The homogenization of American History and the attack on free speech
30th January 2023 · 0 Comments
As we enter Black History Month 2023, America is embroiled in an Uncivil War perpetrated by white nationalist elected officials using states’ rights and state laws as a cudgel to erase America’s history of racism from school curriculums.
The effort to homogenize American history can be seen as a political strategy by white Republicans to deny the injustices done to Black people.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is the main cheerleader of the conspiracy to cover up the existence of racism and structural racism by prohibiting the teaching of an AP African-American History course and the truth about America’s racist history.
DeSantis said his administration rejected the College Board’s Advanced Placement African American Studies course because “we want education, not indoctrination.”
“In its current form, the College Board’s AP African American Studies course lacks educational value and is contrary to Florida law,” according to a January 12 letter to the College Board from the Florida Department of Education Office of Articulation, CBS reports.
Florida State Senator Manny Diaz justified the rejection by tweeting a graphic of the course that he believes promotes the idea that modern American society oppresses Black people, other minorities, and women and uses articles by critics of capitalism. He is also opposed to including the topic of Black Queer Studies. Other issues include Movements for Black Lives, Black Study and Black Struggle in the 21st Century, and Intersectionality and Activism, among others.
State Sen. Shevrin D. Jones, a Democrat, tweeted other AP courses offered in the state: “AP European History, AP Japanese Language & Culture, and AP German Language & Culture,” and called the rejection of the African-American History course “crazy.”
The bottom line of this Republican conspiracy is the impact of taking away the First Amendment rights of teachers, students, and the public regarding race matters. What they’re doing is comparable to the three-monkeys polemic: Hear no evil, speak no evil, see no evil.
With the stroke of a pen, Republicans are erasing the horrific events and activities that led to the American Civil War and the discriminatory treatment of Black Americans in the decades since the fight over slavery ended.
Even more insulting and disgusting is the purpose of this GOP conspiracy. Preventing teachers from discussing race in classrooms keeps white students from learning the role of whites in structural racism that existed then and now and keeps them from feeling bad about themselves.
Indeed, the conspiracy to hide the truth about the Black experience accelerated with the publishing The New York Times “1619 Project” in 2019 and discussions about Critical Race Theory.
Law Professor Kimberlé Crenshaw, who collaborated with fellow jurists to create Critical Race Theory (which isn’t taught in schools), told The Washington Post in 2021 that the right-wing media and Republican politicians’ condemnation of Critical Race Theory is an effort to “create a boogeyman that they believe will prompt fear, discomfort, and repudiation on the part of parents and voters who are primed to respond to this hysteria that they’re trying to create.”
FutureEd identified 47 bills introduced or pre-filed in 2021 in 23 state legislatures that limit teaching on these topics. Alabama, Arizona, Idaho, Iowa, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, and Utah enacted 11 bills signed into law by their Republican governors, according to 74Million.org.
74Million.org is dedicated to examining the issues impacting the education of America’s 74 million children.
Some bills, like Arkansas House Bill 1218, forbade the teaching of The New York Times “1619 Project,” which frames American history in the context of slavery, or critical race theory, including South Carolina House Bill 4325. Others, like West Virginia Senate Bill 558, prohibit teaching “divisive concepts,” including racism and sexism, those that make students feel guilty because of their race, or those that make a student feel inherently racist because of their race.
And two Wisconsin bills limit training on racism and sexism for K-12 and higher education educators, The 74 reported.
Interestingly, the legislation appears to be written from one generic template. Language like “divisive concepts,” racism and sexism, and inherent racism are included in many of the various states’ bills.
Give credit where credit is due. Republicans stick to a script they distribute among themselves, not just in this instance but in numerous media appearances. They mouth the exact words, with a slight variation here and there.
Louisiana proposed legislation prohibiting teachings relative to race. And to sanitize the bill, sex education was thrown in for good measure. It’s not explicit in the bill, but clearly, the GOP is hinting at prohibiting instructions and discussions about transsexuality.
During the 2021 Louisiana Legislative Session, Ray Garofalo filed Louisiana HB 564. The bill prohibits “divisive concepts” about race and sex in elementary and secondary schools and postsecondary education institutions. Garofalo’s thinly veiled attack on Black history and sexuality would be laughable if it were not so severe. It is, however, ludicrous to think that anyone who reads it can’t read between the lines.
Sex education has long been a target of puritanical-minded right-wingers. But scrubbing the Black experience from history books – as limited and perversely written as those historical events are in current school history books – is genuinely offensive.
The attack on Black history is just another step in the Uncivil War to marginalize and minimize Black Americans.
Despite the passage of civil rights and voting rights laws, intractable supporters of the Lost Cause continue to work against full equality and inclusion in America for Black citizens. Now they are eradicating and/or trying to cover up the crimes committed by whites on Black bodies.
The attack on Black people has been going on since 1619. However, the refusal to repair the damage done to Black people can be seen in the reluctance of state and federal governments to pass reparations legislation and protect the civil and voting rights of people of color.
A significant salvo in the whites’ Uncivil War came with the Insurrection on January 6, 2021. Media showed clips of one insurrectionist carrying a vast Confederate battle flag through the halls of Congress. Media also reported allegations that some GOP legislators helped facilitate the storming of the Capitol.
In 2021, Republican senators refused to pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act and the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act after the then-majority Democratic House passed the new civil rights bills.
Senate Republicans were successful in squashing the bills because democratic Senators Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) and Joe Manchin (D-W.V.), who are DINOs (Democrats in Name Only), refused to override the filibuster to pass the bills, even though the Democrats were the majority in the Senate. Sinema has recently declared herself to be an Independent.
Sinema’s and Manchin’s failure to support a simple majority vote shows that racists exist in all parties.
However, Republicans are upfront and explicit about their racist tendencies.
The suppression of the Black vote has been in play for centuries, but when the U.S. Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act of 1965 in 2013, it gave the green light to states to write discriminatory voter suppression laws.
Pushing the states’ rights agenda further, the highest court in the land ceded its power over redistricting to the states in subsequent years. The effect has been to leave Black voters vulnerable to racist legislators.
If Blacks can’t vote as a collective or a bloc and states like Louisiana carve up voting districts that pack Black voters into one district and draws lines around and through Black neighborhoods to create white majorities, the effect is what we see in our state legislature. White majorities beyond the state’s non-Hispanic white population percentage.
However, Black people, as usual, won’t be silenced. What portends to be obstacles are opportunities. More books are being published by Black authors, and the much-criticized “1619 Project” is now a six-part docuseries airing on Hulu on January 26.
The “1619 Project” creator Nikole Hannah-Jones also has a website devoted to the project. There is also a 1619 Education Conference from February 18-19, 2023. For more information, visit www.1619education.org.
This article originally published in the January 30, 2023 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
