text messages and reminding voters of the change whenever they get the chance. But in the six months since the ballot requests were canceled, less than a third of voters in three large counties have taken steps to request mail ballots again.'
'Republicans up the personal attacks on Biden and his family
Miami-Dade County received 438,000 mail ballot requests at the end of last year; by July 1, its mail ballot list had more than 92,000 voters. Hillsborough County had 320,000 voters on its list at the end of last year, and now has at least 70,000 voters signed up for mail ballots. Broward County said its records reflect the totals on Election Day in November, when it sent out 428,000 mail ballots to voters. At the beginning of July, Broward had just 35,000 voters set up to receive mail ballots.'
'A significant number of those ballot requests would have required renewal before the 2024 election, but Democratic strategist Ashley Walker said local candidates and campaigns — like in this year’s Jacksonville mayoral race — are feeling the effects this year. High turnout in federal elections can drive turnout in local races, because voters who signed up for mail ballots will automatically receive their ballot in the mail.'
"Do I think it’s gonna affect the presidential race between Joe Biden and Donald Trump or whoever ends up being the ultimate nominee? Probably not. It’s probably your primary elections, your local elections folks that’s going to be impacted most by this decision,” Walker said.'
'Walker said Florida Republicans had long bested Democrats in the state with mail-in voters, but in recent years Democrats invested in promoting mail-in voting.'
"The rule was devised in a way to try to eliminate any kind of advantage that Democrats have gained," she said. "But at the end of the day the task is the same. The task at hand is still the same: you gotta turn people out." (NBCnews) See link below.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/democrats-scramble-reach-voters-florida-cancels-mail-ballot-requests-rcna91294
Fern, thank you for this share from NBC News, too. Stunning ... The length to which the right wing will go grows like kudzu -- a prolific, fast-growing invasive plant without a single virtue. We in the South are used to it; we gave up decades ago trying to deal with it, now just accommodate it. This analogy needs to end right here: We cannot become accustomed to this evil that is springing up in places like Florida & taking root elsewhere. We cannot.
Good info. Thanks again. Glad to hear the Democratic committee has new leadership. I met a local FL Democratic leader at a party on a recent visit. She and her crew are fired up.
Pennsylvania went to large-scale (no excuse) mail-in voting in 2019 just in time for the Pandemic, but voters have to reapply every year for primary and general election ballots. Ballots are rejected if anyone forgets to sign and/or date the outside envelope. Dating the outside envelope is absolutely meaningless since the ballots are tracked by the SOS on line but was required by the Legislature. Despite these impediments, 2.6 million out of a total of 7 million people voted by mail in the 2022 general election and had their votes counted. The League of Women Voters and several other groups spend a lot of time and effort educating people about how to apply for vote by mail. As activists, we just know, it's what we have to do.
Unfortunately the Rs grew substantially since 2017 and the Ds actually declined while the unaffiliated grew instead. Apparently latino immigrants from right wing countries may have contributed to these changes but voter suppression laws also played a big part.
Then why did TheSatan win by a landslide just last November? Shenanigans?
(I would not be in the least surprised!)
DeSantis’ reelection was due in large part because it came soon after the hurricane. He was on TV every day taking credit for things the Federal Government was doing. He even appeared with Biden. His opponent got no air time at all.
Yup Fascism loves propaganda. Figures. In Acadia National Park yesterday I watched as a Dad told his three teen/preteens to break the law and lie about it. 🤦🏻♀️ Lying, and law breaking have become normalized.
I’m very glad you did and i really hope you’re right!
Make no mistake, here in my beautiful home state we've gotten exactly what we've paid for in this Gang Of Parasites , GOP politicians. Here, small donor contributions to Democrats are historically small. And they are scarce. Small donors of both parties are typically weak. See the NY Times piece describing Biden's team awaiting small donor funds to show up later. Don't hold your breath sir! Until we shed our appetite for apathy our desired outcomes will continue to disappoint us, as well as the rest of the free world. America is no longer a "free country". The millions of dollars our candidates spend in their appeals to us bears out that fact. They are our best, and surest firewall to insulate us from the current madness in our country. I've found means to contribute more by ditching my fancy Belgian ale hab.... er, hobby. Big dollars! Small ones count too though. Disparaging oneself, saying 2 dollars won't matter is simply untrue. That, or just plain lazy! Let's all stand up and own this election cycle. Please, let us NOT leave our candidates waiting for the could'uh would'uh, should'uh potential small donorsalong with Joe. This election of Cosmic Proportions would be a sad, and tragic thing to lose.
“Gang of Parasites”...best yet 🙌
Quite short but succinct. Well done.
Thank you
You are very welcome Patricia!
Jim, I completely agree. Last election I ignored pleas from Adam Frisch only to see him lose to Boebert by 549 votes. I assumed he couldn’t win and then watched in the recognition that I and a few more might have made the difference. Lesson learned. This time I am seeking every to help good candidates and help them now, not waiting until the late weeks prior to the election.
We must dig in and fight hard and wide and deep.
Here, here , well said.
Thank you for the encouragement, Jim. You are right of course. While it's crazy to add up the amount of money I've contributed to campaigns since Trump was elected, I'm in a better position to do so than lots of others so I'll continue to do so. Also writing postcards and letters to voters. Whatever I can do, I feel I must do.
You are welcome Trish. Together, all of us, we can do this!
Not surprised that teachers are leaving and will leave. Floridians are effed and the only way out of the mess they have put themselves in is by voting out the fascists they have voted into office. Perhaps they will become a state of retired old folks reveling in living in the past when life was “grand” (not!) to find that everyone capable of doing anything moved out of state leaving them to wallow in their own excrement. The Florida swamp grows.
And it looks as if this is starting to happen. The farm workers leaving…
The insurance companies fleeing
Teachers giving up
Looks pretty dismal to me
Other states will be very happy to see more teachers and the worker bees!!
It would really help if all those who go to Florida for the winter would just stop doing so. They should feel the heat in lost dollars as well.
And the doctors and other health care professionals are also leaving.
Christy I am also interested in the accreditation of Florida’s public colleges and universities. DeSantis has shoved non-academic right-wing Republicans into the presidencies of various state colleges, doubled their compensation, and imposed draconian conditions on tenured 1st Amendment-adhering professors.
Shattering academic standards should impact accreditation.
Yup!! He’s an emboldened Fascist following the playbook!! When you win by a landslide, I’m sure it feels like full speed ahead with their goals!
https://publicintegrity.org/politics/why-the-koch-brothers-find-higher-education-worth-their-money/
Somebody has to find a way to dismantle the Florida voter suppression and gerrymandering. They are not the majority, just the power brokers who don’t give a damn about governing for the majority but rather holding the majority hostage.
John Almost all of the Florida Republican House members have declared for Trump—a ringing vote of disenchantment for DeSantis.
Then they can enjoy all the climate change events and the cost of those things. Can you imagine living in something like the Villages.
Great set of quotes. Thank you.
Thank you for reading these quotes, Mike S. Hearing from the students and teachers is crucial; they are the ones most directly impacted by people who erase our history and hide the truth. For this, however, everyone loses, unless we stop the false 'facts' and fascism from poisoning our society.
"I have a long history of faking compliance." is my favorite, I think. I used to hear this from teachers in Texas, who claimed to say what they liked behind a closed door, but the problem is that now I suspect some child, coached by a parent, will snitch. Thanks for sharing these.
I agree. This is different. TheSatan is hellbent on his fascist, dominionist mission.
Agree. The fight, the pushback includes an underground effort. Fight on every front.
Thank you Fern for these quotes from the field. In the progwoman's post I note one of the big problems, that some students will act as snitches. We had this happen in the school where I worked when some of us were suing the principal. As it turned out it was the son of one of the principal's chief buddies who was probably put up to it by his parents. The wife made the complaint. I had something similar happen when I gave a student a very low grade.....I should have given her a F. Her mother went on a campaign against me including calling the parents of my other students one of whom lied and said I hadn't helped their son. These were independent study students and I spent plenty of time with all of them. Of course, I didn't find anything wrong with the student's paper because it is likely that his father wrote it for him. He also turned in his paper without a needed part and I allowed him to add that late. Btw, I had several students thank me for insisting on high standards after they were in college. I can't imagine being the librarian which I was or teaching in today's atmosphere. I am sorry for teachers and children in Florida. In the meantime the christofascists who support Stumpy Boots DeSatan can enjoy being swamped by rising sea levels, stronger hurricanes and tornadoes, baking horrible temps, lack of being able to get home insurance or paying through the nose for it, etc.
Bravo for you! And I have two adult daughters who are teachers. They LOVE teaching and the kids (most of them) love them right back. But the shenanigans that some of them pull--aided and abetted by their parents--it outrageous! I could go on and on, and I sometimes have on this forum.
Yes, there will be snitches. Underground resistance always has spies. Keeping fighting back.
Right now i would say it's above ground resistance.
The unions and teachers have so much power. They need you. Organize and walk out and protest on day one and make a statement. They cannot replace you that fast and the system will be devastated. You will be creating an example for the students.
They will have to listen!
Small note, Abbutt and years of republicans in charge, have left Texas a “right to work state.” Which means teachers cannot unionize. Hasn’t stopped many from resigning! We lost 17 employees last school year. So many great teachers! But if we walk out, we lose everything! Certification, retirement. I’m two and a half years from retirement. So Texas teachers are really screwed!
Understand. My state, NC, also is a “right to work” state. And many teachers have left public schools in NC, and some have left NC. If walkouts mean too great of a sacrifice -- which that would be in your example -- we need to find other ways to fight back. I’ve referred in some other comments to the “underground” -- inspired by the teacher’s comment in Fern’s post about being well-practiced in “faking compliance.” Use all available weapons that advance the effort but certainly not ones that hurt it.
I’m so sorry to read this info. I wonder if FL are allowed to unionize.
Yes. Exactly. Fight back.
Thanks for the we are teachers url: too.
I notice the list of race riots skips the Chicago Race Riot of 1919 which Carl Sandburg memorialized with the most erudite and elegant record of race and reaction to establishment indifference at a turning point in history of the diaspora from Jim Crow.
In these discussions the fact that slavery begins with the denial of humanity of the victims is not emphasized enough. Slavery is an imposed condition of Slave and Master that Abe Lincoln pointed out is not entirely comfortable by either.
And yes, slavery existed in other places and times, but it was usually by conquest or raids which were not based on race. It was western Europeans who added the element of race.
Thank you Fern for researching these quotes from teachers in Florida. My fear is though, not enough teachers will stand up to teach the truth and they will not be given the tools to teach it even if they want to. New teachers will come into the system and only be given materials that reflect this AWFUL decision coming from their idiot governor and his racist board of education. It is just outrageous!
Thank you, Fern.
I saw this coming with the fantasy revisioning of CRT--there go the teachers...
These quotes confirm my fears, thank you. Unfortunately, barring some sort of court intervention, here's what I see happening next: I see the tide turning in homeschooling. Up until now it were the Evangelicals that homeschooled their children who will view the new curriculum as "safer" to send them to public school. It is the progressives who now will have no choice but be burdened with homeschooling their children....
Are students allowed to do their own research with trusted sources and form their own conclusions?
Today’s youth and thus students in Florida do not live in a bubble, even though The Florida Board of Education and Governor would like to see that happen. Young people question. They observe. They are resourceful and are able to search for information and find a wealth of it at their fingertips. As a retired educator, I believe the students will be the ones to call out this fraud. I also have hope that national teacher organizations will have ways to support teachers who bring the truth into classroom discussions.
If they are motivated enough (how many are?), and they’ll have to look beyond the school library resources because the materials are no longer there. What a very sad state our country has fallen to. This comment from Mitt Romney often comes to mind: ‘Corporations are people too, my friend.’ Powerful dark money has wrought terrible damage to our democracy.
Patricia S Duffy - "Are students allowed to do their own research with trusted sources and form their own conclusions?"
Even if so, how many, realistically, would?
Most of them and many adults have no idea about evaluating sources, something I taught my students to do. Someone once told me to dig deeper citing Judicial Watch.
Michele: My point is, what is the use of going to school if you are going to question what you are taught and doing your own research? And would that apply to every subject?
I think the key here is evaluating sources in terms of their biases. I think this goes along with critical thinking. There is a difference between indoctrination and education. What is happening in Florida in other places is the former. I want students to question and learn the difference between reliable sources and ideology. One of the exercises in my writing class early on was to look at an internet article and determine its bias and reliability. I did encounter students who thought if it was on the internet, it was true even if it made no sense. Now I encounter adults all the time who just look at sites that reinforce their nonsense. Often i can't get them even to give me a citation.
Patricia, I do not know of any law concerning the students' research and or sources they may use.
Thank you for this. It is difficult to get a clear picture of what is going on in Florida from the outside. All I know is that DeSantis was elected by a landslide so that makes it seem like every one goes along with this. I know that’s not true, but it’s so good to hear that straight from Floridians.🙏
Thank you, Susan, for reading what the teachers have to say.
The 'personal enrichment' of slavery in Florida's teaching is indistinguishable from the 'personal enrichment' of prisoners making license plates.
You've done it again, Fern. Great quotes and addition to Heather's letter. Yes, MLK Jr. just liked marching! Good for that teacher to call it out! I'd be laughing if what's happening wasn't so outrageous.
All the teachers' quotes hit home, but the one about MLK Jr. felt very personal. Whatever my instinctive connection to civil rights, he was my inspiration.
I'm proud to say my late husband, Bryce Nelson, marched with MLK Jr.
This is good news, if there is a meaningful revolt. We as citizens are being called to partake in our democracy and to fight for truth and enlightenment..what we believe in that is moral.
We are not a country that is founded upon one religion, or one view, but, as Walt Whitman said, we are multitudes.
Fern, so powerful to hear these voices. Thank you for elevating them.
Thank you so much for these quotes, Fern. And that last link weareteachers!
Is it even possible they’re in the majority?
Bonnie, I don't know the answer to your question. What we do understand is that the far-right is doing everything it can to control us. There are differences of opinion among us about many subjects, but this is something different. The far-right's agenda is to dictate what we think, what we learn and what we do. Autocracy, a system of government by one person with absolute power, and Fascism, an authoritarian, ultranationalist political ideology and movement, characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, and forcible suppression of opposition. We have seen aspects of both growing in our country. Respect for the facts, the truth and the rights of the people have no place in their movements. I hope that enough Americans see what is happening, while we loose our our rights, bit by bit. The Biden administration is working hard to combat these threats, and there are many Americans working 24/7 to keep Democracy alive.
It all has become so shocking as to the depth of lies, violence, deceptions, hate, and greed.
I have gained so much information and hopefully deeper insight from Heather’s letters and contributions from her readers to the profound misinformation and lack of actually caring (other than for themselves?) that exist in so many Americans.
My focus has tended to be more with environmental concerns over the years, yet, when Obama was running for his first term as President, my interest in politics grew. And has swelled since Trump became the President.
I won’t go on for now. Your response to me is greatly appreciated, Fern.
Thank you for taking the time.
Bonnie
Bonnie, our exchanges inform and support us. Let us continue to communicate with one another from time to time. This life and time is extremely difficult. Communication between us helps me to figure out how to move forward. Be well.
Agree completely. Thank you, Fern
Citizens of Florida voted overwhelmingly for DeSantis. Who will protest in this red state?
Exactly, the governor and his new curriculum only reflect strongly held beliefs of much of the citizenry. Fantasy is much more comfortable than a true history.
These whitewashed standards are akin to a German chancellor standing in a concentration camp and denying the history and results of Nazi rule --the Holocaust, costing millions of Jewish lives, millions of deaths from World War II, cities and towns obliterated, families decimated.
FYI--a number of Founding Fathers were NOT Christian. They were Deists, who believed God existed and that was the end of it.
Thank you. Now I have a label for my own belief about God. God is there, period.
And JennSH, the mythical gods and the mythical Ronald Reagan are all part of the mix. They are living on fantasy and supporting the creation of a dystopian society. Read 1984 and everything happening is explained in a book written in 1946!!! Hard to wrap one’s head around it, but it is our reality.
A very harsh and worrisome reality…
Charlie Crist was not a strong candidate. He was on the correct side of most issues. A decent guy. But he wasn't going to bring out the votes of young people and people of color. We have family in Florida. Believe me, there will be a backlash at the next election.
Consider that DeSantis has now alienated the farmers and some of the titans of industry in Florida by chasing out desperately needed workers. There are 55 applicants for every 100 job openings in Florida. Things won't get done. Money flows will suffer. Follow the money.
https://www.uschamber.com/workforce/the-states-suffering-most-from-the-labor-shortage?state=fl
I know it's a very tough battle, but the pendulum always swings both ways.
I am, for one. And there are others. Giving up is not an option.
How can we outside Florida help support you? This must be so difficult and painful right now.
The situation here is bad. MAGA Republicans are in fact the KKK, striving for a white Protestant theocracy, democracy and the democratic process be damned. They don't care for the one person, one vote, majority rule.
One thing that you can do is to work with your local Democratic Party to help Democrats win elections. This helps to dilute the political clout of Florida Republican politicians.
For us here in Florida, we are doing everything - registering voters, working with college students, collecting money to pay for mailings, etc. We are also writing letters to the papers. This one of mine was published in today's Lakeland Ledger:
Editor:
The report, "Is student debt relief still possible?" [7/13/2023] sets in sharp relief the way in which a small minority has managed to manipulate the U.S. economy to its benefit, almost exclusive benefit, as the Middle Class is now close to disappearing. The argument comes down to whether forty million students who have a combined student loan debt of $1.6 trillion should receive any relief. Interestingly, the concerns here, is this a giveaway, do they deserve it, etc. did not phase the minds of Donald Trump, Mitch McConnell and the other Republican politicians when they voted to grant the wealthy and large corporations a $2.0 trillion tax break in 2017, doing nothing for the economy and helping to increase the federal debt $7.8 trillion during Trump's four years in office, a record.
What would $1.6 trillion in the pockets of forty million Americans do to the economy? Here we have a stark contrast between Supply Side Economics and Demand Side Economics. If, instead of giving the wealthy and large corporations an unneeded dole of $2 trillion [Supply Side Economics] Congress had decided in favor of student loan forgiveness, [Demand Side Economics] this would have been a huge boost for the economy, $1.6 trillion going into the checking accounts of consumers. And what do consumers do? They spend that money and that creates economy activity. What did the big corporations and wealthy do with the $2.0 trillion tax break? They bought back their own stock, primarily, doing absolutely nothing to spur the economy and dumping more debt on average Americans. At what point do we start thinking critically and stop being suckers?
Richard Sutherland
Further to the point that I make in my letter, this from a friend of mine in California responding to my letter published in today's edition of the Lakeland Ledger:
The irony and contrast are completely lost on the likes of Trump, DeSantis and team MAGA. They simply look at it as Corporations are deserving because they think of them as “one of them” but consumers are not because they see them as immigrants, black, brown and other minorities getting something that they don’t deserve regardless of the benefit that, you rightly point out, helps the economy unlike the handouts that go to Corporations that do nothing – indeed, I witnessed up close how Cisco took the extra cash handouts from the give backs and the amnesty on cash re-patriating and proudly put 93% of it to stock buybacks and minimal to employees.
Very few... publicly..
OK I must say that the state of Florida has lost its collective mind. I can’t believe that they all agree with this. It’s time to grab the scissors and trim off one of our states. I’m sorry Professor that you had to teach us another extreme lesson of uncommon sense. Thank you, it makes me realize that the fight is on to correct these wrongs and it’s up to all of us to make the change. Thank you. Peace and love always wins out.
I can't wait for global warming to turn Florida into the raised mount undersea.
Florida is pretty damned flat, it won't even raise a blip.
It will literally be the biggest swamp full of swamp creatures like djt and Satan himself
With most of Florida underwater... salt water... crawfish thrive... then die. Alligators take over raised areas. Sharks will terrify swimmers. ALL high rise apartment buildings will collapse with rebar rusting within rotting concrete walls, concrete destroyed, killing residents in their sleep, one building after the other, co-ops all, and Disney will never return.
God, that is brilliant sir. What a perfect outcome!
Thank you TC !
Here are the lyrics of a little lullaby that my family used to gather around the piano and sing:
Mamie's little baby feelin' blue - so many troubles don't know what to do.
seem like he gonna cry.
Oh jus' because a little white boy said, "you can't get to heaven with a kinky head. White boy done told a lie:
For there's a corner up in heaven where the angels set aside
Just for little pickaninnies, and the gates are open wide
Pickaninnies will be welcome, they'll be glad to have them too!
Plenty angels up in heaven just as black as you.
There's a corner up in heaven JUST FOR YOU!
... I swear, the white folks loved to sing that song.
Rosalind,
I guess its good that white folks thought black folks could "go to heaven" too since all the white folks I met in the Southern Baptist Church, no matter what nasty stuff they were doing or how they treated others, in their own minds, were all headed to heaven.
And, many of them were quite positive of who was NOT going to heaven (anyone not like them).
My first wake up call to the Southern Baptist Church, as a late adolescent when I started thinking for myself, was when the preacher, after years of scorching our hair off with stories of how easy it was to go to hell, was caught sleeping with one of the deacon's wives (btw, catching a preacher sleeping with someone else wife is one of the most common occurrences in the Southern Baptist Church).
Mike, did you catch the "corner" up in heaven bit? The angels set aside a "CORNER" for the "pickaninnies."
My family was Southern Baptist and I was dragged to church until my late teens when it was apparent I was Agnostic and didn't buy it. I had an uncle in MS, deacon of his Southern Baptist church who not only had extra-marital affairs, which got a divorce from wife #1, but he was also in the KKK. How does one rectify such Hypocrisy? From what I've read of he writings about Jesus, he would not approve.
Rosalind, that is as illuminating as it is appalling. Thanks for posting.
So Mike, how exactly will you "make the change"? With your pair of scissors! Really sir? Peace , love, AND funding the right candidates might just win out, yes!
Thank you Rosalind.
And how many of them were Florida’s educators? Not just teachers but others who work in the education system…
You’d be surprised, John. We are talking about DeSantisville. The Authoritarian Regime of Russia!
'Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is intensifying his efforts to de-emphasize racism in his state’s public school curriculum by arguing that some Black people benefited from being enslaved and defending his state’s new African American history standards that civil rights leaders and scholars say misrepresents centuries of U.S. reality.'
“They’re probably going to show that some of the folks that eventually parlayed, you know, being a blacksmith into doing things later in life,” DeSantis said on Friday in response to reporters’ questions while standing in front of a nearly all-White crowd of supporters.'
'DeSantis, a GOP presidential candidate who is lagging in polls against the front-runner, former president Donald Trump, and is trying to reset his campaign, quickly drew criticism from educators and even some in his party. He has built his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination on attacking what he calls the radical liberal policies of President Biden and the Democratic Party, but the latest remarks could alienate Black voters just as the GOP tries to court them.'
'Former U.S. Rep. Will Hurd of Texas, who announced last month that he was joining the race for the GOP nomination, blasted the idea that enslaved people were able to use slavery as some kind of training program.'
“Slavery wasn’t a jobs program that taught beneficial skills,” Hurd, the son of a Black father and a White mother, tweeted. “It was literally dehumanizing and subjugated people as property because they lacked any rights or freedoms.”
'Civil rights leaders, educators and others have expressed revulsion at the idea that enslaved people benefited from the experience.'
'As Biden’s running mate, Vice President Harris has stepped up her attack-dog role, and on Friday traveled to Jacksonville to assail DeSantis’s policies in his home state. She emphasized that slavery involved rape, torture and “some of the worst examples of depriving people of humanity in our world.”
'Florida State Rep. Fentrice Driskell, a Tampa Democrat who last year became the first Black woman to become House Democratic Leader, called DeSantis’s latest remarks a continuation of DeSantis’s “assault on Black history.”
“Let’s really dissect what he’s saying here,” she said. “He’s saying that to be ripped away from your homelands and brought to another country against your will, or to be born into the atrocity of the dehumanizing institution that was slavery, that those horrors are some way somehow outweighed by the benefit that you get a trade. Are you kidding me?”
'DeSantis issued a statement Friday saying, “Democrats like Kamala Harris have to lie about Florida’s educational standards to cover for their agenda of indoctrinating students and pushing sexual topics onto children.” His campaign did not respond to an email on Saturday requesting comment.'
'Marvin Dunn, a professor emeritus at Florida International University and author of “A History of Florida: Through Black Eyes,” said DeSantis would gain no political advantage from his argument because “it is so outrageous that people are going to reject it.”
“These children know in their hearts and in their minds that slavery was evil,” he said.
“One of the main things about slavery, beyond the physical damage that it did to people of so many generations, was that it prevented people from becoming what they could have become,” he said.'
“So what if you became a carpenter or a blacksmith or a good maid? Your chances of that were not determined by you, it was determined by somebody else. That’s not a rationalization for enslavement.” (WAPO) See link to article below. Sorry, gifting not available.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/07/22/desantis-slavery-curriculum/
Fern, you include this piece: "Florida State Rep. Fentrice Driskell, a Tampa Democrat who last year became the first Black woman to become House Democratic Leader, called DeSantis’s latest remarks a continuation of DeSantis’s “assault on Black history.”
Respectfully, Rep. Driskell, it is an all-out assault on democracy, which includes huge lies about our past (including Black history. ) In short, it is what Fascists do. DeSantis is a Fascist. "By their fruits, so shall you know them."
Agree. This isn’t just a white-washing of black or Afroamerican history—it’s an assault on all US history.
Thank you, Richard.
Thank you, Fern.
The comparisons to ancient history show that slavery of some sort has been around forever in many societies around the world. The only thing that is common to all examples is the belief that the “other” is less than the enslaver. And it remains so to this day. The enslaved were not given choices about what “job training” they wanted for themselves, nor could they quit a job they didn’t like. This is heartbreaking and public acknowledgment of deeply embedded intolerance of “others” across the centuries and the world. The human condition hasn’t changed much...the cruel and evil injustices are still with us.
And, once separated from their native country and enslaved, these people were then subjected to further separation - husbands from wives, children from parents - at the whim, and for the profit, of their owners.
I was actually going somewhere with this comment and got waylaid. I was thinking how the separation of slave’s families connected to the trump administration’s separation of children from their families at the border.
FERN MCBRIDE (NYC) - " (WAPO) See link to article below. Sorry, gifting not available."
[Gift Link]
https://wapo.st/473cuxq
Ron, thank you for your generous gifting.
Fern, first, I want to thank you fir adding this spectacular breakdown to my post. H you ou have taken what I was trying to say and spelled it out rather nicely, scholarly, and understandable. I greatly appreciate that.
There’s not one thing I can add that the other folks that responded haven’t added. I just wanted to thank you gif pointing all this out to us all.
This country has no use gif the lines of Trump, DeSantis, or ANY of the other Republicans who are currently running for ANY public office. State, Federal, Local. None of them. Every one of them needs to be replaced. The Republican Party, as it USED to be is no more. It is gone.
Hello, Daniel, great to see you. We are a team, and you are a wonderful member of us!
I appreciate that!
Slavery, Florida style
• Everybody did it – our kin only copied
[Our kin were so debased that they were eager to kidnap, murder, steal property and buy and sell people for personal profit, and to this day our kin still think it wasn’t such a bad idea]
• Our kin thought god said it was OK
[God said it was OK – even the evil Muslim one]
• Our kin gave them trade skills for a better life
[Our kin worked people unto death – some of them got pretty good at some sort of forced labor before they died]
{Corollary: Our kin were so unskilled, uneducated and incompetent that they had to force other people at the point of a gun to do their work for them}
• Our kin made certain that the prevailing mercantile system benefited the maximum number of people
[Our kin worked people to death without recourse or compensation, thereby maximizing profit]
• Our kin ended it for them, then we changed our justice system around just for them
[Our kin practically tore apart the nation they professed was the best nation ever, by resisting universal human rights unto death, then, at the point of a gun aimed at us by those nasty Army guys from up north, passed a few simple laws that, once the unpleasantness of 1876 was sorted out, they were quickly able to reverse, and thence to enforce via the proud, brave KKK operatives]
• Despite our kin’s everlasting commitment to maximizing personal freedom and economic security some people still rebelled and committed violence in a misguided attempt to elevated their own individual preferences
[Inexplicably, some people tried to run away from, or fight our kin, and our children today might be upset at the very thought of it]
More like pre-Enlightenment 1400s!
John D. Cooper, it’s Midnight in Washington DC, and Tallahassee.
Ding ding ding, the school bell is ringing. MAGA Parents’ radar across America is on alert as they prepare to move en mass to Florida to get that “good patriotic teachin’ for their youngins”
Some scientists, schooled in the Florida way, are predicting the added weight of such immigration (the good kind) will add to the flooding of some coastal areas but El Duce de Ronni pooh poohed such concern saying “the influx will be good for the service economy helping businesses fill open positions at restaurants, hotels, and landscaping companies that current “Real Floridians” refuse to do”
Tommy Tuberville immediately contacted the Florida School System for a copy of the new teaching instructions to implement in Alabama
Respectfully submitted by Dave Fake Bews
Yes,I totally agree.How do Florida’s teachers feel about teaching this travesty to students?I am truly appalled.
Oh yes - many of them will. Among them will be my family in and around the Florida Bluegrass area. They will nod their heads and say this is correct.
I am old enough to have lived through Jim Crow and the civil rights movement of the 60s. Ron DeSantis is not; the Florida Board of Education members are not. I’m not a historian but I know what I saw and what I continue to see, systemic racism and the rise of fascism that are whitewashing our history. As I am an engineer and not a historian, I invite each of you who are historians to write letters, send emails, do what you can to apply your unique knowledge to this disgusting and quite frightening movement. Our kids, grandkids, and great grandkids deserve the truth. Without the truth, positive change is impossible. Mythical belief is not truth, not reality. Please help our next generations.
Another amazing column. I heard and read about the new curriculum time and time again through the lens of the single extraction from the syllabus about “Blacks learning useful skills”. So much so that I began to wonder if this was manufactured outrage with nothing more substantive behind it.
Then Heather wrote. Her analysis of the curriculum is masterful. As a teacher I was fascinated to see how the Reconstruction and Jim Crow periods were bereft of detail and left to the the teacher to “Explain and evaluate”.
What a trap. What Florida teacher with eyes to see and ears to hear is going to Wade into those eras and overturn the sanitation purpose of the rest of the curriculum? Reconstruction and the Jim Crow era will become land mines in the curriculum that could put your job in danger because there will be nothing in the syllabus for you to fall back upon.
I give full marks to the team that wrote (and probably rewrote many time) this document. They have managed to demean and disavow the history of a proud people without producing something cartoonishly ugly as other states have done.
The syllabus is a masterpiece of cunning and treachery - at a level that only people such as Professor Cox Richardson can instantly evaluate for the poison that it is.
Woe to them that they didn’t see the lightning rod that “useful skills” instantly became.
Actually I should probably retract the word “woe”. This flare up is, regrettably a speed bump only. They will wait a bit, announce some “public consultation”, go through the sham of that and then hold another press conference in which they announce “revisions based on a wealth of public input”. Then they will put out a final draft, cosmetically changed - the “skills and trades” sentence gone, and to put more lipstick on the pig a few other non-substantive changes. And then it will hit the schools of Florida.
The document will remain an erasure of Black suffering, filled with false equivalencies - entirely devoid of anything that might hurt the unfortunate white children/parents. Kudos to Florida for a masterclass in treachery.
I hear that the number of millionaires in Florida (refugees from New York taxation) grows daily. If the hurricanes don’t drive them out, they will support this education happily. People are scared. The more money you have, the more money you’ll have to eat (“But where’s the catsup”?) when climate change, which the Republican Party and SCOTUS support with all their ignorance, oil and coal money, takes over. Maybe the Dems can scrape up enough funds to win the state and bring it back to a semblance of sanity, but it will take more than Disney money, from a state reeling from hurricane destruction, to beat the DeSanctus crowd.
In 50 yrs Florida and everything else south of Kansas will be uninhabitable. The bread basket will have moved up to Minnesota. Let’s pray all these idiots just burn up.
Or better, accept the truth, move and contribute to their new communities.
Florida's curriculum has become a disgraceful national issue, and merits loud objection across the states....
They elected DeSantis. Reds seem to be very pushy and loud. For instance one woman got 10 books banned. Where were the protesters then?
Would it even matter?
I’d love to see Florida teachers and students walk out en masse the first day of school.