The Washington Post reports that Black churches in Florida are now teaching history themselves because they no longer trust schools to do it fairly. The Rev. Rhonda Thomas, leader of "Faith in Florida," explains:
Thomas said she took particular issue with one of the provisions in last year’s legislation: That instruction should be tailored so no student would feel guilt or “psychological distress” over past actions by members of the same race.
“If you want to look at who feels bad, I was born into this world as if it was designed for me to live feeling bad,” she said with an exasperated laugh. “I don’t think any lesson should be taught to make anyone feel angry, but if it’s history, it’s history, right?”
This is a myth that won't die. Florida law only bars teachers from telling students they must feel guilt over historical events. But as Thomas says, history is history. The law says nothing about "tailoring" history instruction to make sure that no one is ever uncomfortable.
I wonder: What do Florida schools actually teach about African American history? What do parents and students report? I've seen lots of press accounts of AP classes and new laws, but nothing about what happens in real-life classrooms. Maybe someone should get on that.
The law is just like a lot of anti-choice laws that have "exceptions": if you parse the language carefully, and give the drafters the benefit of every doubt, then they don't look so bad. But in practice they are bad, because the ostensible loopholes are subject to interpretation, often by those inclined to interpret them as narrowly as possible, eg state officials aligned with those who designed and passed the laws in the first place. So eg with some anti-choice laws, the "exception" has to be proven, within a certain time frame, according to certain standards. And in the Florida case it looks like an awful lot hinges on the word "must." Teachers are authority figures: if a teacher says slavery was really bad and Whites were responsible, is it reasonable to assume that a White student might interpret that as mandatory? What if a student -- for any reason, even out of spite or just for kicks -- complains? And when a Florida education official loyal to DeSantis makes the decision, which way is it likely to go?
Ultimately, the point of all such laws is deterrence. The idea is to create fear in those who would do what the officials don't want them to do, so they never try it in the first place. Add in a few showcase prosecutions, and women and doctors and teachers get the message quickly and clearly.
This. It's quibbling to say the law "as written" means something specific when all that really matters is whether any teacher wants to risk being the guinea pig for an overzealous prosecutor or fearful school administrator.
Came here to say this, but not nearly so well. Kudos!
yup. and of course what teacher can afford to lose their job over this and pay to fight in in court? A court battle which could drag on for years through appeals and cost an unguessable but definitely huge amount of money.
bbleh for the win.
I don't think most people know what it is like to be a teacher in non-deep-blue parts of this country. Networks of lunative right-wingers spend their time trying to eff over anyone who works for "the deep state."
They want to destroy the system. That should be our default understanding.
Exactly. Exceptions you can't use, aren't exceptions.
The text of the law is meaningless if in practice it's a way for right wing parents to shut down topics they don't like, such as the fact that white people held Black people as property and raped and murdered them without consequence.
All you have to look at is which teachers have been fired, which books have been banned, and which people are happy about this law if you're still confused about a "myth that won't die"
Then why isn't anything being shut down? Do you really think there are people that don't want schools to mention that slavery existed?
Shut down?
What are you talking about?
Why do you seem to be ignoring the books banned and teachers fired?
The whole idea that students must never, ever feel "uncomfortable" in school is insane. How did we get to this point? (rhetorical question)
A person with a conscience, child or not, ought to "feel bad" that millions of Africans were kidnapped, sold, brutalized, and too often worked to death. No need to feel "personal guilt" -- but nobody should feel good about slavery. Ditto for a lot of things in US history.
However, history and civics (do they still have them?) classes would be encouraged to point out that things can and will change throughout history, and that Americans have changed the things they came to realize were offensive. The Constitution, tattered rag that it's become, has the tools for We the People to alter how things work.
Of course, it's probably unAmerican to say that in Florida.
"The whole idea that students must never, ever feel "uncomfortable" in school is insane. How did we get to this point? (rhetorical question)"
We didn't get to this point. What makes you think anyone said students should never feel uncomfortable? (I'm speaking of K-12 education. Obviously we know- liberals on college campuses think no one should ever be made to feel uncomfortable or confronted with ideas with which they disagree.)
And, yes, Florida requires students to take civics. In 7th grade they take a class titled Civics and in 9th they (most of them, anyway) take US Government.
"liberals on college campuses think no one should ever be made to feel uncomfortable or confronted with ideas with which they disagree"
Heh. Perhaps you can point to laws that say this? I can point to a dozen laws that are the conservative mirror images to your trolling claim.
My wife is a public school teacher as are several of our good friends. We have two kids that are in public school (middle school and high school). Other than the AP African American History class not being offered, all this legislation (stope Woke and Don't Say Gay) has had zero real impact on anything that we have seen. I'm not saying there hasn't been some impact somewhere in FL but here in Hillsborough County and the surrounding counties it's business as usual.
Zero impact on a white, cisgender, heterosexual, nuclear family, who doesn't believe in women's rights or nondiscrimination policies?
Say it isn't so!
Hillsborough County is one of the half-dozen "blue" islands in the sea of Florida red, so it doesn't surprise me that Santisism doesn't have much of a following there, but I don't think Tampa and the like are really the target audience.
fify:
"...so it doesn't surprise me that Satanism doesn't have much..."
As a junior high and high school student, I never felt guilty about historical wrongs -- things that happened long before I was born. I thought of all history as ancient history because I had no real perspective on the passage of time.
Now that I'm older, the past seems much closer and I feel motivated to ensure the past is not repeated, although I still don't feel guilty about it.
Florida teachers, though, are in a precarious situation. Regardless about the specific wording of the laws, the intent of the laws seem fairly clear, and very few classroom teachers would want to be a test case. They they will be careful what they say and teach to avoid any potential conflicts that would jeopardize their job and financial security.
There's no issue with teaching history the way its always been taught. The law is to prevent newer ideologies like "anti-racism" being taught that expressly implies people today are tied to these historical issues.
The thing is, people today are actually tied to the past. Things like wealth and social position are pretty sticky across generations. The world we live in is shaped by the historical forces and events (good and bad) that got us here. It's pretty easy for me to see, for example, how mechanization and the early 20th century labor movement has set me up pretty well, even though those were historical events that ended before I was born.
History isn't "taught the way it always was" at any time, anywhere. That's what makes historiography so interesting.
"that expressly implies people today are tied to these historical issues."
No matter the topic that statement is true. Whether you talk politics, economics, science, social issues. On every single matter what happened before is directly tied to the present. You'd have to be detached from reality to think otherwise.
That's because you're either lying or forgetting that history includes more than white, cisgender, heterosexual, nuclear families.
Or perhaps both. It's probably both.
Oh please. The law is to deter teachers from discussing any manifestations of systemic racism or the contemporary effects of historical racism at all. It's of a piece with DeSantis's noun-verb-Woke governance. Talk about, say, the historical and current racial disparities in hiring and housing -- which are very material and are routinely demonstrated experimentally -- in, say, a Lee or Jackson County high school, and see whether it's even a week before some righteous Mom For Liberty is complaining to a very receptive local school board and your job is on the line.
Because of course we all know that history is irrelevant and has no ties to us...
The parents who show up to complain angrily at school board meetings are not going to spend a lot of time parsing the difference between "must" and "might". They are going to take this line from the law, bind it to whatever they imagine is happening in the classroom, and use it as a cudgel. Given that reality, what might one expect a lot of school board members, principals, and teachers to do to avoid the risk altogether?
The parents who show up to complain angrily at school board meetings are not, as a rule, the ones who show up at parent-teacher meetings.
Somerby has been grinding this same axe for the last week or two. South Carolina enacted a law similar to Florida's and an AP English teacher there was reprimanded by her school for assigning excerpts from Ta-Nehisi Coates' "Between the World and Me."
There's no indication that she ever told any student that they should or must feel guilt. Nevertheless, a couple of students and parents complained about the assigned reading. A firestorm followed giving evidence to the argument that these laws are chilling.
Somerby "has been grinding this same axe" = "has been making this same accurate observation."
For the record, I've been noting this accurate point for something more like a year. But when Anger instructs us to go to war, it tells us that we have the right to misstate and embellish.
It's inaccurate, though.
Saying the text of a law says A does nothing to impact the law doing B. Neither of them are implementing the law.
How is it being implemented vs what they say they're implementing.
I had no idea anyone still read Bob Somerby. Maybe Bob Somerby and QuakerInBasement and 1 or 2 others. Why anyone still reads Bob Somerby will be left as an exercise for the reader.
Simply put, there's no way to fight Dumb. The holy trinity--Anger, Dumb and Tribal Belief--are undefeated down through the ages.
Also the great god Anonymous, who helps us feel free to say whatever dumb thing we like.
The law will be used to challenge lessons that are merely designed to make students feel guilty, then later, lessons that slavery was bad and was instituted by the forbears of some of the students, since feeling guilty will be seen as a natural result the teacher expected or should have expected.
"You can't take down Confederate monuments because it's history!"
- and also -
"You can't teach kids about slavery because they might feel bad!"
so don't use race when discussing slave owners
'rich conservative capitalists' is race neutral and annoys the desantis/trump xitterverse just as much
don't use race when discussing slave owners
um ... wut?
if you eliminate 'white' and use the term 'rich conservative capitalist slave owners' the R's will still be apoplectic even though it doesn't violate the law on discussions re race (can't offend the donor class!)
i really doubt there's a single high school student that's unaware that slave owners were white, but tying it directly to capitalism isn't common
and i don't mean soft abstractions like 'cotton growers had economic incentives to employ slaves'; it should be straight up 'capitalists were responsible for raping, killing, and selling kids like livestock, partly for profit, but also because they were amoral criminals (can't say racist!)'
and maybe opening that discussion points kids in the direction of 'i wonder what amoral things rich conservative capitalists are doing today?', which broadens the discussion well beyond the realm of so-called 'dead history' and plants it firmly in the very relevant present
"'Ah. Magnifico! That’s wonderful,” the fictional Columbus responds. 'I am glad humanity has reached such a time. But you said you’re from 500 years in the future? How can you come here to the fifteenth century and judge me by your standards from the twenty-first century?'
Columbus tells the kids that slavery was 'no big deal' and that 'being taken as a slave is better than being killed.'"
I dunno, Kevin. It looks like Florida has approved Prager U's "curriculum," which seems to be fine making slavery opponents feel guilty about criticizing, say, Christopher Columbus.
"It’s true we bring doctrines to children... But what is the bad about our indoctrination?” -- Dennis Prager
https://newrepublic.com/post/174762/floridas-new-school-curriculum-designed-make-kids-conservative
As usual the right tries to divert attention from the real cultural issue, which is whether American society is still basically racist. Republican politicians, not just MAGAs, rely on exciting this racism as well as religious tribalism to get the votes of white working people. But since it is no longer acceptable for politicians to openly admit to racism, they talk about opposing "wokism", which includes many aspects of anti-racism as well as teaching the true history of slavery.
Whatever the wording of the teaching laws, their intent is to suppress anti-racism - or at least for the politicians to give the impression that they are protecting White Christian Supremacy (standing in the school-house door). Local officials and parents of white children will respond to this intent and make trouble for anyone who tries to teach anti-racism or acceptance of non-standard sexuality. Ostensible conformance to standard sexual roles is a kind of litmus test for belonging to the White Christian tribe.
DeSantis, for example, is quite open and explicit about his intent to suppress "wokism". Why would anyone doubt this intent?
"The law says nothing about "tailoring" history instruction to make sure that no one is ever uncomfortable."
It doesn't have to as long as the law is vague and Rhonda Santis operates like a Mafia don. It's the "Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest" technique. Teachers cannot afford the risk of violating it, so it functions as a prohibition while also giving Constitutional cover.
Kevin is really tip toeing toward the don't feed the troll territory or he simply doesn't consume enough Florida media to know there have been numerous reports about lessons be cancelled because of someone's expressed feelings of discomfort.
'White guilt' is the same rhetorical strawman as 'All lives matter'. Take something of real concern such as BLM or white privilege and escalate it to a more extreme phrasing that's enough to make most people agree it's a bad idea. Liberals keep falling into this trap of using conservative framing.