It must be to gain political points from a populace that's in the same rabbit hole. I can't think of any other reason outside of abject racism, about which I wouldn't be the least surprised.
Ron DeSantis, governor of Florida, denier of all deniers, is out to eliminate Black history. He can't do it. At least, he won't succeed in his efforts.
Has the College Board capitulated to him in changing certain aspects of Black history curricula? Well, that answer has to do with determining whether the changes it has announced constitute a significant adjustment to DeSantis' attacks.
But I sincerely doubt that the attacks have much substance. Here's what I think happened: Someone lit up DeSantis because the curricula used to have provocative titles, one relating to being Black and queer. That got DeSantis' ire going.
Any reference to 'queerness' in any curricula, regardless of how it's offered and to what age, smacks of 'wokeness' (whatever in the hell that is) and cannot be allowed, at least not in his purview, the state of Florida. And anything that is 'woke' refers to that which is not based on history dominated by white folks.
Did he read the Advanced Placement curricula? All those pages? Count on it--he didn't. He saw the labels, concluded their irrelevance, and took action. And he did it on the first day of Black History Month, so as to throw cold water on that matter, too.
In other words, he remains as uninformed as he always has, and is happy living in that narrow little tunnel. To him, there is no new history, no new findings, no thinking that needs to be expanded.
He wants Florida instructors to create "Western civilization" courses, which of course teach history from a European perspective. Yes, indeed, it does, but it can't avoid the introduction of slavery, its deleterious effects on that part of humanity, and its contribution to money-making mercantilism and its developing dependence upon colonization, and the extension and perpetuation thereof. What will you do with that, Ron?
He also blanched at the inclusion of Black Lives Matter. Does he really think that the removal of that from course descriptions will eliminate its recognition in instruction? Who's he trying to kid?
The College Board, in other words, took away some of the more provocative titles. Did it take away the substance? It says it hasn't. So, in other words, it mollified DeSantis and went on its merry way, still instructing, or planning to instruct, students upon some Black Americans who accomplished much but who happened to be gay, even mentioned the additional roadblocks they may have had to vault to achieve what they did.
The College Board, in other words, is hiding in the weeds, hoping that DeSantis buses himself with other things, and this will suffuse into educational trivia. Remember "cooperative learning" and the hubbub that knee-jerk reactionaries had over that in the '90s? Where did that go? Has all cooperative learning disappeared because of it?
No, it hasn't. People either dispensed with promoting it temporarily and came back to it after the shouting had subsided or continued to do it but called it something else. Such subterfuge is all too common in educational circles by people, particularly supportive administrators (God bless them) who know what's happening and don't see much wrong with it.
That's what the College Board is hoping. They don't want teachers to stop teaching what it has planned. They just don't want to advertise labeling that could be upsetting to a few very highly placed people. It's being sneaky in plain view, which is what Republicans have become very good at.
But to subvert the teaching of Black history is impossible, especially now that documents like the 1619 Project have been written and published. That Pandora's box has been opened, and it what it has revealed cannot be conveniently put back.
Teachers in Florida have also been advised to hide certain books so that authorities cannot find them and suppose--gasp!--that their ideas have been utilized in any overt or covert teaching. While I cannot see that, in terms of students, there is any difference between hiding books and burning them, the very idea that some non-obscene books need to be hidden from public view goes right in the same corridor with authoritarian censorship, the kind of which we have pledged ourselves immune from in this country.
Ron DeSantis, as unenlightened as he is, will find that while he might be able to temporarily create an intellectual prison in Florida, he seems to be running to be president of a country that will stringently object to his shenanigans in a cheap intent to secure votes. Here, in the United States of America, that never works. It never has, either.
The College Board is trying to get around him until the next shiny thing gets our attention. May it completely succeed.
Be well. Be careful. With some luck, I'll see you down the road.
Mister Mark
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