The Florida Board of Education approved new state social studies standards on Wednesday, including standards for African American history, civics and government, American history, and economics. Critics immediately called out the middle school instruction in African American history that includes “how slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit.” (p. 6). They noted that describing enslavement as offering personal benefits to enslaved people is outrageous.
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?!!
It is, indeed, outrageous. I'm struck by how much of it was taught this way to me back in the 1960s in Los Angeles. It's not just the South or just Florida. I remember clearly when a new history textbook was introduced into the high school curriculum which included the role of black people in American history for the first time. It was an epiphany in my all-white upper middle class school. I am deeply saddened that we now seem to be moving quickly backwards.
‘It just hurts me:‘ Florida students left hanging'
'Victoria McQueen, 17, of Tallahassee, Florida, was looking forward to taking AP African American Studies her senior year. She said that when she heard the class was rejected by the DeSantis administration, she felt defeated.'
“It just hurts me, especially as a young African American female, that 400 years later they’re still trying to sweep the history of African Americans under the rug after all they did,” the rising senior said. “The way that America has broken African Americans and people of color in general, broken them down from top to bottom, not giving them the credit they deserve behind the scenes and in front of the camera − it just hurts to know that even in the classroom they can't be acknowledged.”
'Victoria McQueen, a Leon High School student, spoke at the "Stop the Black Attack" rally in the Florida Capitol in January. McQueen contemplated suing Gov. Ron DeSantis and his administration over the ban of AP African American Studies in Florida high schools.'
'McQueen, who is her high school’s student body president, already has taken six AP classes. When she realized AP African American Studies wouldn’t be offered, she looked into learning the subject matter in an actual college course. '
“I took it upon myself to see if I could take it at the community college, only for me to find out a few months later, these last few months, that the state is now regulating what even the colleges can teach about African American history and diversity because of critical race theory,” she said.'
'DeSantis, who is running to be the Republican nominee for president, has cracked down on diversity, equity and inclusion programs on Florida college campuses. The governor recently signed a bill that restricts state funding from going to any programs or campus activities “based on theories that systemic racism, sexism and privilege are inherent in the institutions of the United States and were created to maintain social, political and economic inequities.”
“Ask the students if they want the class,” she said, “not the parents, the students, because the parents aren’t sitting in the classroom every day.” (USAToday) See link below.
I’m vacationing in Warsaw. Yesterday the guide spoke to how much the history books changed in Poland after the Soviet Union released their hold on the country. It’s a real learning to understand how fluid the narrative of history is.
The history that was taught before these "reforms" was paltry to begin with. This is just the Lost Cause narrative redux. The far right has been attacking "snowflakes" on the left for years, but think their own children are so fragile that they will melt upon hearing historic truths. The reactionaries probably think that if you held up books like "The Color of Law" and the "Sum of Us" in front of their children, their children would shrink away like a vampire faced with a Bible. SO SAD!
What's the end game of this attempt in Florida to create an outrageous false reality? To brainwash everyone into believing that Blacks are treated without racism and enjoy the same economic benefits of a white-dominated culture? That in America today everything is just hunky dory?
Imagine being a Black student, and you're subjected to this compendium of lies. Do you get a knee on the neck if you challenge lessons with the truth?
I'm guessing that "The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Journey of America's Great Migration" by Isabel Wilkerson won't be part of the curriculum. It details the stories of Black people who fled Florida, as well as other states, because of the prevalence of lynchings, brutal Jim Crow laws, and semi-servitude work as sharecroppers.
Six million people migrated from the South between 1915 to 1970. Florida has 3.3 million Blacks. Why would they stay if they have the wherewithal to leave?
I don’t even know what to say about this. It is sickening and unbelievable at best. At worst it perpetuates lies that prevent us from moving forward as a society.
For the record, I am a proud 81 year old American Jew who can’t wait for the Israeli teaching guidelines on how Israel helped residents of Palestine by assisting them in moving out of their homes so they could relocate to better neighborhoods.
Many years ago, I interviewed a painter who was also a union organizer in New York. Ralph Fasanella. He told me how incensed he was about the foolish myth, that because we were Americans, we would always end up doing the right thing. He pointed out that every right achieved in our history was accomplished with the blood and tears of many people and extraordinary efforts of bravery. Honestly, he was the best history teacher I had until Heather Cox Richardson.
Remarkable and so disheartening. The right wing republicans and the rabid religious right are perpetrating a mass hypnosis on their "subjects". Some will see through it and speak up and others will not...and on and on and on. Garbage in - Garbage out.
The new Florida curriculum looks a lot like the over-cooked pablum we were taught in public schools in the 1950’s and 60’’s, before widespread demonstrations, boycotts, etc. in the late 1960’s began to bring about the teaching of a more realistic US history through black studies programs etc.
There is much in our history beyond the gross injustice of slavery that has been whitewashed. The willful, systematic genocide of native North Americans tops that list. It needs also to be understood that the Puritans who founded the Plymouth Colony in 1620 didn’t come to North America to escape religious intolerance, they came here to institutionalize religious intolerance as a fundamental pillar of society. One might say they were quite successful.
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?!!
It is, indeed, outrageous. I'm struck by how much of it was taught this way to me back in the 1960s in Los Angeles. It's not just the South or just Florida. I remember clearly when a new history textbook was introduced into the high school curriculum which included the role of black people in American history for the first time. It was an epiphany in my all-white upper middle class school. I am deeply saddened that we now seem to be moving quickly backwards.
First they came for the Communists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Communist
Then they came for the Socialists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Socialist
Then they came for the trade unionists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a trade unionist
Then they came for the Jews
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew
Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak out for me
-- Martin Niemöller
‘It just hurts me:‘ Florida students left hanging'
'Victoria McQueen, 17, of Tallahassee, Florida, was looking forward to taking AP African American Studies her senior year. She said that when she heard the class was rejected by the DeSantis administration, she felt defeated.'
“It just hurts me, especially as a young African American female, that 400 years later they’re still trying to sweep the history of African Americans under the rug after all they did,” the rising senior said. “The way that America has broken African Americans and people of color in general, broken them down from top to bottom, not giving them the credit they deserve behind the scenes and in front of the camera − it just hurts to know that even in the classroom they can't be acknowledged.”
'Victoria McQueen, a Leon High School student, spoke at the "Stop the Black Attack" rally in the Florida Capitol in January. McQueen contemplated suing Gov. Ron DeSantis and his administration over the ban of AP African American Studies in Florida high schools.'
'McQueen, who is her high school’s student body president, already has taken six AP classes. When she realized AP African American Studies wouldn’t be offered, she looked into learning the subject matter in an actual college course. '
“I took it upon myself to see if I could take it at the community college, only for me to find out a few months later, these last few months, that the state is now regulating what even the colleges can teach about African American history and diversity because of critical race theory,” she said.'
'DeSantis, who is running to be the Republican nominee for president, has cracked down on diversity, equity and inclusion programs on Florida college campuses. The governor recently signed a bill that restricts state funding from going to any programs or campus activities “based on theories that systemic racism, sexism and privilege are inherent in the institutions of the United States and were created to maintain social, political and economic inequities.”
“Ask the students if they want the class,” she said, “not the parents, the students, because the parents aren’t sitting in the classroom every day.” (USAToday) See link below.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/education/2023/07/21/ap-african-american-studies-rising-popularity/70388116007/
I’m vacationing in Warsaw. Yesterday the guide spoke to how much the history books changed in Poland after the Soviet Union released their hold on the country. It’s a real learning to understand how fluid the narrative of history is.
I see again the distant echoes of the fall of the Weimar Republic. Germany late 20s and early30s.
I don’t know how you even managed to write this.
The history that was taught before these "reforms" was paltry to begin with. This is just the Lost Cause narrative redux. The far right has been attacking "snowflakes" on the left for years, but think their own children are so fragile that they will melt upon hearing historic truths. The reactionaries probably think that if you held up books like "The Color of Law" and the "Sum of Us" in front of their children, their children would shrink away like a vampire faced with a Bible. SO SAD!
What's the end game of this attempt in Florida to create an outrageous false reality? To brainwash everyone into believing that Blacks are treated without racism and enjoy the same economic benefits of a white-dominated culture? That in America today everything is just hunky dory?
Imagine being a Black student, and you're subjected to this compendium of lies. Do you get a knee on the neck if you challenge lessons with the truth?
I'm guessing that "The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Journey of America's Great Migration" by Isabel Wilkerson won't be part of the curriculum. It details the stories of Black people who fled Florida, as well as other states, because of the prevalence of lynchings, brutal Jim Crow laws, and semi-servitude work as sharecroppers.
Six million people migrated from the South between 1915 to 1970. Florida has 3.3 million Blacks. Why would they stay if they have the wherewithal to leave?
I don’t even know what to say about this. It is sickening and unbelievable at best. At worst it perpetuates lies that prevent us from moving forward as a society.
For the record, I am a proud 81 year old American Jew who can’t wait for the Israeli teaching guidelines on how Israel helped residents of Palestine by assisting them in moving out of their homes so they could relocate to better neighborhoods.
Many years ago, I interviewed a painter who was also a union organizer in New York. Ralph Fasanella. He told me how incensed he was about the foolish myth, that because we were Americans, we would always end up doing the right thing. He pointed out that every right achieved in our history was accomplished with the blood and tears of many people and extraordinary efforts of bravery. Honestly, he was the best history teacher I had until Heather Cox Richardson.
How many Florida teachers are going to be fired for trying to teach Truth instead of this disgusting revisionist State curriculum.
Frankly it sounds like the sugar coated history I was taught in parochial school in the 1950s.
Remarkable and so disheartening. The right wing republicans and the rabid religious right are perpetrating a mass hypnosis on their "subjects". Some will see through it and speak up and others will not...and on and on and on. Garbage in - Garbage out.
The BIGGEST BIG Lie is alive and well - in Florida and the Republican Party of Governor Ron DeSantis.
The new Florida curriculum looks a lot like the over-cooked pablum we were taught in public schools in the 1950’s and 60’’s, before widespread demonstrations, boycotts, etc. in the late 1960’s began to bring about the teaching of a more realistic US history through black studies programs etc.
There is much in our history beyond the gross injustice of slavery that has been whitewashed. The willful, systematic genocide of native North Americans tops that list. It needs also to be understood that the Puritans who founded the Plymouth Colony in 1620 didn’t come to North America to escape religious intolerance, they came here to institutionalize religious intolerance as a fundamental pillar of society. One might say they were quite successful.