Florida Department of Education rejects AP African American Studies course

Why not Cuban American history?

 

I genuinely don't think it will alienate the Black voters who already support him, and the people who don't already didn't support him so no real change here.

Just a case of rallying your base while antagonizing the opposition. Maybe it works, maybe it doesn't.

 

Racism, like evil, will never go away. Saying we need to end racism as a country is like saying we need to end murder. Beautiful idea, but completely unrealistic.

My primary issue with the other side is slandering all sorts of things as racist when they are not, it's a way of bullying people into agreeing with you or shutting up, and implementing change that actually stokes racial resentment, rather than alleviates it; or is in fact racist/unjust on its face.

We have vastly differing visions as a country right now regarding the definition of words like: racism, liberty, equality, and justice.

 

Those are excellent questions.

Everyone has an opinion, but here's mine:

There's never anything wrong with trying to learn more. The question is what is being taught. I believe Ibram X. Kendi was an Associate Professor at UF regarding African American Studies which tells me it places this equity-based spin on history kind of like the 1619 project. That sort of stuff should be personal reading, not an offered course at the high school level. Plenty of things have educational value that generally aren't permitted as instructive classroom materials, religion is a classic example. If we offered a religions AP course maybe there'd be a better case, but to me that's treating K-12, or high school in particular, as more of a liberal arts college than a high school.

To me, American History is tethered to African-American History, including but not limited to slavery, the Civil War, and the Civil Rights Movement. We don't have history courses for every ethnic or racial group in America at the high school level, no singular group should receive special treatment.

College is a completely different animal. I suspect that this is where I disagree with DeSantis, but I'll remain in wait-and-see mode until he shows me that he's coming for that too. Colleges SHOULD be places where no idea is too taboo, nothing is off limits, offer as many curriculum options, as many perspectives, and as many fields as possible. Even if Ibram X. Kendi is taking Florida tax dollars, which believe me makes me feel dirty inside.

 

Or Cuban American history
Or European American history

 

Thanks for the shout out, bro. Much appreciated.

 

Ya'll are going to make me cry.

 

I agree. Students should have the option of learning about the Cubans forcibly brought to the United States, forced into involuntary hereditary servitude and who continued to suffer the effects of repressive legislation targeting them even after the involuntary servitude was abolished.

 

Yes, keep lecturing me about how I'm oppressed.

 

Do you believe that you are oppressed? Just asking.

 

He already did.

 

I am far from oppressed.

 

Did he remove African-American Studies courses from Florida public universities?

 

Why have history classes about WW2? Just teach 20th century history and make it part of the course? Why teach Vietnam war? Just call the course American history and make it part of the curriculum. The answer to why you have a history course in African American history is because history encompasses a wide variety of topics and a suspect class (as referred to in case law) is part of that. Slavery and segregation were real and the slave owners and segregationists experienced it differently than the slaves and and those discriminated against. It was one thing to hold Bill Conner’s fire houses and another to be blasted by them. DeSantis is a classic Stalinist communist. Taking property rights away from business and usurping it for the state, as in Reedy Creek. The punishment if those who speak out against his policies. Banning history from the classroom. And he is defended by those who share his values, with thinly veiled justifications when he can’t offer. Of course DOE didn’t say what was objectionable about the course. No value leans just that— in Florida, nothing in the course has value. That is why no deficiencies were posted out— because deficiencies can be changed.

 

His attorneys are arguing that all instructional speech is government speech, which means the government has total power to control it (including eliminating it). As they admitted under questioning, they could give professors literal scripts to follow during class and could fire any professor who deviates from it. If you don't the implications of that argument, god help you.

 

Your presumption appears to be the racial classification can only lead to negative outcomes like racism, but all systems of classification have potential negative outcomes (like war or violence between groups), but they continue to exist because people find them useful.

Racial discrimination is based on appearance, how would that make it harder? You cant visibly tell someone is Christian or American. You can easily tell someone is darker or lighter skinned than you are and discriminate. Don't you think think that sort of discrimination preceded any sort of attempt to formalize it in terms of "race?" I might agree that racial classification reified and made 'race' more concrete as a concept. Have you considered the idea that lacking categories of race would make fighting racial discrimination harder rather than easier?

I'm not saying that's the same but disabled people are a category (with plenty of differences within), and that category is used to give them different treatment in many contexts, yet only an idiot would view that as discrimination against another group of people or a sign of systemic inequality.

 

Not up to us, up to the University and the state

 

Doesn't government already have that power? See instruction regarding religion as violating the Establishment Clause.

People make that same argument when discussing instruction of religion in schools.

Now, I think scripts or top down totalitarian enforcement is excessive, but we already treat classroom instruction in public schools as governmental speech.

 

So you're admitting that, good for you, now if you could get your step brother @orangeblue_coop to admit the same