Scott Maxwell, a columnist for the Orlando Sentinel, reports on Orwellian legislation that has been proposed by conservative elected officials. These officials don’t want professors to teach about racism. It is sure to be divisive and make someone uncomfortable. Thus they find it necessary to ban “teaching theories that suggest “systemic racism, sexism, oppression, and privilege are inherent in the institutions of the United States and were created to maintain social, political, and economic inequities.” This is a recent addition to the state’s higher education bill (SB 266).
This legislation is intended to shield students from unpleasant facts.
Students should not be taught about the origin of Florida’s law (recently revised) that did not allow former felons to vote, ever.
Maxwell writes:
That policy was instituted in the wake of the U.S. Civil War by Florida politicians who were, according to the Brennan Center for Justice, trying to stop the state from becoming too “n*ggerized.”
Sen. Geraldine Thompson, an African American Democrat who founded Orlando’s Wells’Built Museum of African American History and Culture, said the goal of the legislation is to distort history so students will never learn the history of systemic racism. Nor will they learn that the University of Florida did not admit Black students for its first 100 years. Legislators want to bury those facts, as they want to bury the history of lynchings and massacres. Nor do they want students to learn about the unequal sentences imposed on Blacks and whites convicted of the same crimes.
There were examples galore. Like two 17-year-olds in Lee County who were both charged with robbing gas stations with guns. Both had precisely three prior records as juveniles. Both made off with a few hundred bucks. The Black teen got four years in prison. The White one avoided prison altogether…
Thompson actually floated a legislative proposal to more thoroughly study the discrepancies found in the Herald-Tribune’s “Bias on the Bench” series to get more complete numbers and see what, if anything, needed fixing. Her idea was rejected.
Then, the Florida Supreme Court went a step further, curtailing “fairness and diversity” training for Florida judges.
This seems to be the new Florida way for handling systemic inequality. First, you nix efforts to fix it. Then you try to ban even discussing it.
The actual language in the higher-ed censorship proposal is a hot mess, full of nebulous catch phrases and vague bans, forbidding curriculum that, for example, “teaches identity politics,” as if that’s a statutorily defined thing.
The goal seems to be to generally chill speech, so that no one’s quite clear what they’re allowed to teach…
Thompson noted that the chilling effects are already happening with Florida schools canceling classes that they fear might offend legislators.
Teaching students actual history and sharing with them concrete contemporary data isn’t unpatriotic. Trying to stop or censor that is.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
By banning history, people won’t know where they came from, and the mistakes of those who came before, and, will be, more than, likely to, repeat what’s already, occurred in, history, and, they are bound to trap themselves, inside, that, vicious cycle, and, never, break out of their, old, ways.
Tell that to the hundreds of statues of American war veterans that have been torn down in the last 5 years.
You mean the statues of Confederates that were erected 50 years after the Civil War? They were not heroes. They led a rebellion against the Constitution. More than 600,000 men died.
This legislation is intended to shield students who are racists from unpleasant facts that might make them feel bad because they are racists.
This legislation also will make it easier to be a racist and act like a racist in public without any blow back, since those being abused may one day have no laws that protect them in any way from discriminations of any kind.
Combine this legislation with stand your ground laws and it will be easier for racists to shoot anyone that hate because of their last name, their religion, or the color of their skin by just saying I feared for my life.
If this type of legislation continues, it may be legal one day to get away with rape without it being a crime. It’s easy to imagine a rapist in a state like that holding a gun to the head of his victim and raping her at work or in a park, or a sidewalk in public while people walk by without any attempt to help because the law would punish them for trying to help. The rapist’s defense might be, “She deserved it, because she’s a WOKE person.”
Stand your ground. While you are at it, stand on someone else’s ground. After all, they are not human.
“This legislation is intended to shield students who are racists from unpleasant facts that might make them feel bad because they are racists.”
Racist is just a racial slur for any White person. The people who are against DeSantis’ legislation will tell you that all White people are racist and everything they have created in America is racist and White supremacist.
It’s no surprise White people don’t want non-White people directing racial slurs at them all day in school or at work.
It’s actually illegal for an institution to tolerate men telling objectively hot women that they’re hot all day at school. It’s called “creating a hostile environment”. It’s a civil rights violation.
Similarly,it’s illegal to call black employees racial slurs for black people all day at school. It’s creating a hostile environment.
If someone singled out their Mexican colleagues or employees and referred to them as “taco-munchers” or “tamale-eaters” all day long, foods that they objectively do eat and historically cannot be denied are foods associated with Mexicans,it would be considered a racial slur and “creating a hostile environment”.
What you are doing is effectively denying that White people have the same civil rights as other groups.
“If this type of legislation continues, it may be legal one day to get away with rape without it being a crime.”
Rape is already effectively legal if you’re black. As is murder,armed robbery, and conspiracy to riot and commit larceny.
Dear Mr. “Jabber”: Get help. Seriously. You are profoundly confused and, well, worse.
“Objectively hot women…” Okee-dokee
I learned the relationship between the structure of slavery in the United States and ethnicity in college. The story was pretty simple: prior to the arrival of slave ships from Africa, there were indenture ships from Britain. The frontier made it really easy to run away from an indenture. Quaker merchants made it even easier on indentured servitude by granting freedom from indenture early. This meant the Quaker merchants created an expanding market for their goods by granting freedom. All those freeholders, granted some acreage near the store, became patrons. It also sucked more indentured servants into the Quaker merchant system. Meanwhile the massive need of plantations went begging. European indentured servants would just skip town and claim to be someone else. The frontier, especially south of Maryland, was big.
Africans were the obvious answer to this economic problem. They were visible due to their ethnic character. If you were African, you were a slave. Economic problem solved. Moreover, selected populations of Africans were “imported” to create rice plantations on the Sea Islands off South Carolina and Georgia. Mistreatment of Africans would not be challenged by poor European freeholders due to the human tendency to fear the other. Just a bit of cultivation of public fear made slavery work.
I assume most of the readers here know this story. I wonder how readers here learned it. I bet it was not in high school history.
Thanks, Roy. It certainly wasn’t.
I’m losing sleep over these big babies. What ever happened to keeping the tyranny of government from intruding in my home? What ever happened to don’t tread on me? What ever happened to turning the station if you don’t like the song? What a bunch on nanny-state invalids living in some protected corner and hiding behind their puffy shiny suits.
Nah, these are all just purveyors of American myths pretending our central government is not what it’s always been since our beginnings: hypocritical moral arbiters with a massive arsenal and a lust for land and power.
From Hamilton to McCarthy to Tipper Gore to Gitmo Ron, all just a big bunch of big scaredy cats. How embarrassing.
If I could I would ask them this: how you gonna not know your country is racist when each and ever piece of paper currency we use every single damn day has a slave master posing front and center?
I still can’t believe there’s not one single politician from either side capable of standing up and saying, “Enough with the nanny state telling us how we’re supposed to live and die.”
You are exactly right. The GOP has become the party of Big Government, the party of the Nanny State. In Florida, they have created a model for other red states. Ban everyone from seeing or learning whatever you don’t like. Insist on “parental rights,” but only for straight white Christian families.
Thank you, Thomas!!!! YES!!!!
“Thus they find it necessary to ban “teaching theories that suggest “systemic racism, sexism, oppression, and privilege are inherent in the institutions of the United States and were created to maintain social, political, and economic inequities.”
Catholicism?
Judaism?
Islamism?
Presbyterianism?
At minimum I figured they’d leave sexism off the list.
What do these white men’s daughter think about this? (Wives must apparently have no problem with it).
I’m not sure anyone in the Republican majority in Florida has a brain. They are puppets of DFascist.
Wives and daughters are being protected from the big black man coming to rape and pillage . Not just in the post antebellum South. Right here in Metropolitan NYC where Karen’s in the suburbs came out in droves to vote for tough on crime congressman in the SAFEST counties in America.
Of note in NYC where there was a very small!! increase in crime 82% of Manhattan residents and large percentages of 3 of 4 other boroughs rejected the Willie Horton scare tactics.
Wait, what,
May I steer you to reflection about a different possible approach?
If one wants to succeed with an action, assessing what the opponent can marshal in terms of political influence, money and, number of potential participants is wise? You know, consideration of the idea that diverting attention and resources to small players in the action can be wasteful and ineffectual. In your religious sect examples, for purpose of analysis, limiting review to those who control access to the funds of the sect and spend them on right wing agendas may be good strategy? Floating an illustration, is there equivalency to the USCCB in the other sects’ synagogues, churches, and mosques? And, in size and influence in state capitols, is there an equivalency to state Catholic Conferences and Catholic schools- university and K-12? Is there an equivalency to the ranking of Catholic organizations as the nation’s 3rd largest employer? Is there an equivalency to the public policy links between Charles Koch’s funding and conservative Catholic politicking? The revenue that Knights of Columbus generates is a funding source for the USCCB, is there an equivalent source for other sects?
When a bishop seeks an appointment with a member of Congress, how many Catholic members may be available vs. a rabbi who is relying on help from a Jewish member of Congress? When the rabbi and the Catholic bishop want to talk to a member of Congress, which of them brings more to the table in terms of Church/synagogue money, a well-established organizational structure to mobilize voters and their campaign donations and a highly sympathetic media? That’s what interests a politician and provides reason for him/her to make time available.
Thanks for your attention.
Linda,
Here’s grist for your mill, although I find your anti/Catholic shtick over the top.
The leading funder of vouchers in Missouri (where I’m guessing “Wait What” lives) is billionaire Rex Sinquefield. He grew up in a Catholic orphanage and made a great success. He doesn’t like public schools. With his money, wouldn’t you think he could fund all the Catholic schools and make them tuition-free instead of undermining public schools?
I appreciate that you read what I write and permit me to post. If mainstream media focused all of its attention solely on one sect’s politicking like the example of a recent Reuters article, reposted at Raw Story, about evangelicals who the public understands to be protestant, I would consider it over the top. If you, as a blog host, only posted about right wing protestant or right wing Catholic politicking for the GOP, I would see it as over the top.
I’m a mere commenter trying to tip the scales for balance given the media’s total omission of coverage about one sect.
Unless Dems address the religious right’s support for Gallagher in the election for Tammy Baldwin’s seat, I think she has a good chance of losing. After reading reports and deducing how Gallagher got his House seat, I would need a reason for hope to make me think otherwise.
Having an Archdiocese for Military Services that supports itself with my tax dollars surprised me. My tax dollars support far more of the operations of the Catholic church and its affiliated organizations than I knew or the public knows.
I know that that message doesn’t get out by me staying in the same lane as mainstream media.
Laughing, as in the entertainment of schtick, if that is the response to learning about money spent to support conversion therapy, anti-abortion and anti-LGBTQ campaigns, vouchers, to secure appointment of right wing judges, for websites that help to elect Republican candidates, for legal fights to exclude religious groups from civil rights laws, etc., it’s profoundly distressing.
In a ranking of the top groups that influence legislators to privatize government functions like social services, that through legal cases, demand an end to separation of church and state, that create the anti-woman mindset of conservative judges like those on SCOTUS, that echo anti-communist rhetoric to enable establishment of authoritarian rule by men like Koch, etc. where would the Catholic Church, groups like the secretive CNP which includes conservative Catholics who work to advance their sect’s power and, Robert P George’s National Organization for Marriage place?
Additions- Legatus (Tim Busch), Catholic Vote, Catholic League, EWTN, Susan B Anthony List.
A decade ago, Ohio had a law that attempted to prevent opponents from lying about the competing candidate. At the time, an opinion column at National Catholic Reporter told readers that it should be up to voters to decide who’s telling the truth in campaigns. From there to Kellyanne’s “alternate facts”, is not a far distance. The campaign lie was about ACA. An anti-abortion group claimed in ads that an Ohio Democratic Representative’s vote for the healthcare act was a pro-abortion vote. The representative was one of more than 10 who were targeted with the lie.
Subsequently, Ohio law changed and reflected the opinion in NCR. A lie is no longer a lie.
“This seems to be the new Florida way for handling systemic inequality. First, you nix efforts to fix it. Then you try to ban even discussing it.”
That is FL racism in a nutshell. A neighboring Florida county is dealing with a series of Black on Black shootings and murders. The police make public pleas for information, and they make a lot claims that justice will be served. All that generally happens is that a few more young Black men end up in jail. The county allocates little money for programs directly addressing poverty. Unlimited access to guns and poverty are a toxic combination. The Black pastors call for meetings and try to reach out to young people, but they lack the resources to make a significant dent in addressing the problem. It’s a vicious cycle of poverty and violence with no end in sight.
Here’s the silver lining: DeStalin is making it QUITE CLEAR to the majority of people in the rest of the country why they would be nuking futz to vote for him. No one likes a whiny, autocratic, vindictive, tantrum-throwing, narrow, boorish, intolerant, crabbed, Puritanical nanny and bully.
I hope you are right. This kind of fear feels familiar. Like, Reverend Hale familiar. Like Joe McCarthy familiar. Like, Stalin and Mao familiar. The kind of fear that breeds hysteria.
I am reminded of that great Aaron Sorkin monologue delivered by Jeff Daniels. “We didn’t used to scare so easily.”
Those scary drag queens. LOL.
But what this is all actually about is that we are undergoing fairly dramatic cultural change and morons in places like Flor-uh-duh are being left behind, and they don’t like this one bit. They don’t understand what’s happening and hate it. And so they are lashing out. They are drawing swords against the incoming tide.
It’s darkly humorous (and at the same time horrifying), that Gitmo Ron resembles so completely Sayyid Qutb. Same call for Holy War to stop a progressive cultural shift that horrifies him.
Bob, I agree with you. The more Ron acts out like a whiny baby, the more he lashes out at Disney, the more he vilifies his enemies, the less presidential he is. The fact that he’s is in the polls at Ida testament to how little the public knows about him. Most people love Disney. His feud makes him look stupid.
“White people are evil” is not history. That is racism.
“Black people invented slavery and had been practicing it for 9,000 years before White people ever encountered a black person” is history.
Uh, no. Black people did not invent slavery. It was widespread in many cultures in ancient times.
And what curriculum teaches that “white people are evil”? None I know of. None except those that exist only in the fever dreams of moronic, privileged, unselfreflective racists like Tucker Carlson.
We also have misogynist legislators and their supporters who’ve made it impossible to guarantee women and girls receive access, for any reason, to same sex physicians. Anyone claiming to be a female is considered same sexed in all federally funded facilities.