Having experienced the Florida Education System firsthand, I genuinely thought it could never get worse. I graduated with several football players who were functionally illiterate. At one of our rival schools, a boy was allowed to list the KKK amongst his clubs in his high school yearbook. Ignorance abounds. And yet Ron DeSantis is making every effort to worsen an already pathetic system, and the impact of these efforts will be dire.
The only reason to encourage censorship and misinformation in the classroom is to spread ignorance, because ignorant people are more easily manipulated in every way, including in their political decisions. Ignorance makes people much more susceptible to believing in conspiracy theories, and more prone to being victims of fear-mongering. Misinformed people are more easily pitted against one another, thus reducing the power of the people to influence their elected officials. Instead, those officials will manipulate the people in order to achieve their own selfish goals.
This type of ignorance is why so many people think that an insurrection is patriotic, and that election fraud is widespread. This type of ignorance is why some people actually think that all drag queens are involved in some nefarious conspiracy to sexually abuse children. This type of ignorance is how people believe that the center of a child sex trafficking ring was located in the basement of a pizza parlor that didn’t even have a basement. It’s also why some people are deluded into thinking that vaccinations are things to be avoided, and that public health and civic responsibility are not as important as getting to have one’s own way.
On July 19th, 2023, Florida’s social studies standards were up for debate. Unfortunately, the Florida Board of Education chose to approve some radical, sweeping changes to those standards, despite much protest. Due to these changes, here are some of the insanely stupid things that your children are going to learn if they live in Florida:
- They will be told that being a slave in this country actually provided personal benefits, such as learning skills that they could use to improve their lives. It makes slavery sound like a training program. (If so, why wasn’t everyone standing in line for this amazing opportunity?)
- Women and minorities had their civil rights expanded through the generosity of the white men who were in political power when the laws were changed, therefore racism didn’t matter. (So, all the protests, activism, demonstrations, and public pressure either never happened or they were about as politically necessary as a small town spelling bee.)
- The Founding Fathers were all Christian, and steadfast supporters of liberty and equality. (No mention of them owning slaves, suppressing rights, restricting voting and property ownership, or, in fact, not being Christian at all in many cases.)
- The abolitionists who brought about the natural end to slavery were all white. (No words…)
- Reconstruction was a blip on the radar that was easily resolved, and Jim Crow laws were helpful to African Americans. (C’mon.)
- Any violence perpetrated during the many race massacres that occurred in this country was equally the fault of African Americans. (Let’s all pull up a chair at the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party while we’re at it, and talk about how every woman who is raped is asking for it.)
- The State of Florida immediately cooperated fully with the constitutional amendments regarding citizenship, equal protection under the law, and suffrage. (They are a shining example of political perfection! Bless their hearts. My Florida elementary school wasn’t fully integrated until 1970.)
These new standards are being strongly protested by The Florida Education Association and the NAACP, along with those of us who believe in factual edification. Florida is becoming an international embarrassment to humanity. It will be interesting to see if the state’s brain drain increases to the point where they find it impossible to find any qualified teachers at all.
Florida: where knowledge goes to die.
The powers that be in that state want people to buy into the foolish assumption that our white children will be hurt by learning the truth about the Caucasians of the past. The founding fathers and everyone who came afterward must be portrayed as having unimpeachable moral character, or, the story goes, these kids will somehow have their self esteem destroyed.
They believe that children are not capable of improving this country by learning from the mistakes we made in the past. In fact, they don’t want there to be any changes at all. African Americans should all be relegated to the fields (preferably in prison chain gangs), where they can sing delightful negro spirituals while their owners shower them with love and enlightenment.
I weep for the future.
The fact that so many Florida parents buy into that, or at the very least are unwilling to do anything to correct it, speaks volumes about the pervasive ignorance that is perpetuated by the Florida education system. Imagine what Florida will be like in about 15 years, when these kids, who are spoon-fed even more falsities than their parents were, in every subject from History to Civics and Government to Economics, grow up to be voters, policy makers, and insurrectionists themselves.
Beware of any person or institution that wishes to keep you in ignorance. Their agenda has not been created to benefit you. Heaven help us all.
Sources:
https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/20/us/florida-black-history-education-standards-reaj/index.html
https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/july-22-2023
https://newrepublic.com/article/118561/american-independence-myths-lies-may-comfort-facts-matter
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/founding-fathers-and-slaveholders-72262393/
https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/502324/50-things-you-didnt-know-about-founding-fathers
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